The holidays have historically been a difficult time for me, for a wide array of reasons. I try not to sour the season for others, but I rarely, if ever, feel any particularly greater amount of cheer during the early winter months. Furthermore, the idea that we set aside a specific time of year to be “good” to one another, as though acknowledging that we can’t always be bothered the rest of the year, strikes me as a sad reflection on us as a culture.

That said, I love Christmas carols, atheism be damned (pun intended). I love my family, even if togetherness has been a chore on many occasions. I love my new family, which I will be joining in a legal sense in a few months. I love many of the trappings of the holiday season, and I am happy ro partake of them as a member of American culture.

What I do not care to do, which I unfortunately see some people do as a matter of course, is let the season create undue stress. Every year I am asked if I have finished my Christmas shopping around December 23. People rush to find the “perfect” gift, as though choosing wrong would have negative consequences. I don’t hear as much about sending Christmas cards, though, and some of the more oppressive traditions involving the postal service seem to be fading away, mercifully.

If this truly is a time of year to be good to one another, then be good to yourself, too. If this is not a time of joy, as is no doubt true for many people, no one should feel undue pressure to conform. Being “good” to someone may mean letting them be the way they need to be. Michael Tracy, writing at Friendly Atheist (yes, I read atheist blogs on Christmas day) put it very well:

When “cheer” is experienced genuinely, it can have great salutary effect. But when cheer is effectively enforced — by cultural and/or familial custom — it can do just the opposite. I don’t feel particularly compelled to adopt a cheerful demeanor simply because today happens to be the 25th day of December, and the expectation that I must sours my mood further. Ritualistic expressions of saccharine cheer are almost always pretty depressing, in fact, on Christmas or any other day.

If cheer is the way someone wants to greet the holiday, by all means do so. None of this is to say that one who doesn’t feel the cheer should sour it for others, but just as it is wrong, to a certain extent, to drag others down, no one should feel any pressure to be dragged up.

So be of good cheer. Or medium cheer. Or mild angst, if that is what you need today. Be however you need to be, but just be good, and have a happy holiday.