The Christmas season is approaching and, while many of us are looking forward to it with feelings of positive anticipation, there are a substantial number of people who dread the festivities and would dearly love to opt out. Grumpily setting your face against Christmas and refusing to participate at all, will inevitably earn you the ‘Christmas Scrooge’ moniker, with all the negative connotations that carries. But are there ways in which the Christmas agnostic can avoid being condemned as a Scrooge and still distance themselves from the whole carnival?

Christmas Compromises

In the run-up to Christmas, you will find that calls for seasonal bonhomie are inevitable, especially if you work in an office. Approaching the entire Christmas season with gloom and trepidation is not an option if you have colleagues who love the whole extravaganza. It really is best to accept this fact with good grace and see the seasonal shenanigans as a team-building exercise. While you may choose to opt out of the present-giving, Christmas Day-feasting fandango, it is the least you can do to wear a Christmas jumper with good grace, plaster a jolly smile on your face, and enthusiastically accept offerings of mince pies, mulled wine and Christmas crackers in the run-up to the big day. It’s just about demonstrating esprit de corps and it will be a black mark against you if you cast a cloud of Scrooge-like cantankerousness around the office.

Even if you don’t want to join your family or friends for Christmas Day celebrations, acknowledge that it is a sociable time of year and accept invitations for social events that are taking place around Christmas time. People who are worried about you and your obvious discomfort at this time of year will have their anxieties somewhat assuaged if you make the odd convivial appearance. They will also be less likely to hound you and persuade you to participate.

Ring the Changes

If you want to withdraw from Christmas, think about alternatives. You don’t have to disappear from the social scene entirely and you might find that it is possible to instigate a new tradition that is popular and novel.

You could follow the lead of our pagan ancestors and celebrate the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year is a great time for a midwinter celebration, and you can make it entirely your own: you could have a bonfire, fireworks, a dinner which celebrates winter ingredients (eg roasted parsnips or Jerusalem artichokes, fresh figs, quinces etc). Or you could eschew Christmas Day, but invite your friends and family around for a delicious meal on Boxing Day and offer them a fishy alternative to all the Christmas meats, for example a whole cooked salmon. You might soon find that your alternative invitations have become part of your friends’ social calendar and have become an institution.

Alternatively, you could take a look at Christmas Day itself and try and identify the reasons why you do not like it. Is it the heavy food? The orgy of present giving? The people you customarily spend it with? There are no rules and regulations about how Christmas should be spent, and customs evolve and change. You could spend Christmas with friends rather than family, ban present giving, go for a vigorous country walk, eat a delicious curry. Nothing is fixed and it’s down to you to find ways of getting the most out of this time of year.

Check Out

For some people, the advice given above will simply not be persuasive. They may have profoundly good reasons for their dislike of Christmas: it might be associated with loss, bereavement and family tragedy. Or they may simply consider that it is a time of year that emphasises feelings of loneliness and depression. The relentless diet of Christmas adverts and seasonal tv programmes can overwhelm us with a confected, saccharin version of Christmas that makes many people feel dissatisfied and inadequate.

For some people, the best solution is to withdraw completely. They might prefer to spend the day on their own at home, indulging in their favourite food and binge-watching escapist television, blissfully removed from all the expectations, disasters, disappointments and dramas that they have come to dread.

Clear Communication

Whatever the choice of the Christmas nay-sayer it is vital to communicate it clearly to friends and family. Many people will choose to interpret a withdrawal from seasonal celebrations as a cry for help, an indication that the person in question has not been adequately encouraged to participate, and they will renew their invitations and refuse to take no for an answer. This is much more likely to happen if the decision not to take part is conveyed in conversation: people hear what they want to hear and are often unwilling to listen to what is really being said. It is therefore sensible, well before the Christmas season, to write a note or email to the importunate host, clearly outlining and explaining the reasons for your decision not to join in the festivities.

If you are attempting to explain your case of the Christmas blues, never justify yourself by offering a critique. A long spiel about wastefulness, kitsch, greed, eco-irresponsibility and guilt-tripping is just going to cause needless discomfort and distress to potential hosts. You must take responsibility for your own decision, and make it about your own shortcomings or predilections, not everybody else’s.

Christmas cheerleaders who love this time of year and cannot conceive of anyone not sharing their point of view, beware. While it is always a good idea to extend invitations to everyone you would like to attend, including well-known Scrooges, it is also vital to accept refusals, and to respect the individual’s choice. Endless nagging and attempts to persuade them to change their minds will only confirm their already jaded view of the season.

The main thing is to demonstrate that the Scrooge has not been forgotten: it is one thing to decide to opt out of Christmas when you are the possessor of a Christmas invitation; it is another thing to be bereft of seasonal invitations and to have little choice but to spend Christmas on your own. In these circumstances, many people will present their decision as a rejection of the whole Christmas palaver, whereas the truth might be that they really have no alternative.

If All Else Fails...

If you are a Christmas Scrooge but have been subjected to persuasion and social pressure and feel that you have been railroaded into joining a Christmas celebration, you must accept that it is your social responsibility to join in with good grace. That means bringing gifts and good cheer, remaining positive throughout the day, and being prepared to fit in with the hosts’ agenda, whatever it may be. Once you have been persuaded to attend, you must put all grumpiness behind you. And keep reminding yourself: it’s just one day out of 365.