Holiday Headache

    I realized, last Halloween, that Halloween is my favorite holiday because it's one of the few that doesn't require being around my extended family for hours.
    It became my favorite holiday when I was quite young. Kindergarten.

    Now that I'm an adult, I almost take joy in missing holidays.
    We decided to have our own Thanksgiving again this year. It was a relaxing day.
    Christmas however, is still up in the air.

    I don't want to deny my kids the opportunity if they want to go to family events.
    I also will never, ever ever again leave any of my children with those people unsupervised, so, this means that if they do want to go up there, it's the same stress that I've lived through in my childhood.
    Lame.

    I also have a deep resentment for the winter holidays, which I'm sure my kids can feel.
    I get exciting ideas about cutting snowflakes or frosting cookies, and then when the time comes around, I'm cursing up a storm in my head about my mother and grandparents. Instead of doing fun, together things, I have a grumpy day.

    I don't know how to fix it.

    I've been trying to celebrate alternative holidays. Obscure holidays that my family doesn't celebrate, or care about. Like Wintereenmas, a video game playing week. Or pi day, a day to celebrate the math idea of pi, by eating pie!
 

    I'm not sure how to alleviate this stress.

    One very stressful solution would be to give those that stress me out a list of "What I need in order to continue our relationship."
    Like "I don't feel comfortable leaving my children with you without me present. If you want to continue to have a relationship with me, don't ever tell my kids that they are staying the night with you, ESPECIALLY before asking me. Unsupervised time with them is not an option. In return, we can all go to public places together, like the carousel and parks."

    It seems very aggressive, but I doubt it's any more aggressive than trying to remove myself from the family and not talking to them ever again. That's what I've been doing so far and despite my stubborn intervals of silence and grumbly hatered, they still as me to holidays.