OK, just for those of us who would like to carry on with this thread (and since the great name 'milk monitor' is already taken), for this thread I shall henceforth be The Anti-Santa.

Pauline, what are the aspects of "the season" that you find most difficult to handle? For me, it is the automatic expectations that people have that everyone "does" Xmas/the Holidays, and that even if they don't, and don't wish to participate in any of it, insist that we are bad people (read: "grinches") for having the audacity to dare and speak up and say we don't celebrate, and don't wish to be included in the celebrations.

This is truly a season of making people who don't follow the lemmings over the Xmas cliff, social pariahs. Yet, the same people who ostracize and criticize and demonize those who choose not to partake in "the spirit of the season" come back at you passive aggressively by forcing their "good will" on you whether you bloody well want it or not.