My OP may be almost a whole month old. Because that was Thanksgiving. And now we are approaching Christmas and the New Years (which is my birthday!). So once again, the dreaded question will come: "what are you doing for Christmas?".

I will be alone. It's harder to be alone for Christmas and my birthday than it is at Thanksgiving. But I feel that it's much more difficult to be asked what I will be doing than to just be alone. So I feel like I have field that difficult question. I don't know what to say. They ask me if I'm going to be with family. My family has split up and I feel some shame in this.

Do any of you have to field that difficult question if you would rather not be asked? How do you handle it? I'd like hear in replies on how you deal with those difficult questions. There is a separate thread on how to deal with the holidays alone. What I'm getting at here is how to deal with being asked that difficult question.