I have an extremely difficult time feeling the spirit of Christmas on this and most any other year. There is always the stress of buying gifts, baking, gifts for neighbors (ward members and friends), etc., etc., etc. Couple that with the year-end activities associated with work and I suddenly feel overwhelmed.

This year, my wife and I set a strict budget for gifts and stuck very close to that budget. I avoided the malls and most large retail stores and asked for one small, simple item–a wallet.

I am now in complete Holiday/vacation mode and am ready to enjoy watching my children open gifts.

Always remember the Savior is there and knows your trials and loneliness.

I have two brothers and two sisters-in-law and acres of nieces and nephews, but I have no one to spend holidays with. They are so busy with their own lives and self-contained within their own family units that they forget about me. I don’t suppose either family would kick me out if I knocked on their doors (but that’s not likely, since they live in another state), but they don’t want me there to the extent of inviting me, or sending a card, or even answering my letters, or telling me about the marriages of their children or the births of grandchildren — I learn about those by monitoring the online public vital records from their county. (That is not unexpected. Neither brother remembered to invite me to his own wedding, my little brother didn’t tell me his son had been killed in a traffic accident, and no one — neither brother, nor father — bothered to call me when my mother died. I had always thought we were a close family, and I always traveled home for graduations and family events that I did hear about, and I always went laden with presents even though neither family ever gave me a gift in return, ever. But since Mom died, I realized that my feelings of closeness were because she always included me even if no one else ever did.)

People will tell you that the secret to curing loneliness is to go do something for someone else. Maybe, but I can tell you that no matter how much you donate to various charities at this time of year, no matter how many Angel Wishes you fill from the tree at the mall, no matter how hard you try to take part in ward parties or service projects or ward choir caroling, when you wake up alone on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day and remember that you have nowhere to go and no one to expect all day, none of that “doing for others” keeps you company at all.

People in the ward and at work are full of plans. My effort to be cheerful despite how I feel must be working, because they all seem to like to tell me about their plans at great length, and I smile and nod and make happy noises. Yet no one has ever, even once, asked me what my own plans are, so that I can drop a hint that I’d be glad of an invitation. Once in a while someone telling me about their holidays after the fact will think to be polite and ask me what my day was like, and when I say I spent it at home alone they sometimes say, “Oh, you should have told me. We could have made room.” Yeah, well, sure, but you didn’t want me there enough to think about me before the fact, and you don’t remember from year to year that I’m just as alone today as I’ve ever been!

I hope this doesn’t sound like whining. I don’t intend it to be a whine or to unfairly criticize anybody. I know it’s largely my own fault for never having learned to make the kind of friends who want me around, although I won’t accept any blame for not having done everything I could to be a part of my family. You just asked a question, and I’m just giving you one answer to it. The holidays are the worst of times.

As for White Christmasses..no thanks! I’ll take picking an Arizona Orange off the tree anytime. I had to actually BUY citrus today…for shame! For shame! The Arizona girl wants to be warm.