Why do I hate Christmas so much?

[ashley]

I was in your situation for years as a teenager and you sound like you have a great head on your shoulders, spending your Christmas helping others. Merry Christmas to you.

It will get better when you move out and are able to have your own place where you can celebrate Christmas however you want. That's when it started to get better for me. Growing up, I had a tree maybe two or three times out of 17 years and we had presents maybe a handful of years tops, and my dad was a mean alcoholic so almost every holiday was ruined. I felt like you do a lot of the time as a teenager, because all of my friends would post pictures of their presents and their dinners and their families and I'd be in my room alone and sad, but you're already on the right path by spending your Christmas doing something good - helping out. That's what Christmas is all about.

You definitely have a right to be jealous, anyone naturally would, but don't let it consume you. It's one day out of the year and you're already a stronger person than those who don't know the struggles of a hard family life and wake up to $1000s of dollars of gifts every Christmas. Someone used to tell me that as a teenager and I never believed them because I was always so sad around Christmas, but now that I'm an adult living on my own, I can see it. Having a hard life growing up really helps you when you're out on your own and when you live out on your own, you can have your Christmas in any way you want and your old home life won't affect it.

Merry Christmas to you again.