Sounds a bit like Bridget Jones….without the humour.
Lots of people struggle with their families and find Christmas hard. You won’t be alone. Sometimes it’s because of their families and sometimes themselves or a combination. When people have a role to play within it themselves, they often look at others to blame or circumstances. Being single can be a typical thing to blame for those who are single. Being divorced can also sometimes be blamed. Often, it’s more about personalities than marital status in reality.
The thing is, couples are mostly people who are happy together. At Christmas, they buy each other gifts and make plans and spend leisure time together and with their kids. Those are things single people without kids aren’t doing. So it can bring it home to singletons (Bridget term) that they aren’t in same boat. It isn’t necessarily that the couples are being smug marrieds, but sometimes the singleton is very sensitive to not being in a couple, esp if they’d like to be.
In reality, when big gatherings happen, larger family groups joining often make up big chunks of the people. Small children can need some accommodating, so actually single adults can often be more flexible and might feel expected to slot in. I remmeber my single BIL moaning it was always him on the sofa at Christmas. The family with 2 kids for the bedroom and he got the sofa. When you think about it, it made sense, and he knew that too, but it was still a little annoying.
Innthe end though, most of this is a mindset thing. You can be cross and bitter and look for offence in everything…and then you really will have a self-fulfilling miserable time. Sorry, but if you’re determined to see everyone putting you bottom of the priority list and not considering you and then you go round with a face like a slapped bum, you might find people ask you to stay out of the kitchen.
determine to be cheery, helpful and positive. It’s the only advice I’ve got.