I'm having a hard time with Christmas this year.
As a quick background, my parents are not necessarily hoarders, but they are very, very attached to their stuff, particularly sentimental items. Their home is and always has been crammed to the rafters with things - you don't just blindly open a cabinet or closet, because items will fall on you from the overflowing shelves. My parents have never understood that I do not feel the same way about objects (even as a child, I always tried to give things away because I felt like all my toys were just too much to handle). To say that I didn't want something anymore always hurt them deeply, as if I had said I didn't want their love or something...so I learned to pretend I felt comfortable in the messiness and clutter of their home in an effort to keep them from feeling hurt.
Christmas has always been a huge deal for my parents. I know both of them grew up in pretty rotten environments, and so giving me and my brother a special holiday time was, and still is, very important to them. When I say huge deal, I mean the works - a house crammed full of decorations on every surface, dozens of holiday-themed family activities and mountains of gifts on Christmas mornings.
I have many lovely memories of these efforts, and am very grateful for them. I know there are many children that are not as fortunate as I have been to have parents who care so much about making Christmas a special and memorable time of the year.
At the same time, I've always had this sort of unsettling, overwhelmed feeling during and after the holidays. As a kid, I loved the act of opening presents but soon felt upset and anxious about having to try to find places to put all the new stuff. As an adult, I have come to dread the holidays because I know it will mean more new sentimental gift clutter...and more guilt (how can I be so ungrateful!?) and stress because of it.
I don't mean to ramble on here or sound like a jerk. Uncluttering and simplifying my life has has become a really important path for me in the last year. It's been a wonderful healing journey in a lot of ways. I don't want to let go of that. But tonight I am staring down a new mountain of gifts (there are 39 individual presents from my parents alone, many of them handmade unitaskers). With three or four exceptions, I don't have a need or place for any of these things...as in I don't want them in my life...and that makes me feel terrible. But I know from experience that in the coming year my mother will ask me repeatedly about these gifts (Why am I not using [insert object]? Why isn't [insert object] displayed? I spent hours making [insert object] and I can't believe you don't like it!) and will be very hurt if I get rid of any of them.
I've tried approaching the subject tactfully (like "I'm simplifying my life and would love gifts that are consumable or experential") and even more forcefully ("Please, I don't want ANYTHING - donate all the money to charity instead!"). Nothing seems to help the situation. Does anyone have any ideas?
