hubby and i stopped celebrating xmas then. we only did it in NY because of family. i liked it when i was young but as i got older i found it annoying -- crowded stores, traffic jams, etc.

my husband passed 2-1/2 years ago and since then my friend howie and his family have adopted me. he takes care of things around the house for me. he's a non-practicing jew and his wife is christian.

i spend holidays with them -- not because there holidays, but because i enjoy being with them.

that being said i was raised catholic and am now an atheist.

i think everyone has a right to celebrate what they want to.

It's good to be with friends on holidays.

(the nice part) when i was married to my first husband. got divorced -- then back to ridgewood to be near family -- then to forest hills when i married my 2nd husband. forest hills was my favorite place in NY.

My wife is from a small town in Indiana and I brought her to Queens to show her around.

She was physically uncomfortable with all the congestion on Queens Boulevard. So, a right on Continental Avenue, a left on Slocum and she said, "What is this place? I can hear birds."

they even had their own street lights. cost a fortune to live there. can only imagine how much it is now. we left in '89.

we lived in an apartment building with 105 apartments -- 7 floors. lived on the 6th floor right on 62 rd and yellowstone blvd. it was nice because the street in back of us had 2 family homes and there was a school and park across the street so we didn't feel so "closed in".

loved to shop on austin st. i've never been back but my granddaughter has and she said some of the stores are still there.

I'm watching one of my neighbors deal with it, she desperately wants to see her grandkids but she and her daughter are estranged (largely because her son in law is a huge prick). Christmas is going to be hard on her this year, I hear about it every time I talk to her.

Christmas is by no means a time of universal good cheer.

I've known many people for whom this is the worst time of the year because of ongoing family conflicts.

We just had a major suicide attempt in our community. The underlying issue is apparently conflicts with family and the holidays just turns up the heat on that stuff.

There is a notable increase in depression and depressive symptoms around the holidays. Some of this is seasonal, but not all of it.

For others, it is a time of great joy and love, and I think that just makes it worse for those that don't have it.

Many cliches are cliches precisely because they are so often true.

Last night I was banned from a forum devoted to one of my personal interests because I in a spirit of generosity tried to offer a gift that would be quite useful and valuable to some of the other members (a gift I picked up on a group here on DU in fact), no explanation, no nothing.

The amusing thing is the forum I was banned from goes to irritating lengths to get visitors to sign up (they put cookies on your computer and if you don't delete them you can only read a few posts until the software blocks you from reading more and tells you that if you sign up you can read all you want), they also talk quite a bit about how friendly they are.

It ticked me off for a while but I finally decided that it was their loss far more than my own. I should have seen that one coming, anyone who feels the need to talk about how friendly and welcoming they are probably isn't quite as friendly as they think, that seems to be true for organizations as well as individuals.

I think that can be painful even if it looks like it's really about them and not you.