As teens get older,  holiday cheer begins to dwindle for us. We have exams, jobs, Christmas presents to buy, and places to travel, so it’s easy to forget the holiday spirit around Christmas time. Being little I remember waking up at five am Christmas morning waiting for my mom to wake up so we could open our stockings. It seems like it always took her forever to wake up and get her coffee so we could rip through the paper. I remember big white Christmases, being excited when they would call in a snow day at school, begging my mom to let us play in the snow but then getting mad at her when we got hot from all the layers she would put on us, and coming back to school after break with all the presents I got from Santa. 

The holidays don’t feel the same anymore… Maybe it’s because the older we get our imagination shrinks like the Grinch’s heart, or maybe it’s because we just don’t have the same excitement anymore, but the holidays are hard for everyone. People who don’t have happy families can find it especially hard around the holidays because they don’t have someone with whom they can share the holiday spirit with. Spending the holidays alone can be depressing for some, causing them to dislike the whole day like scrooge. It’s always important to be nice to everyone around the holidays because sometimes all they wish for is to go back to when they were younger and enjoy the day like they used to. According to the World Socialist Web Site, in 2019 there were more than half a million homeless people on Christmas.

Just imagine spending Christmas alone, by yourself, no one to celebrate with, no one to spread the holiday cheer with. After you imagine that, think of how one might feel if it was them, alone, sad, and cold on  Christmas. So the next time we might get upset about not getting what we wanted for Christrmas, let’s think about not getting anything.