The Christmas season is usually a magical time to spend with your family and friends. People hurry to buy their loved ones presents and decorate every inch of their house even a month or two before December. The thought is heart warming and all, but when your family doesn’t celebrate the holy night, it’s like being on the outside looking in.

The most exciting thing that my family does during the Christmas season is possibly the constant purchase of eggnog; another might be seeing the surprise on other people’s faces when I tell them I don’t celebrate their most loved holiday. Their exasperated faces gets annoying because then people proceed to try and teach me about the holiday itself, as if I haven’t lived among people who do celebrate it.

The regular question I get when I tell someone I don’t celebrate Christmas is a simple one: Why?

The answer is also simple: I don’t know. My family just never has. They don’t seem to find the appeal in stressing over what to buy their children and vice versa. Some people like to guess the reason is because my parents are from another country and the answer to that is no; and why is that even a constant conclusion?

There are other nonstop assumptions about why I may not celebrate the “best holiday to ever exist” but they’re too ridiculous to mention.

There’s not really much to not celebrating a certain holiday, other than noticing all the festivities around me. Everything has to have a Christmas twist to it, so every app on my phone changes it’s icon, my social media feeds are covered in pictures of snow or mentions of Saint Nick. And when I step outside, everything is coated in holiday spirit.

Sometimes other people ask me how I spend my Christmas days. That’s an easy question to answer: I just spend it like any other day. The only thing that’s usually different is the fact that there’s nothing but Christmas specials on TV. My sisters usually just put their pajamas on and drink hot cocoa all day while they spend time on their phones, my mother sleeps and makes dinner, and both my brother and I play video games and eat junk food.

A common thought that comes to my mind during December is, “Is Christmas over yet?”