There Is Nothing to Pity

So often when people hear there are those of us who prefer to have quiet holidays with our immediate family or even spend holidays alone, the hearers begin to pity.  To them, holidays are about big get-togethers with moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and first cousins twice removed... - You get the picture.  They assume anyone who does not gather together with extended family must be lonely.  

Assumptions can be wrong and, quite honestly, they can be frustrating for the people having the assumptions made against (notice I said against, not about) them.  

For some of us, gatherings with immediate family members or friends who we see on a regular basis are much more peaceful - much more holiday-like - than the big gatherings with people with whom we have nothing in common, around whom we feel tense and frustrated, from whom we have very different lives.  For others who come from abusive situations, spending time around abusers brings back too many bad memories.  There is nothing wrong with these individuals spending the holidays happy instead of stressed.    

I recently read an article about how Christmas came to be associated with big family get-togethers.  No surprise, it was an American invention.  (We Americans do love our idols, whether they be money, patriotic symbols, the church, or family).  The Civil War - understandably, I guess - popularized the idea of going home for Christmas.  And that is all fine and good.  If people enjoy going home to big family gatherings, by all means, they should do so.  However, those who do not wish to partake in that kind of holiday celebration should not be pitied or looked down upon.  Assumptions can be a painful thing for the victim of the assumptions.  Each should be allowed to celebrate the holidays in whatever ways work for him or her.