I was wondering* today what would happen if I told my family that I just don’t want to celebrate or in any way mark my future birthdays, or indeed, how they would react if I said I wanted to opt out of Christmas.
Then I thought… there are probably people out there who have done that. Let’s ask them how it went. So that’s what I’m doing.
*Wondering is not the same as planning, so let’s have no undue fuss.
They ignore you.
Or they try to “sneak” celebrations and presents to you.
I had an unpleasant experience that caused me to announce I would no longer celebrate my birthday; I don’t refuse any gift people insist on giving me, but I refuse to “officially” thank them, either. (“You are very kind” is not, technically, “thank you”).
As for Christmas, I make no secret of the fact that I do not celebrate the Christian holiday, that the gifts I give are not for the Christian holiday, and the gifts I receive are accepted only in recognition of the Solstice. Or, possibly, the Feast of the Epiphany.
People ignore me.
We agreed as a family to discontinue exchanging GIFTS for birthdays and Christmas, but I think it’s rather silly to expect/announce that you don’t want to celebrate these occasions in any way. Mainly because it’s unenforceable without you looking like a complete douche. I mean, what are you going to do when well-meaning people wish you Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas, either because they were unaware of your ban or forgot that you informed them 12 months ago that don’t acknowledge it? Ignore them altogether? Chastise them? Even if you try to be nice about it (“Thanks for wishing me happy birthday, but I don’t acknowledge it.”) you’ve come across as disagreeable and entitled. And, worse, by virtue of your resistance, you’ve made it a bigger deal than it would have been had you just said, “Thanks.”
I’ve got a big extended family. Instead of everybody shopping for everybody we’d do a sort of secret Santa where we’d draw a sibling’s name from a hat. Actually, my step-mom did the drawing since the kids were spread all across the country. When I got to around the age of 20 I just asked her to stop putting my name in the hat. No presents would come my way and nobody went without because I wasn’t buying one. Birthdays weren’t that big with us, usually just a card. I never sent any and cards to me eventually dried up. This year I got a ‘Happy 50th’ email from my brother - about a week after my 51st.
Yeah, I really think it depends on what your vision of “opting out” looks like. I mean, if it’s the only time the family gets together all year because that’s the only time everyone is off work, and you absent yourself, it’s hard not to see that as a rejection of the people, not the holiday.
If you don’t really have a family or are acting as family, and are wondering how “outsiders” will feel, IME they don’t really care as long as you don’t belabor it. When people ask “How was your Christmas?” you just say “Nice. Quiet. We don’t really celebrate, but enjoyed the peace,” and move on.
I got my family to stop doing gifts for Christmas, and giving me birthday gifts. In turn I don’t give birthday gifts.
We still celebrate Christmas. And lots of time I’ll do something for my birthday (have a fire, a game night, go out to dinner). And I’ll always do something special for my folks’ birthdays (usually cook and clean for a party). But never gifts.
Well…I have two toddler nieces now and of course we all go all out for them, but that is perfectly fine by me. I buy them birthday and Christmas gifts but I’ve started buying them second-hand toys and stuff because they don’t care.
Not having to buy gifts is very very freeing. I wouldn’t mind forgetting my birthday, or even mom & dad’s birthdays (or Mother’s Day & Father’s day - come on guys, pick one!) but I don’t think I could opt out of Christmas entirely.
I’ve asked repeatedly for folks to not buy me presents for either my birthday or the celebration of the winter solstice. My pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
I’m sorry but your birthday is not your own. It belongs to other people.
My parents still wish me, but I’ve managed to get out of receiving gifts. My old friends mostly don’t remember, my new ones I don’t tell. All in all, birthdays pass mostly unremarked. And unmourned.
We stopped doing Christmas presents for family and friends several years ago. We do some charity thing with the money we would have spent. Last year and this year it’s been Salvation Army Angels. No one in either of our families thinks it’s weird, but we warned them ahead of time so they would not buy us anything or expect gifts. Actually some of them have adopted the custom.
I stopped doing much of any Christmas celebrating (decorating, baking, cooking special meals) about 11 years ago when my mother died two days before Christmas. I had not really enjoyed the holiday for a long time (I’m an atheist) and that was sort of the last straw. However, my husband’s birthday is the 21st of December and his mother’s is the 18th, so we do have a celebration, it’s just a birthday one not a Christmas one. I see no reason to opt out of birthdays because: Cake!
An American Christmas is loaded with stress because most of us have a childhood
memory of a living room filled with gifts under a decorated tree that almost touches
the ceiling. The real “adult” Christmas never matches childhood expectations.
As an adult who never opted to be a “husband,” my Christmas is one box of trivial
gifts mailed to the sibling’s family plus about 30 to 40 handwritten greeting cards to the
most important persons who have crossed my life and who are still alive.
Christmas is the perfect excuse to get in touch with old friends, classmates and kinfolks
in order to remind them that you miss them…by postal greeting card. Emailing a Christmas
greeting should be used only when there is no time left to mail a bona fide Christmas card!
Cheers, Singanas 12-9-13
Me and my brother stopped celebrating our birthdays because since both are in December they never amounted to much anyway. And we haven’t celebrated Christmas for the last few years because most of our extended family is dead or far away, and because money’s been tight.
No one’s celebrated my birthday in years because no one has ever cared.
My husband and I fell out of giving each other birthday presents a few years ago after he had lost his job. It was just as well for me. We’ll take each other out for dinner on our respective birthdays, and maybe we’ll have a small cake, but that’s it.
Both our families now have either a Yankee swap or a Secret Santa in lieu of presents. There’s a dollar limit for each one. The younger members still give each other presents, though, and it’s their parents who have the big tree and the decorated house. For the rest of us? Eh.
Both my parents passed the week before Christmas 30 years apart, so that also has a lot to do with my “eh”.