While I was jogging this morning, I actually saw 1 house already decorated outside for Christmas.

The only thing I really miss about Christmas is the candlelight service our church had on Christmas Eve, where it ends with no light but everyone holding candles and people filing out one by one singing "Silent Night". Often under a clear black sky, where stars were visible and the moon depending on its phase. One year when I was in high school that service with the candles and outside singing really hit me, and if I'd ever doubted there was a God, I felt His presence so strongly over all of us singing with candles outside under a clear black sky full of stars, I never doubted again.

Not saying this is everyone's type of experience or that you need to be religious; I am just relating something that happened to me. Maybe it was God or maybe just stuff going on in my mind, who knows?

Sorry about the hypergraphia.

My point is I miss the small church candlelight service we attended every Christmas Eve night while I was growing up, and that is pretty much all I miss of the holidays.

Hate the decorated houses, the music in the stores, the expense, decorating the Christmas tree, just everything. I hate all the commercialization, the happy or fake happy pictures all over Facebook, the expectations that everyone should enjoy the holidays and be at the height of happiness spending time with (usually) all your family and extended family.

And, OMG, they stress me out so much, pretty much from Thanksgiving to New Year and even to the end of January.