To feel sad every year at this time.

[windywash]

Every Christmas Eve I am overcome by this feeling of sadness and I don't know why. I have nothing to be sad about but it happens every year. I enjoy the build up to Christmas but then come Christmas Eve I am tearful.

I feel you.
Lost my gran this year. Just moved back to my hometown after 10 years overseas and my only friend is going to New Zealand for 6 weeks, I am single at 33 and want kids. Just keeping it together for my mum. God please help me.

Me too. It's a busy few weeks planning and preparing and now it's Xmas eve, I've finished work, all is done that can be done and yet instead of relaxing and enjoying it I feel sad and also anxious.
I also have nothing to be sad about but I guess missing loved ones, nostalgia to the carefree Christmases of my childhood, another year has passed all contribute.
I hope everyone has a lovely day tomorrow 🎄

I've found my people.

I'm sorry you're all feeling the same.

I'm beyond sad. Just sat in my room crying and wondering how to get out of a full 10 hrs with the in laws tomorrow. I just can't cope and am overwhelmed with sadness right now.

I've felt some level of this before but never pure dread and wishing the whole thing was over.

Big hugs all

I feel sad as I'm missing my two sons (13 and 16). You think I'd be used to it by now as I've had Christmas without them every other year since they were 3 and 6, but it still hurts. Their toddler sister keeps asking for them 😢

I feel like this too, I am baking things for tomorrow and crying, and I can't seem to snap out of this every year 😕

I feel it too. My parents had both gone before 70 and I never see my brother . In fact, there are no members of my extended family I ever see anymore due to distance.
Sad, and resentful at yet another Christmas spent with PIL who are stingy, appreciate nothing despite having all their adult DC and GC with them every single major celebration, and rattle on and on and on.

Very well worded.

We don't celebrate not properly, DH hates Xmas growing up in a household where he was very much not the golden child, I can't stand it because I grew up spending it surrounded by family and having an amazing time and now it just reminds me of how alone I am, none of my family that are left care about me. DHs family are obviously shite.
10 year old isn't bothered doesn't even know its Christmas eve but he will have gifts tomorrow and there will be a chinese take out for dinner.

There's so much pressure in the media and online about how wonderful and family orientated it should be, how every one should be full of love and joy to spend time with those who love them but for some of us it just rubs in that we don't have that and it makes us feel like a failure.

For you Brumbies 🌷

Ive felt dread for Xmas for some years now.

It’s all so much pressure on generally the woman of the house to pull a rabbit out of a hat and go Ta Da and everyone be soooo happy.

I find the pressure to be that woman immense.

I’d love to go out for Xmas lunch or go away somewhere sunny and forget all about it. The build up to Xmas lunch and all the frenetic shopping and present wrapping. I can’t stand it. Life is busy enough already. It all seems so pointless.

I can’t recreate the past so I need to find new ways that suit me better to feel happy but it’s not the traditional thing.

Lost DM a few weeks ago, she was amazing a Xmas. Loved it and would always go the extra mile.

I feel like a poor imitation. I don’t know why I’ve felt like this but I dreaded it even when she was alive.

I think it’s mostly since I had kids of my own. I can’t seem to recreate the magic that I felt when I was young. My DH who is never around doesn’t help. It’s hard to do it all alone.

I’m sorry for the PP out walking her dog. LTB. Give yourself the best Xmas present you ever could: freedom.

It’s only another 24 hours now and it will mostly all be over, I can’t wait 😝

I think you have hit the nail on the head exactly. I feel the same x

I always feel very low and quite frightened at Christmas- I start to feel anxious on the run up to it and it gets steadily worse until I feel actual fright. It’s bizarre.

I have gone nc with a lot of my family due to childhood abuse but even when I did have contact around Christmas I still felt nervy around them.

I think of the future and worry, I think of the past and im sad. I also tend to hear from people I have low contact with - just a merry Christmas how are you text but it adds to the upset. It’s silly really but it’s how I feel.

christmas is a time for reflection and it can make you sad I think.

Yeah, I totally understand. I feel very aware of the fact that I have no friends, certainly none that are thinking of me, and that makes me really sad. My family are really hard work. I just want to snuggle in with my dh and my dc and shut out the world and instead I have to do all these things that make me feel lonely and sad. And I find the food really difficult as someone said upthread. Last year we went away and it was lovely, I already know I want to go away next year somewhere isolated, cold and by the sea.

Thank you ❤️

Thank you. It means a lot that someone cares. ❤️

Thanks, it doesn't seem to get easier.
Merry Christmas. ❤️

@teaandtoastwithmarmite @Mumof2NDers I felt like that on NYE the year my dad died too. I've seen people mention it on MN before as well, though it took me by surprise when it happened.

I had a cry yesterday also, have felt very down at Christmas after a breakup of five year relationship in 2021, but don't tell anyone as I'm sure they think I'm well over all that now - even though day to day I am and would never go back there, so don't really know why I feel like this.

Someone posted this on another thread. It is worth a watch. It is normal to feel emotional this time of year. I hope everyone feels better soon.

I feel like this. I'm 52, single parent to a 17 year old. Absent, feckless father.

I do have emotionally unavailable parents, plus siblings on another continent. My family isn't close at all.

I've got a wonderful relationship with DC, it is everything my relationship with my own parents isn't. We have a lovely home life and will have a lovely Christmas together. But am always silently consumed with worry about their future at this time of year.

DC literally just has me in their life, I worry that they will be alone as an adult (not just at Christmas) and it makes me sad.

I think more people are going through the motions than we perhaps realise.