Given the time of year, I thought it would be a good time to talk about my changing views about Christmas and other such celebrations. Because, why not? It also reflects an interesting change in my life.

Most of my late childhood, teenage years, and most of my adult life, I’ve not really cared about celebrations in the same way as anyone else. I was happy not to exchange gifts with people, and when it came to cards, I always thought that was a waste of money. Money that would be better spent on buying me a pint instead. By the time I left home, all I wanted was money to get wasted.

Sending and receiving cards just seemed pointless to me. A waste of money that could be better spent on something else. I’d tell people that they didn’t need to bother getting me a card for birthdays and the like. I told my mum I’d prefer they just gave me the money for a card instead, especially as my mum’s cards go straight in the bin because of her need to fill the card with bible verses.

I guess this was because I didn’t really have connections with other people, and the people in my life I just saw as acquaintances; people to go out and get drunk with. I had zero connection with my mum, seeing her as just someone I lived with as well.

Until my changing views about Christmas and other celebrations started to change, I was more than happy to spend Christmas on my own. Sitting around in my PJs and just overindulging in food and gaming. Keeping it simple. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to spend my Christmas’ like that, but I also don’t mind doing things with other people now.

My 20s were mainly me spending Christmas on my own, and some of my 30s as well. It just didn’t seem to bother me. Yet, spending Valentine’s Day on my own would often bring me down.

A part of my changing views about Christmas and other celebrations appears to be the development of my love language, which is gift-giving. I often buy a lot of gifts for my partner, buying pretty much everything they’ve listed as their gift options. But even before then, I’d buy them a lot of things I thought they’d like, and I’d often have a theme with those gifts.

Before long, I started to see the merit in buying and giving cards, adding my own special messages to each person I’d get them for, whether it was for their birthday or Christmas. I guess this was when my changing views of Christmas and other celebrations really started to change. It became a celebration of my relationships with others, which I’d not had for the first three decades of my life.

I now have a stockpile of cards for different occasions, such as Christmas, birthdays, and Krampus. I have specific cards for different people in my life, which I’ve also stockpiled. Such as my friend whose birthday is in late December, which has always proven to be an issue for my friend, so I have cards that joke about it being Christmas, and their birthday rolled into one. But I still give them separate cards and gifts for their birthday and Christmas.

I guess it’s the first time in my life where I haven’t felt my friends are using me, and who I trust completely. Unbeknown to me, this led to my changing views about Christmas and other celebrations that I’ve only just noticed.

I guess that also means my borderline personality disorder (BPD) has also changed. I still struggle with relationships, but at the same time, I’m also not worrying about those relationships. The problem is now with me being so unhappy with my appearance, my fat belly, that I don’t want to leave my home and socialise.

I still don’t know if I’m capable of feeling love, as I’m still easily annoyed by people. But I think this is the closest I’ve ever been to something that is akin to love, and I think that’s been enough. Expecting anything more than that might be impossible for me.

For now, I’m going to embrace my changing views about Christmas and other celebrations. It feels much nicer to make more of a fuss about such occasions, rather than only caring about getting drunk when these opportunities arise.

However, my relationship with my mum hasn’t changed. She’s not willing to stop being the bigot they are and trying to force-feed me their faith, and I don’t see her having much time left in this world, either. So she’ll likely never change, and I will continue to distance myself from her, not buying her gifts or cards for any occasion, because she’s simply not worth the effort.

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