Why I Stopped Celebrating Christmas - And What I Do Instead
A personal reflection on people-pleasing, programming, and choosing a different way to spend the season
So it all started a couple of years ago, with Christmas.
The Christmas season was coming up, and I was observing what was going on around me. People were stressed. Marketing was everywhere. People would start pleasing everyone around them — especially the moms and women — just for the sake of "having the perfect Christmas, the perfect gifts," because we all "love each other."
But my first questions here would be:
Shouldn't we love each other anyway, all year round?
If someone's happiness depends on another person's suffering, stress, anxiety and tiredness, is that really for the highest good of all?
Why does other people's love depend on all these materials and food?
People usually start planning for Christmas a month ahead. This is where companies and marketing agencies come in very handy, because this time of year everybody spends triple, or even more, than at any other time of year.
Why should a celebration like this be about spending money?
And what is Christmas, after all, and what are we actually "celebrating"?
Great question — because I see it as a fact that 90% of people who celebrate this feast have gone very far from what it should be about, at its core: the birthday of Jesus Christ, and remembering him.
We've gotten so far from that, that it's become huge materialism, and overconsumption of food and alcohol.
So I started to think: what's the point of all this? For me, it was just another day, like the other 364.
I recognize it must have been easier for me, because I don't have family and friends around. But I did have my boyfriend. And when we first got together, we did celebrate Christmas. I was so eager to make "the perfect Christmas, with perfect gifts," like everybody else — because this is the programming we live in.
But if we go deeper, we can notice that we do all this because of a lack of love, and we want to gain love out of it.
Love can only be found within ourselves.
So as it stands right now, it's all about people-pleasing. All these moms and women out there, who want to make "the perfect Christmas," wouldn't do this if they felt they had a choice. But they think they don't, so they go along with the programming and "fulfill" this crazy period of the year — for what? A couple of days of a "happy family" around the table? That sounds very odd to me.
Does it really make for a happy family?
Is it really a happy period? Observe and feel your feelings around it.
Why do you do it?
What about you, dear reader — how do you live the Christmas season?
What would you change, if you didn't need to "satisfy" others?
Why can't a family just be happy as it already is?
We can't say we do it for our kids, because kids get trained by us, their parents. So if we start doing things differently than the rest of the world, in whatever way is more aligned for us, it becomes a more harmonious way of living with ourselves — and therefore with the rest of the world.
Because for me, celebrating Christmas has become a big lie, where we all pretend and put on a happy mask, just to please others, as I said before. And personally, I don't want to live like this.
Enough is enough — we do this in everything we do. We lie to ourselves, we live in misery, and we hope for a better future without changing anything real in our lives: our beliefs, our social environment, our food, the companies around us. Everything.
We need to look deeper within and start peeling back the layers of lies and bubbles we live in, to start living a happier life. And of course, it won't be easy at first. I would never tell anyone to simply stop celebrating Christmas — just observe yourself, and think about what you're doing and why.
This applies to other things too. Changing a habit, or going against what everyone else does, can be hard, because the first thing that comes to mind is fear: "What will other people think?"
You don't live their life. You live yours.
So the only person you need to take into consideration is yourself. Then, maybe, your family. But that's another topic.
So, going back to my example: I did celebrate Christmas until a couple of years ago. Then one year, my boyfriend and I sat down and talked about stopping. Firstly, because it's stressful, and therefore not aligned with our values. Secondly, because we aren't religious — and even if we know Jesus was alive, we can't know his exact birthday, so there's no real reason to celebrate it the way the programming tells us to.
I don't want to celebrate it by throwing ourselves at the table and eating until we're sick, and spending unnecessarily. That doesn't make sense to me. If we want to honor Jesus and his teachings, we can do that in a totally different way.
So we started a different way to spend these days. It's not really a celebration — more a dedication to ourselves and our bodies. We started fasting and cleansing during this period of the year. Fasting wasn't new to us; we'd already been practicing it for years. But it made complete sense: while the whole world eats to excess, we do what we already practice — fasting and cleansing the body, so we can be more aligned and in harmony with ourselves.
I'd love to hear from you, dear reader...
what are your thoughts and observations about Christmas in your own life?
Does it really satisfy you?
Or do you wish you could skip the whole thing?
(I'll be writing a blog post about fasting soon — if you're interested, stay tuned! Fasting is an important part of the holistic lifestyle, so it fits perfectly into what I do.)
If you're curious why I also stopped celebrating my birthday, stay tuned for the next blog post.
With much Love & Light,
Regina 🌟
Next: A Meditation to Be With You
A gentle invitation to pause, connect, and journey within. 🌌
Comments