As a reader, it doesn’t take much for me to get on board a crazy train headed for WTF-ville. Vampire NAVY Seal angels? Let me at it. Fingerblasting in a corn field? Sure, sign me up. But one the one aspect of romance that I cannot seem to reconcile my feelings for is the holiday romance.
If you like holiday romances, great! Before we get into the nitty gritty, I don’t want any readers feeling like I’m yucking their yum. Trust me, I can understand the appeal. But the types of stories often found in holiday romances have zero shreds of a connection to the holiday season I’ve experienced for most of my life.
For the most part, I equate holiday romances with quaint small towns, powdery snow, and twinkling lights. Often, the main characters are tasked with finding love before Christmas, which I find odd, though I suppose few people enjoy spending the holidays alone. There’s healing, twee moments, maybe some sort of food mishap. But, of course, everything works out in the end and there’s a happily ever after.
This is the first year my brother and I will be spending the holiday season away from my parents, and not exactly by choice. At the end of November, we both received a call from our dad that “Christmas was cancelled.” It wasn’t really a surprise to us, but we were both grateful we got the call before any plane tickets had been purchased. Instead, my brother came up with the idea to go to Montreal. He’s in the military and his time off is limited, so you’re damn right I was going to say yes to seeing my darling baby bro and having an excuse to travel to a new place.
This might actually be the first Christmas I’ve looked forward to in quite some time.
See, I come from a dysfunctional family that must contend with addiction and mental illness. I know I’m not alone and I haven’t cornered that particular market, but I say this because I don’t want to seem like a grinch for no reason. My dad is a recovering alcoholic (he just celebrated one year of sobriety and I’m so incredibly proud of him) and my mom has been diagnosed with anxiety and bipolar disorder. Many holidays are spent trying to coax a crying mom out of her bedroom because it didn’t snow that one time we went to Tennessee or because it didn’t “feel” like Christmas. One Thanksgiving, I stayed in Boston, while my brother went to my parents’ house. Something happened and all the food was tossed in the garbage. My brother went back to his college apartment with no yummy leftovers and played video games alone.
When I think of the holidays, I think of being a hostage to my mother’s ever-changing moods or of the tense atmosphere as I count the days when I can return to Boston. It’s never something I look forward to. And even though some holiday romances have curmudgeonly characters, it’s borne of some individual painful memory…not years and years of toxic holiday get-togethers.
At times, I do get the sense that I’m missing out on something. So many of my fellow readers love this time of year, when holiday romances are in full force. They have fun family traditions and cookie swaps! Meanwhile, I have weekly trips to a therapist. Sidenote: my therapist is on maternity leave and won’t be back until January, and whoa, buddy, is she going to earn the hell out of that co-pay next time I see her.
When a book has paranormal elements or is already billed as being over the top, I really don’t question why a hero is an alien from a distant planet looking for an earthly mail order bride. But with contemporary romances, I’m increasingly more picky about which elements feel real to me and happy holidays just…don’t. They’ve felt more of a painful fantasy to me than anything else.
I don’t think I’ll ever be a holiday romance fan, and that’s okay. Though I will admit the saturation of holiday romances around this time feels a bit like salt in a wound – hence this post.
What about you? Do you experience similar frustrations with holiday romances?
Please note: this isn’t an invitation to convince those of us who find the holidays painful that we should try again or change our minds. Each of our experiences are valid, and as I wrote above, this is not to yuck your yum. As always, we want the comments area to be a safe space for everyone.
I read them for the fantasy that they are. Now that I think about it, I prefer historical ones, because there is not as much pressure for the holiday to be perfect. Having had some crummy holidays, I look at the book versions as pure fiction. I think we have too much societal pressure for “perfect” holidays.
Thanks for the great essay.
I enjoy sappy holiday romances because they don’t reflect the painful reality of the season.
I’m so sorry that you’ve had such difficult times. It’s made worse by all the hoopla and happiness that “should” come with the holidays. Your experiences rang so true with me, including Thanksgiving dinner being thrown out, trying to cope with an anxiety-ridden (and very angry) mother and an absent father. I was constantly torn between guilt and sadness when I experienced and thought of my parents, so as you implied, it’s very complicated. Seeing Christmas movies with their ideal families (or families with a little dysfunction that can be cured by saying, “But I love you”) can be fun, but they also can elicit the feeling that everybody is at a great party that you haven’t been invited to. I learned to do things that made me happy, especially during the holidays–like buying myself a great centerpiece or making delicious candy (to eat) and to give away, going to the great movies that come out this time of year, etc. Be good to yourself and indulge yourself with people and events that make you happy.
Christmas books don’t work for me because I find this time of year dispiriting. Is that ironic? I never know.
There is a disconnect when we read something that is 180 degrees from what we KNOW. The more personal and painful our experience, the harder it is to square real life with fiction. No matter how much we might want to.
I was thinking just a few minutes ago about how I don’t care for, in general, books about billionaires, bosses and cozy crimes. Real life doesn’t work the way these stories do and the gulf is too wide to cross.
I completely respect what other readers enjoy and would never try to dissuade someone from their choices. As an early member of a vampire brotherhood fan board when it existed, I have no shade to throw.
I’m so happy to see this post. I’ve worked in retail or shipping/transportation my entire adult life. From Black Friday to Christmas Eve I plan on working 16 hour days and being exhausted. Add to that all the expectations of the season (make cookies! Shop for gifts! Decorate the house!) and I feel even more burned out.
For me the holidays are a season of burn-out and feeling like I’m failing expectations.
Amanda, I’ve had the same experiences with my mom, who has battled a number of chronic physical and mental illnesses since I was a child. Holidays were mostly me walking on eggshells around my mom, and self-censoring everything that came out of my mouth (which still didn’t always work to avoid my mom’s meltdowns). Christmas (and Thanksgiving) have been more or less “cancelled” for a good number of years now, and all I can think is that I’m happy I can just be by myself and not have to worry about what I say/said. I make sure my parents are cared for, but otherwise avoid the holidays to the extent that I can. I used to love Christmas stories because they were pure fantasy and escapism. Now, I can’t even listen to Christmas music anymore. I still read romance (largely contemporaries and Mary Balogh) but I’m finding I’m more cynical about them than I used to be, and am starting to wonder if I should give up on romance altogether.
I love this post so hard! It almost sounds like we grew up in the same family, minus the current sobriety.
Amanda, I’m sorry you’ve gone through that and I’m glad you and brother have found a way that works for you. I don’t seek out holiday romances, because they often feel predictable to me.
Which is weird because I do love Christmas movies. But I think they don’t use as much of my brain or the same part of my brain.
And to me holiday time and romance don’t generally mesh? And that’s someone who had a pretty average childhood. You’re often in a strange place, seeing people you don’t see often. It’s not the time for anything emotionally complicated.
Christmas in particular to me makes me think of childhood, either my childhood or now my children and how I want them to remember the holiday. So it’s not, necessarily, yay! sexy romantic thoughts dancing through my head. It’s more like “man, I’m going to be sleeping at my mother in law’s house and that bed in the spare room is so awful.” The few holiday romances I’ve read are by authors I like and trust.
You’ve definitely given me food for thought.
Thank you so much for this post.
I’m so sorry for what you and your brother have gone through, Amanda. You (and he) are very brave.
I absolutely love Christmas romances in book, movie, and daydream form. But I know I love them because Christmas was never part of my reality. I was raised casually Jewish, and I usually forgot when Christmas was in the vague blend of days on school vacation. As an adult I always work Christmas and the days leading up to it, because I’m one of the few employees without family obligations.
Christmas has always been a glittering fantasy for me, a relic from my days as a wistful kid looking in windows–beautiful trees shimmering with lights and popcorn and glass ornaments, stacks of colorful wrapped presents, themed movies and decorations everywhere for a whole month just to get people excited about a single day. I never got to be part of that, and because I didn’t experience the reality–bad or good, thrilling or boring–it’s always stayed a sparkling snowglobe of an idea, one I can see but never really touch. And for me, that kind of fantasy lends itself beautifully to the fantasy of romance.
Sounds like you had some tough holiday experiences. Sorry to hear that. Not to trivialize your experiences, but your story sounds like a really interesting premise for a holiday romance. Like, the ‘you’ character could meet a gruff, but sensitive bar owner in Montreal. Or ‘your’ flight could be delayed and you meet an airline pilot at the airport hotel bar.
I hope you and your brother have a wonderful time in Montreal.
“Dread” is the word that comes to mind at holiday time. Every December, my mother displays Christmas family photos in which my brother and I blatantly look like we’re about to be eaten by something in a Stephen King movie if we don’t LOOK HAPPY, DAMMIT. They are a whole class in body language.
So… I just don’t buy the month of goodwill and peace. I throw people their gifts no later than the 10th and vanish until mid-January because I don’t want to ruin whatever they want to include my dysfunctional ass in because I know perfectly well I’m toxic.
Holiday-themed books are an auto-nope because the leap from real life to that particular fantasy is impossible. I’m not reading romance at all this month, in fact, because I am so far from the warm fuzzies. N.K. Jemisin, Cassandra Khaw, and finishing my annual re-read of The Dark Tower to get me through the “merriment.”
I understand. Although I am old enough to be your mother, I will always be the child of an addict/mentally ill mother and enabler father. And as an adult I am the sole cooker of the feasts and gift giver for my husband’s large and dysfunctional family.
My favorite holiday? Thanksgiving, when we go out to dinner with friends. Least favorite holiday? Christmas, where I cook and clean for three days, shop and wrap for the multitudes, and referee among ill-behaved children, over-imbibing adults, stage-worthy drama, and clan in-fighting, and serve one and all. (Husband is right there with me, working at it too – he is a good man.)
I love holiday HEA romance books – I look at them as pure fantasy, the adult version of a child’s Christmas story. Escapist and fun, with no place in reality.
Have a wonderful time in Montreal, and I am sending a warm fantasy mom hug to you and your brother.
Good for you Amanda, Montreal is going to be awesome.
Oh yeah. So been there. My best choice ever was simply walking away and staying away from bad family messes. Forever. No regrets and deep freedom breathing. Made our own holidays and they were mostly great. Still I skip most holiday theme media except for older hymns. Happy to each.
I am sorry. I understand, in more ways than one. It is good you are going to do something with your brother – Montreal is a fabulous city, and the food is excellent! I hope you enjoy yourselves.
I think there are some things that just will never be fun because of our life experience. For instance, I do not find books or movies involving mental illness to be entertaining for me. I could not go see A Beautiful Mind because I will never find schizophrenia entertaining. Mother’s Day is the holiday I have trouble dealing with – not sure if Mother’s Day books will ever be a thing, but if they were I would avoid them like the plague.
Christmas romances don’t bother me much, but I don’t go seeking them out either. I love the Penny Reid “Winston Brothers” books, but I had a hard time reading the one where the heroine had mental health issues. I am reading these books to escape, and I nearly DNF’d that one – just not a calming read for me.
Coming from my own dysfunctional family (only sober child of 3, alcoholic parent, chronic depression in the other), I love Christmas romances and they make a great escape from the craziness.
Hope you’re able to enjoy your holiday!
@Jenny, I used to read a lot of Harlequin Intrigues and pre-vampire-onslaught paranormals in the early 90s, but after going through some major disappointments IRL, one day I decided I’d had enough of fictional HEAs and quit romance. Even now that I’m reading them again, I find myself sticking mostly to historicals, probably because they read almost as a fantasy subgenre that’s a few steps removed from real life, even when dealing with tough issues.
Amanda, I hope you and your brother have an awesome time in Montreal making your holiday exactly what you want it to be.
Have a lovely trip to Montreal.
I’m more selective than I used to be about what holiday romances I read. I was blessed that growing up I had happy holidays but it was laid back in its way with an emphasis on church and family, not an over-the-top consumer extravaganza.
I do get tired of the holiday romances that are insta-love. I’ve been reading some (m/m) recently where Christmas/New Year is the push from friends to lovers, which I enjoy, but I can’t get excited about ones where characters meet and fall in love in a short period of time.
@elyse – I’ve just quit my retail job after working 13 years in bookstores/customer service. I feel you so much on that. I am actively angry when I start to hear Christmas music every year (I’m working on that with my therapist) and I can’t feel the joy other people do this time of year. My bookstore coworker made up a poem about me being the Grinch and it is a prized possession of mine – it was intended kindly and received with that intent.
This year is the only different one because I’ll be visiting my sister in Chicago with my parents for the week of Christmas. I’ve never been to Chicago and this means that I won’t have to do Christmas with the bigoted family that I can’t stand. I’ve been feeling a sense of relief ever since this was decided. This may be a year that I actually enjoy the holidays.
But I can’t with the happy people Christmas movies/books. I’m so very happy that it works for other people – I want them to have their joy – but it always exhausts me.
Really appreciate your honesty about the holidays. Thank you for sharing.
For the first time, this year I decided to read a few holiday-themed romance books and found them less enjoyable than other romances. I like fictional stories in order to escape my reality (loveless marriage and poor health) so probably will read anything but Christmas ones.
At this stage of life, I’m no longer expected to put on a happy face. I’m retired and only have my adult children to celebrate with and can keep celebrations to a minimum. Besides I’m dealing with numerous autoimmune diseases and need to focus on my health.
Everyone’s reality is different. I’m glad I’m not alone in opting to be ho-hum instead of ho ho ho about Christmas.
Ok, I’m going to go ahead and admit that I like holiday (including Christmas) romances. I come from a mildly dysfunctional background, but Christmas was generally fun. I get that not everyone had the same kind of upbringing and I’m not trying to jolly anyone into feeling differently than they do.
But for what it’s worth, I can’t read Christmas romances AT Christmas. I LOATHE summertime and all things hot weather-y, so that’s when I break out all those stories of snow and hot cocoa and smooching (or what have you) in the snow. And I actually like the Christmas stories where everything is NOT Christmas card perfect. Give me a Scrooge character who is only marginally brought around to the wonder of the season. Give me a mall Santa or elf who finds love but then also burns the costume on the 26th and vows never to wear such a thing again. Give me a drunk, racist aunt/uncle who ruins Christmas Eve…I’d actually much rather read about that stuff than wide-eyed tykes whose innocent joy in the season reveals the true meaning of blah, blah, blah…Gag!!! Actually, keep any and all children far, far away from my Christmas romance plots, please.
My husband’s family is VERY big on the holidays–over the top trees, lots of special foods, presents for everyone including the pets, extended one by one gift openings that go for over an hour, etc. I, on the other hand, have few happy childhood holiday memories.
I took over hosting duties from my much-loved mother-in-law (i.e. The Spirit of Christmas Present)…. for the last 30+ years! I enjoy aspects of it all but don’t want to read contemporary romances set in the season and hate the super cheery, inspirational holiday movies. After working on it all (and it is work!) by the end of the big dinner and cleanup I want to disappear into a crazy-ass paranormal or an absorbing mystery. Luckily people have come to expect me to “be exhausted and need to rest” and go on with the celebration while I retire to a nearby comfy chair with a book. To each his own.
I grew up with a more or less intact immediate family but very disfunctional extended family so holidays can go (and have gone) either way for me. I am also not big on spirit – whether it be team spirit or holiday spirit. I like traditions and rituals but the idea of having to feel a certain way at a certain time gets my back up. Especially when I’m having a bad mental health month.
I used to read a lot of holiday romances – I think partly because I used to read a lot of novellas and there are a lot of holiday novellas and anthologies. And because they were fun for me. Thinking back on my faves, they were mostly historicals, with a few contemporary workplace romances and/or erotic romances. And I tended to reread my faves each year.
I’m not a big fan of the cozy contemporary Christmas romance because I just can’t relate. I actively dislike the ones with matchmaking angels. As well as the ones where the cranky, Scrooge character is badgered into being cheerful. Dude, telling me to be cheerful is NOT going to get me into the so called holiday spirit.
I currently only read queer holiday romances – both because I’m mostly reading queer romance lately and because they tend to be less sticky sweet and tend to acknowledge that family and holidays can be tough. Out from the Cold by LA Witt is one of my fave non sticky sweet romances set during the holidays – mm contemporary, both h/h have PTSD, both have family stuff and the way they help each other without magically curing each other really worked for me.
I probably read fewer holiday romances than I used to – partly because thanks to my ereader I’m less susceptible to the displays of holiday romances and partly just because.
I’m a “hell yes, ALL THE CHRISTMAS” person so reality checks like this are important for me to see as a reminder that it’s not a joyful season for everyone and someone who isn’t excited may have a host of valid reasons. Thanks for sharing on a difficult subject and good luck with December!
I’m from a similarly dysfunctional family (my husband and I are looking forward to when we can stay home for Christmas. That day is not this Christmas Day), but I love holiday romances. I start hoarding them in September and just binge through starting after Halloween. For me, the idyllic holiday setting is total escapism. I have never actually experienced a Christmas LIKE any of the ones I read (as a matter of fact, one year, I wrote about my perfect Christmas for a college admissions essay, and that year my parents kicked my sister out of the house on Christmas Eve. I spent the evening in my room, crying myself to sleep). The stories are comforting to me purely for escapism reasons, and because I still stubbornly refuse to give up the little bit of magic that the Christmas season has for me (I totally understand when that isn’t the case for other people. It can be a difficult time for totally real reasons). My husband and I are working on making our own Christmas traditions now, separate from our families.
I love holiday romances because there’s excellent potential for angst. Everything’s amplified. Many of my favorite tropes work well in Christmas stories, like returning to your hometown with DREAD, and a marriage in crisis will be EVEN MORE in crisis. It’s very possible that I wouldn’t feel the same way if my own Christmas memories were too painful.
I wish you both an amazing time in Montreal!
What a relief to know I’m not alone. The time between mid-November and New Year’s is the most depressing for me of the whole year. My anti-depressants get a workout (and usually an increase in dosage) until it’s over.
My family is dysfunctional as well: Alcoholic father, recovering mother (she never admitted it but she was). They leave the state to spend the winter far away and I haven’t spent a holiday with them in probably 20 years or so. Although, when I lived with them, they didn’t really spend a lot of holidays with me either. There was always a party someplace or a bar that was open where they would go meet friends.
I’ve been sucked into my husband’s family (also dysfunctional for a host of other reasons). It will never be the same as if I had my own and I think that’s part of why I don’t like this part of the year. (Except the parts that I do like: Solstice and the lights on trees.) Anyway, it’s not as nice to sit and listen to someone else’s great holiday memories as it would be to have your own. Except that I don’t have any.
Now that I’ve had my moment of therapy, I’ll get to the actual point: I do not favor the holiday themed romances. I agree with some of the other comments: They’re too rushed, too far from my own reality while still being in the same realm of possibility. At least for other people. At least with my standard historical fiction I know that it’s all made up. That even if some of it really did happen the way it’s written, it was so long ago that there’s no comparison.
Your experience is a lot like mine, Amanda. Various forms of mental illness run in my family, so gathering the relatives was a wonderful bouquet of neuroses waiting to explode. Even if it was just my immediate family, my mother and my sister would eventually be at each other’s throats about something, and my dad would just nope on out of there and leave me to clean up the emotional mess. My favorite times were when I could hide behind the Christmas tree where nobody could see me and read depressing Victorian novels.
I got married on Christmas Eve partly to help erase the unhappiness that always came with the season; and while my husband sometimes grumbled about how hard it was to celebrate our anniversary, especially when we had kids, it pretty much worked for me and I tried to make Christmas a good time for our kids, even if I knew it would never be perfect. We made our own traditions and it worked for us. This year, having lost him and our house at more or less the same time, I just can’t deal. It’s like, Christmas is a thing but it has nothing to do with me. There’s no place to put decorations because there are too many boxes (and I think all our Christmas stuff is still in my friend’s garage anyway.) I don’t even have the energy to make cookies, the one thing I always enjoyed.
So, long story short, no holiday romances for me; particularly no contemporaries, which tend to strain my suspension of disbelief at the best of times. There are a couple of historical Christmas novellas I did enjoy and occasionally reread, but I enjoyed them in spite of their being holiday romances and not because of.
I am one of those weirdos who reads almost exclusively holiday romance during the Christmas season. My suspension of disbelief goes into overdrive in December. Holiday romances take me away from the stress of meeting holiday expectations and the soul-sucking end of year work deadlines. A Regency house party anthology and coffee in my Christmas mug is bliss for me.
I think every family has some dysfunction. My mother’s strange aversion to Thanksgiving took me years to get over. My husband says he was raised by wolves. When we married over 30 years ago, we moved a distance from our families and have not spent the end of year holidays with them since. My husband worked in retail management. He was dead-tired or sick on Christmas and was at work early the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. This made holiday travel for us unrealistic. Our families didn’t exactly burn up the roads to see us either. Over the years, we’ve built our own warm holiday traditions and family. Often, geography is the cure.
Amanda, I wish you and your brother a wonderful holiday in Montreal and also send you both fantasy Mom hugs!
Thank you for sharing. I’ve had a changing relationship with Christmas throughout my 32 years. I’ve been on the end of “canceling Christmas” recently because of depression and anxiety of interacting with my in-laws (wonderful and perfectly nice people), but feel insecure and left-out through my own issues. It used to be a holiday where my sister and I joined together to make the most out of it after my mom died and my dad kind of just focused on dinner and gifts. My sister and I would bring out the Christmas music (seemingly earlier every year) and started to get our own collection beyond my dad’s. We’d watch Christmas movies, including The Santa Clause on Christmas Eve. It eventually became more of a sister and friend holiday, with false cheer and happiness with my father. Once my sister started seriously dating the person who became her husband, she stopped showing up to my in-laws after six years and I have yet to receive an invite to any of her family’s celebrations in the six years they’ve been together. Already isolated from other family from old tiffs, wounds, and distance, it got worse when my husband and I moved away from everyone (about 4 hours). After a year of trying to visit and continue on, it was too much for me to handle with the expectations of the season. This is the first after two years of making Thanksgiving down with my in-laws. We’re planning on visiting for Christmas, but mostly because my husband’s family is going to be moving out of state.
I stopped listening and buying new Christmas music after the first year we moved. I usually turn the station away from Christmas songs on the radio. But, this year, I started playing the piano again, the old Christmas song book my sister and I would take turns at while wrapping gifts, making cookies, and just messing around.
I find myself reading a bunch of historical Christmas romances over contemporary, because it feels as if the season is a character (something Mary Balogh mentioned doing on purpose). I have been enjoying the shorter ones, but not all of them. To me, I like the idea of the magic of it, the hope. Of course, there is a happily ever after, but I find myself really liking the small moments and interactions in the stories.
One of my favorite Christmas movies of all time is Joyeux Noel, focusing on a moment in World War I where the troops stopped fighting and shared in the season with one another. That is what I think about at Christmas. It’s a time where there is lots of cynicism, hurt, and loneliness, and many people are in a hurry with stores busy. Some even say it’s a greedy season. I like to think of it as a season when many reflect on behaviors and feelings we may not notice about ourselves and others most of the rest of the year. And it’s a time that affects most of us in the world that celebrates it, in one way or another. And, I think it’s a time when people can have an awareness of hope, even if it is often dashed, it is felt and thought of, keeping it alive in a very human sense.
I hope you have a lovely time in Montreal with your brother. It sounds like a wonderful trip with someone you love.
Happy trips! And keep an eye open for the must-have 2018 Calendar, “Justin Trudeau: My Canadian Boyfriend” – I just found it at a mall kiosk yesterday.
You know many of us understand that a whole family holiday can frequently descend into pain for some, while the others – who knows what the hell is going on inside their heads, are they miserable too? It never actually gets all resolved and happy ever after by the end of the five day trip, does it? When critics talk about romance giving readers false expectations, that’s the main one – not that women should have careers and respectful, loving partners, but that a lifetime of family dysfunction can resolve itself into a warm holiday meal. Fiction. (I remember hiding under a bed in my twenties to call my now-spouse and whispering into the phone “I will never come here by myself for a holiday again.” Reader, I never did.)
My deep and long-standing issues are with Thanksgiving (because that’s a holiday that’s only about family, and as a kid at least I got books for Christmas! Thanksgiving always felt like all the minefields, none of the rewards) – so I really understand how you feel about Christmas. Luckily I married a person from another country who didn’t care about Americans’ extreme over the top end of November celebrations, so we’ve been freed to do whatever. One year we took the kids to SeaWorld, rode roller-coasters and had tacos on the Thursday in question. ENJOY going to Montreal and doing fabulous winter stuff – ENJOY YOUR DECISION!
Sometime after finishing His Road Home, I realized I’d written a Thanksgiving romance to create a version of the holiday that meant what I wanted the holiday to mean, with people who didn’t have issues with Thanksgiving, they just had sex. Thanksgiving has been emotionally easier for me since (not to mention the Rita Award for a Thanksgiving romance supplanted some of the bad stuff – I just look at the golden lady next to the table and say yep, all that bad stuff just honed my craft, (uh, no, I wish I didn’t have the wealth of well-rounded life experiences that I got, but I can pretend that I value it).
Consider buying a symbolic trophy while you’re in Montreal to give yourself an award for celebrating your way – and use it every year as a centerpiece. Maybe even get the year 2017 engraved on it. It is good to be old enough and wise enough to realize that it’s okay to skip or change or just shrug – welcome to the club.
*** That said, I do love Regency Christmas Kittens romances … things like Stocking Stuffers from Zebra being one of my quite truthful catnips ***
I’m glad you posted this because I was starting to think I am the only one who feels this way, and not just about holiday romances but holiday stuff in general (I know I’m not alone, but I don’t know anyone IRL who feels like this)!
Anyway, I have a dysfunctional family, too, and it’s not even that. All of it just isn’t particularly appetizing to me – the decorations, the movies, the lights. I admit to liking some of the music (because I love music) and I’ll bake anyway since I like feeding people…but not everyone is a Pinterest warrior or can stand watching Hallmark movies all day.
I’m sick of being called a grinch or a scrooge, so this was refreshing to read!
I hope you have a great time in Montreal – traveling to a new place actually sounds like the best way to spend the holidays 🙂
Amanda, thanks for your post. All I will say is, I can relate, and I’m glad you are doing what’s best for your mental health this year.
Amanda, thanks for this post. I come from a similarly dysfunctional background and have long experienced a kind of holiday-related anxiety that causes me to stress out over seemingly minor things in a way that is wildly disproportionate to what is actually going on. Something about needing everything to be perfect because then everybody will be happy and my role in the family is that of peacemaker, blah blah blah (my therapist says hello!). I have always read as an escape mechanism. As a child I was like you, I could read NOTHING actually related to the holiday. I used to seek out science fiction and fantasy for these times. The more unrelated to my actual reality, the better it worked. As an adult with my own family, I have worked really hard to carve out my own version of how I want the holidays to be. I still think I put way too much pressure on myself and place too much importance on certain things because they are “traditions” but I’m working on that. However as my relationship to the holidays has changed, I’ve noticed that my reading material around the holidays has changed as well. I’m much more receptive to holiday romances now and even find them fun. Sarah Morgan’s Miracle on 5th Avenue was one of my favorites last year. I still roll my eyes at the idealized family depictions in many of them, but that’s kind of my standard reaction to the idealized families in literature–combination of eye roll and jealousy. All this to say–I feel you, and for me, my relationship to holiday romance got more positive when my relationship to the holidays did too. But however you do it, I am wishing you peace and happiness and all good things this season.
@ EC Spurlock (#30) Oh, I am so, so sorry for your loss.
I never read Holiday stories of any kind. Not just because i usually find them to be gag worthy & sappy and my personal catnip includes angst, pain & real struggle, but because I find life/people in general to be to determined to be “happy” at this time of year (even tho we all know many, if not most, of us are not). I stock my fridge, my DVR & my tbr list on my E-reader and hide out for the duration. Bah-humbug
Omg this. I’m constantly telling folks that Christmas is hard for me. For me it’s the divorced family since I was A baby, being forced to spend time with people i didn’t know or my other parents and their unrealistic expectations of a kid… throw in my drug addict uncle trying to slice the turkey while on the nod… you’ve inspired me to write the real holiday dinner! But seriously, hugs to you this season because i totally get it.
What an interesting post today. It’s a bittersweet notion that the holidays are being a relief from family when so much of our culture is surrounded by doing everything one can to bring as much family as possible into it. As a police dispatcher, I’m all for families calling themselves on issues and considering a nice card, phone call or Amazon Prime rather than perpetuate drama, emotional instability and sadly, in some cases violence. (Not that the op would be in these boats, but as a generalization). I’m in a less stressful but still awkward place this year, with my mother in law suddenly passing and balancing my father in laws grief with any traditions my husband may still want to keep. My answer for the holidays is always as much butter, eggs, vanillla, sugar and flour as my kitchen and small household can withstand. Cookies solve a lot, but can’t solve everything.
While nothing stands out as a recommended book (perhaps a Montreal travel guide?) perhaps the OP can make herself a bit of the storied holiday magic in creating a new tradition or experience. Everyone celebrates differently, and perhaps the magic this year is in creating a positive memory with those she loves.