OP I can assure you there are lots of people who feel like this, me included. Will not go into the background, but I hate the whole business and have done since I was a kid. The only thing I take joy in is the Christmas tree decorations. I used to love watching my DS face light up on Christmas morning, but as a teen that is just as likely to result in him being disappointed for whatever reason.
Even without the background reasons for me not to want it, its miserable on a practical level. I usually spend the day in the car doing a 6 hour round trip, cooking dinner for my elderly Mum, watching her and DS open their presents which I have arranged, knowing there will be nothing under the tree for me (Mum doesn't do empathy so cannot see that I would like to be acknowledge in my own right, open something, anything that I haven't wrapped too). No other family at all. Mum has refused to come to our house for one reason or another for years so its down to me to do it all.
I start to go ever so slightly mad around the second week in December, and by this week can be found ranting at Xmas music, becoming more and more irrational, needy and sorry for myself. I spend from now until Boxing Day wanting to scream, making sure I don't cry, plastering a smile on my face for my DS sake and wondering why I bother. It's like having pms for 3 weeks.
Miraculously, Mum has decided she will come to us this year. All the reasons she couldn't come before are suddenly not an issue
. I have arranged everything for her and if she decides not to come so be it, DS and I are staying here. I know she's old, but she's been old since I was about 12 iyswim. Then of course there is the guilt as she is now very old and I know she won't be around much longer.
Every time I hear someone which me a Happy Christmas, I feel like it's a taunt. Fuck, told you I felt sorry for myself.