I miss the magic of Christmas. Today and tonight feels ordinary to me, and I miss that sense of wonder.

I miss the trips my family would take to visit our relatives. I miss the get-togethers, and the feasting, and playing games with my cousins and the family friends.

Even though I'm an atheist now, I miss having to go to midnight mass. I miss the excitement of being able to open one present before going to bed.

Unless some tragedy befalls me, I'm sure I can recapture that magic in my future. I'm not depressed about it. But that's a hope for later. For now, this is it.

For everybody else out there who's having a so-so Christmas... wishing you all the best, and hope you can still find a moment to appreciate the holiday.

Normally in the evenings I have to myself, I keep busy and find satisfaction in coding, or writing, or gaming. Tonight, those things don't feel meaningful.

I just wish I had somebody special to share Christmas Eve with, like in all those cozy Christmas songs. Instead, I'm just tired and want to sleep... But I can't go to bed until me and my mom can get my dad changed, so he's not wet with urine the whole night. Just like last night, and the night before that, and the night before that.

I wish I could have gotten to know my dad as well as I've gotten to know my mom, as an adult instead of as a child. But I also would have never spent this much time with my mom if my dad didn't end up with PCA, so wishing for that is wishing for an impossibility.

Why are people setting off fireworks in my area, starting at midnight? It's already 2:00 AM. It's Christmas Eve, not New Years. Aren't kids supposed to be asleep for Santa Claus to drop off presents? Do kids still believe in Santa Claus, or do they just stay up late playing video games on Christmas Eve now?

Maybe they aren't fireworks, maybe they're shooting at Santa.

I've been hearing some ambulance sirens. My dog is upset. It's hard to feel sorry for myself when there are some people having a much worse Christmas than me. If you're having a true disaster of a Christmas, I am truly sorry and I hope you pull through.

The Holidays by the end of the year are a time for meeting a lot of family members that we may not have seen for a long time. For a lot of people, this a joyful moment of relaxation where they can enjoy the company of those they love. For others, this can also be a stressful period, when tensions, trauma, and insecurities related to family relationships emerge, often in unexpected ways. Different people experience those events in vastly different ways.

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

What does Christmas (as well as other events with a component of "forced" social gathering) mean to you?

How did you manage it this year?

Is this usually a happy time for you? Why?

Telling “scary ghost stories” at the holidays isn’t just a seemingly out-of-place line in the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” or the plot of A Christmas Carol - it’s actually a very old tradition stretching back to pagan Yule festivals and Winter Solstice celebrations. So please share yours with us: true or false, but preferably true.

Being Danish I've never really had any reason to know anything about this holiday - all I know is cursory stuff from movies and whatever one might stumble upon on the internet. Something about pilgrims and eating and/or pardoning birds. But yeah my friend invited me for Thanksgiving because her wife is American and wants to celebrate. But I don't know what I've gotten myself into 😅

There will be other expat Americans as well which makes me a little more nervous, so I'm hoping to learn a thing or two from you all on tildes so please give me any and all advice you can!

I'm looking for general advice about it but I guess I have a couple of specific questions too. They are not very traditional people so it's not going to be formal, and they have called it both Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving - but is there any particular difference between the two? And my other question is what would be a good present for the hostesses - do guests usually give anything particular? Or will the usual flowers/wine kind of thing be okay?

It's officially Christmas in New Zealand. Australian parents are telling their kids they want just a few more minutes to sleep in. Santa is over Zambia.

I hope you all enjoy your time with family and friends (and kooky internet weirdos such as myself.)

Have you been properly spooked? Did you acquire a fear of a procession of mummies coming to pluck a hair from you each night to teach you about conservationism?

Do you have any annual traditions you follow? Haunted houses, straw mazes, or cider making? Do you or an acquaintance go all-out with decorating?

Do you have horror movie marathons? For fun, or to put on your Mary Shelley hat to look at horror as capturing a zeitghost like Them! for nuclear war, slasher films for rising crime, or Us for class issues? (Leprechaun's bi allergory is an outlier)

Do you have a favorite costume, or future costume idea? A shambling uncanny valley girl, group human obstacle course, ensemble of 3/7 dwarves, or reverse trick-or-treat grandparent?

Thought I'd post a general conversation thread for folks who might not be spending time with family or friends on Christmas. What are you doing on your own for Christmas, or what are you missing out on?

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, today is the hiemal solstice. Today is the shortest day of the year, and for the next half of the year, the period of daylight will only get longer.

Since ancient times, people have marked this day each year, through celebration and through the construction of buildings that line up with the sun or stars on this day; for instance, Stonehenge in Britain and Newgrange in Ireland both act as solstice indicators. Celtic, Chinese, Indian, ancient Roman, and even ancient Hebrew solstice ceremonies are recorded in various forms, with some (such as Newgrange) dating as far back as 3200 BC.

Today, many of these solstice ceremonies have been wrapped up into the Christian winter holiday of Christmas. For instance, the Celtic tradition of hanging evergreen plants, such as holly and ivy, as a sign of hospitality became the British Christian tradition of hanging mistletoe. Even the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah bears a striking resemblance to the Celtic idea of the Yule Log, a fire that was meant to burn for twelve days without re-fueling.

In addition, the solstice itself remains meaningful to many, both in mainstream religions and in neo-Pagan revival movements. So, to all of you who celebrate, happy Solstice, and may the sun shine warm on your face for the rest of the year.

Now that the holiday season is nearly over, I figured it is a good time to share the gifts that we gave this year. If there is a particular reason why you gave what you did, please share!

Edit: Going to plug USPS's Operation Santa. I plan to participate next year since it seems pretty direct with the giving. Found out about it way too late this year!

Eleven more days of this shit year and we're done.

Now I know things won't get better magically right away but ... Fuck it, i don't think I need to justify this.

What's everyone doing for the next two weeks?

Halloween has always been one of my favourite events of the year. I loved dressing up (though we always had to wear a winter coat over our costumes), I loved going trick-or-treating with my friends, and I loved sorting through our pillowcase of loot at the end of the night. I remember entire streets decorated as graveyards and how lively it was with kids everywhere. A few houses down from us, a neighbour set up a haunted house in their garage every year, and it ended with a warm hot chocolate with little marshmallows. We always planned to hit that house when we started getting cold.

When my partner and I starting handing out candy, we were in a relatively newly developed neighbourhood, and had very few kids. We handed out full sized chocolate bars and chips, the best prizes when we were trick-or-treating! We took turns answering the door and just loved to see the costumes. We counted Darth Vaders and witches and whatever was popular that year. It was always a lot of fun.

We stopped handing out candy about two years ago, mostly because I didn't want to get Nestle candy, which was the nut-free stuff that we usually got, and because it felt wasteful. There are a lot of drives right after Halloween where people basically dumped pounds of chocolate (either trading them to their dentist, or using them to make Halloween art). At work, every parent would bring in bags of candy to share. It was honestly just too much, especially considering the individually wrapped plastic. I've also started noticing that everyone is starting to sell plastic "Halloween candy reusable" bags, and I just really dislike that.

We're always looking for an alternative because I still really want to take part in Halloween again. This year, we again decided against handing out candy, and I'm already missing seeing the little trick-or-treators and their costumes, and their joy in getting a little treat.

In Russia, he's called Ded Moroz. Unlike Santa, he wears blue, doesn't ride a sleigh, nor does he abuse his workers, but uses magic to deliver the presents instead. He has a granddaughter named Snegurochka, who always comes with him to kids' celebrations. Just as the new year starts, he's ready to put the presents under the fur tree.

Spouse and I have a long history of not setting too much value on the consumption festival season, aside from the obligatory (and fun) over-eating and -drinking. We usually make charitable donations in each others' names, but we're still reasonably proficient at small tokens or surprising each other occasionally. Guy got me a DVD collection with all five seasons of Letterkenny, and we're gleefully watching it together. He (well, me too) received a wee tiny capsule espresso maker, and is both happy and jittery.

So how did you do this year? Was it fun, stressful, budget-busting, social, or otherwise a pleasurable/painful process? Do you feel like you made someone happier?

Hello everybody! As the Americans here are probably aware, this week is our holiday for Thanksgiving. One of the traditional parts of the holiday (at least as I've always practiced it) is everybody writing a list of the things they're thankful for in their life and over the past year. Especially since this is our first Thanksgiving together since Tildes was founded, I was wondering if you'd like to contribute such a list. :)

I freaking love Halloween. The costumes, the candy, the temperature, the pumpkins, and the whole aesthetic. I'm just testing the waters here to see how everyone else here feels about it and what ya'lls plans are.

EDIT: haha, while my title is technically correct I meant "best" holiday, not next

Used to sound like a war zone from the end of June on. Now almost nothing until the the 4th, and even then nothing like in the past years. Rents have been slowly climbing, maybe that has pushed out the young and reckless. Maybe it is facebook. How about your neck of the woods?