also, from my experiance: You get out of christmas, exactly what you put in
Most of my friends who don't like christmas.. also happen to come from families who do bugger all for the festival. You ask them why they don't like it, and they say its basically just another day.. a few presents.. a tree up.. someone has to cook.. whats so good about it?
The thing with christmas though, is that its only special if your together with others.. I like to view it like this: Christmas gives you many many activities and fun things you can do as a group:
- putting up decorations
- making mince pies, making home made christmas puddings
- going out and buying (or cutting down) christmas trees
- going carrolling (or to a church carrol service)
- going christmas shopping
- having christmas parties
- cooking christmas dinner
etc. etc.
There are so many things, but you NEED to do them together to make it special.
A big amazing christmas is a ton of work and effort, but if you do it all together with the ones you love, its amazing and the best time of the year.
Take for example making christmas puddings. My family does this every year in october. For a lot of people its too much work, and they would just buy them. But the work does not have to be a negative. We get my grandpa, my sister, my parents, my wife, me, my aunts, uncles, cousins.. everyone comes round for the night.. we have a drink, have something to eat, and then all get stuck into making the puddings and christmas cake.. people are chatting, laughing, messing about, and it feels lovely and warm.
And thats the trick to christmas - take the work, don't avoid it, but instead make it fun.