Eve as always.

I truly am a natural Grinch at heart. I don't think I get to the point of being a cold, cruel, and rotten Scrooge, but I definitely recognize the bitterness and frustration of a Grinch, which mostly roots in my underlying hurt and sadness during the holiday of Christmas.

Thanksgiving is typically a good holiday for me. It's not a struggle at all for me to recognize the good things in my life and be grateful for them. I'm always thankful that I have family, friends, a job, and education and good opportunities available to me. I know I've been very fortunate in my life and I am humbled by that fortune.

Christmas, on the other hand, is more difficult for me to look forward to and be happy about. It's completely about family and celebrating your closeness with others (predominantly family). And that's the one thing I don't have. I have a mother, a father, a brother, grandmother, etc. But we aren't close. We don't do things together, we don't talk, we don't celebrate. In fact, we rarely even express outward emotions and thoughts, at least as far as connecting with one another versus just ranting through frustrations and opinions.

It hurts to see people constantly posting pictures of and talking about their multiple Christmas activities, travels, and celebrations with all the members of their family. So many people visit with every sector of their immediate and extended families and friends. They have lots of dinners, go out to ice skate or sled. They travel and bake and simply spend time together throughout the whole holiday season and not just on Eve or Day. My family can barely make it through a couple hours together before being over it and just wanting to go do their own thing instead of being with one another.

And I'm pretty sure there's no hope in my extended family ever getting together all in one place to celebrate for anything, any time soon.

We're all just relatives. There's no family involved.

That's what makes this holiday so incredibly tough for me to get through.

I've essentially come to the conclusion that there's no hope left for this family. The only option I have is creating my own family, but that's going to take a while. Until then, I will be bitter and unsatisfied and basically hopeless.