Christmas comes but once a year and for some of us it’s one time too many. We do a lot of complaining about Christmas. The consumerism, the obligations, family conflict and lack of meaning. But why do we have so much trouble letting it go? How come so many of us complain but so few of us ever really transform or give up on Christmas?

I have not had one positive conversation about Christmas in these hectic weeks leading up to the day when some of us supposedly celebrate the birth of Jesus. When so many of us have given away or reinvented family traditions, why does Christmas remain such a bugbear?

Most of us will face Christmas either by giving in to tradition or by ducking and weaving in an attempt to avoid what’s painful or unsatisfying. Very few of us will consciously try to build something new for ourselves at this time. If we hate Christmas, what stops us from breaking with tradition?

It astonishes me how so many of us, even those of us who pride ourselves on our ability to drop out of consumerist madness, allow Christmas to be an ongoing source of resentment and frustration. A friend of mine said he thought that maybe this was because it only comes around once a year, that if it was every month he’d be more inclined to deal with his intense dislike of Christmas. Instead he lets it slide each time and the holiday season comes back around like a yearly punch in the head.

The expectation that Christmas should be joyful makes it a time when our losses are felt more strongly than ever, when all that we can see is what’s missing in our world.