It’s OK to Hate the Holidays: Coping Skills for Gay Men
By Ken Howard, LCSW, CST
GayTherapyLA.com
As you probably have read, or heard, I’ve been a therapist for gay men (as well as life/career/relationship/executive) coach for gay men for over 33 years in 2025. And every year around this time, I hear a familiar confession from some gay men in my therapy and coaching practice—often whispered, sometimes joked about, but rarely said plainly:
“I hate the holidays.”
And immediately after that comes guilt.
“I know I shouldn’t.”
“I sound bitter.”
“I don’t want to be that guy.”
“I don’t want to sound like Scrooge.”
Holiday stress for gay men is real. Let’s start here: it is absolutely OK to hate the holidays.
Not because you’re broken, ungrateful, or emotionally stunted—but because the holidays concentrate and “distill” pressure, loss, expectation, and comparison in a way that exposes stress points many gay men live with all year long.
The problem isn’t the feeling.
The problem is that we’re often told we shouldn’t have it.
It’s OK to Hate the Holidays If You’re Single (and Didn’t Want to Be)
If you’re single during the holidays—and especially if you didn’t choose that—you may feel the ache more sharply than usual. Holiday stress for gay men includes seeing marketing that is relentlessly couple-focused; usually with straight couples, but TV, especially streaming TV, is starting to be more inclusive about that. Friends disappear into family or partner plans. Social media becomes a highlight reel of matching pajamas, vacations, and proposals.
You may feel grief, envy, longing, or resentment—all at once.
Cognitive reframes that help:
- “This pain means I want connection—not that I’m failing.”
- “Loneliness is a signal, not a verdict on your life.”
- “I can grieve now and still take steps toward change.”
Behavioral strategies:
- Limit social media exposure during peak holiday days.
- Make one or two intentional social plans rather than waiting to be invited.
- Commit—not emotionally, but practically—to working on dating patterns in the new year (with support if needed).
You don’t have to feel hopeful right now.
You only need to stay engaged with the idea that this doesn’t have to repeat forever.
It’s OK to Dread Holiday Fights With Your Partner
For partnered gay men, the holidays don’t automatically bring closeness. They often bring stress fractures to the surface—especially during travel on road trips, driving, or airport crowds and flying, or navigating Family of Origin or in-laws, together.
Old arguments resurface. Tension builds in confined spaces. Silence feels heavier.
Coping strategies:
- Normalize pre-stress: “This is a high-pressure week—we’re not broken for feeling it.”
- Agree in advance on timeouts during travel or family visits. Try to find time away from the hubbub just for yourselves.
- Postpone major relationship conversations until after the holidays.
- Focus on emotional self-regulation first, resolution later.
Therapy can help couples identify recurring holiday triggers and learn how to contain conflict rather than escalate it under pressure. Identify if you see patterns in the triggers and challenges that are perennial – those are the ones to deal with in the new year in anticipation of the next year’s holiday season, which might illustrate other areas of your relationship that couples therapy or relationship coaching might help with.
It’s OK to Dread That One Relative
Almost everyone has one. The relative who pokes, provokes, invalidates, moralizes, or “just asks questions.”
For gay men, this often carries added layers:
- Subtle homophobia – that feels creepy in its oh-so-innocent insidiousness
- Religious judgment – either from relatives or if hear stuff in a sermon
- Political baiting by a relative that makes seemingly off-the-cuff sarcastic remarks about political issues or candidates, or some kind of denigrating of a community (people of color, immigrants, trans people, even other LGBT people who are the “bad ones, not like you guys.”)
- Passive-aggressive “concern” about you (yeah, right)
CBT-based strategies:
- Prepare neutral exit phrases in advance: “Gee, is it that late? I wonder if someone needs help in the kitchen. What are the pets doing? Oh I have to check my email, I’m expecting some information from home. I gotta make a call. Man, this [liquid] is going right through me; back soon.” Or even just, “Oh, I don’t know much about that. I don’t know too many people involved in that,” (whatever it is).
- Decide beforehand for yourself and with a partner which topics are off-limits when you answer questions about your year to friends or relatives you don’t see often. “Gee, Tom got syphilis new year’s eve last year, right after we saw you, but got that cleared up quickly; that Penicillin is the best.” Or, “Well, you know Jeff, he’s now the only person in his family with TWO bankruptcies, but it is what it is.”
- Remember: you are not required to educate, debate, or defend your life to intra-family critics.
- Limit exposure if necessary—shorter visits count as boundaries. Stay off-site from problematic family situations.
- Decide ahead of time about the relationship to substances – a “spiked” punch can lead to over-drinking, and over-sharing, quickly.
Protecting your nervous system is not rudeness; it’s just self-care.
It’s OK to Feel Disconnected From Religious Emphasis
For many gay men, holiday religious themes revive old wounds—shame, exclusion, rejection, or moral injury. If you visit your home town, getting near the places or people you experienced trauma from can be triggering. Even being in the house you grew up in can catapult you back to an “earlier time” you may or may not want to relive.
You may feel alienated sitting through rituals that once told you there was something wrong with you, especially at a church that you go to “just to be a good sport;” you’re still a good person (son, brother, etc.) if you don’t go to services. And maybe, if you do, you can do what some people in AA talk about, “take what you like, and leave the rest.”
Coping strategies:
- Give yourself permission to opt out or mentally disengage.
- Ground yourself in values rather than doctrines.
- Create your own meaning separate from religious narratives. (I have a whole article and podcast episode about “a secular appreciation of Christmas.”)
Spiritual trauma is real. You’re allowed to name it and actively, adaptively cope with it.
It’s OK to Feel Weird About Gifts and Commercialization
Gift-giving can stir anxiety, disappointment, resentment, or financial stress—especially if:
- You’re unsure what’s expected.
- You feel under- or over-giving.
- You’re financially stretched but feel pressured to give or reciprocate at similar levels as others.
Behavioral strategies:
- Set spending limits in advance for all holiday shopping and expenses.
- Normalize practical or symbolic gifts.
- Remember: gifts are not moral verdicts on your worth.
You are not required to perform joy for capitalism.
It’s OK to Feel Crushed by Expectations
The holidays come with scripts:
- Be grateful.
- Be cheerful.
- Be social.
- Be nostalgic.
- Be generous.
When your internal experience doesn’t match the script, shame often follows.
Cognitive strategies:
- Replace “should” with “what’s actually happening.”
- Practice self-validation: “Given my circumstances, this makes sense. Given my circumstances, this works for me. I feel good that I dwell in realities.”
- Allow mixed emotions—joy and grief can coexist through different stimuli you’re exposed to during the holiday season. If possible, make a note of all five senses and see if there is anything to appreciate about each of them.
There is no “correct emotional response” to the holidays.
It’s OK to Feel Lonely When Everyone Else Is “Busy”
Holiday loneliness hits differently when peers are traveling, partnered, or offline. The absence feels louder.
Behavioral strategies:
- Create structure during downtime. Schedule your days with activities you either like, recreationally, or feel good and accomplished or relieved doing.
- Volunteer or engage in low-stakes social environments. Very chill. Low pressure. Maybe low profile.
- Schedule therapy sessions strategically around the holidays; see when a provider is available; some providers are available more than you might expect during the holidays just for that reason. Or, you commit to working on things as early as possible in the new year.
Loneliness thrives in silence. Even small points of interpersonal connection help. And it can also be a “connection” to animals/pets, nature, or culture.
It’s OK to Feel Financially Pressured—or Left Behind
If you’re a freelancer, contractor, or service worker, holiday closings can mean time without pay. While others enjoy PTO, you may be absorbing financial anxiety instead.
Or you may be working—restaurants, theaters, hospitals—while the rest of the world seems “off.”
Coping strategies:
- Acknowledge the inequity instead of minimizing it. Self-validate that there are discrepancies in privilege that really make themselves known this time of year.
- Adjust expectations for spending and productivity. Keep on “this side” of over-extension.
- Reframe work as temporary—not defining.
Your worth is not measured by seasonal cash flow.
Creating Your Own Meaning (Even If That Means Rest)
Creating joy doesn’t mean forcing cheer. Sometimes it means opting out. Sometimes it means rest. Sometimes it means doing less.
And yes—it’s OK to resent that others get to rest while you don’t.
Two things can be true.
Looking Ahead: Using the New Year to Change the Pattern
Here’s the part I want to emphasize gently, but clearly:
It’s OK to hate the holidays.
It’s also OK to decide you don’t want to feel this way next year.
That’s where therapy and coaching come in.
Therapy can help with:
- Depression and anxiety
- Relationship patterns
- Family-of-origin wounds
- Trauma and shame
- Emotional regulation
Coaching can help with:
- Dating strategy
- Social confidence
- Career and income planning
- Time and energy management
- Goal-setting that actually sticks
Many men do both, especially with me, whose style is “therapy with a coaching edge,” and coaching that is “informed” by my long experience as a therapist but not a clinical service as such.
You don’t need to overhaul your life overnight. You just need to stop white-knuckling the same pain year after year.
If the holidays amplify something—loneliness, resentment, exhaustion, sadness—it’s usually pointing to something worth addressing, not suppressing.
Final Thought
You’re not broken for hating the holidays.
You’re human.
And if you’re ready, the new year can be a turning point—not because everything magically improves, but because you decide to stop carrying it alone. You want to look at life’s patterns and say, “OK, enough of that; what else you got?”
Therapy and coaching are available.
Change is possible.
And next year doesn’t have to feel like this one.
But planning for that, starts now.
Ken Howard, LCSW, CST, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (#LCS18290) in California, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, and a retired academic (Adjunct Associate Professor) at the University of Southern California (USC) Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, and the Founder of GayTherapyLA. He has been working in LGBT and HIV/AIDS activism since 1988. He is now the most experienced gay men’s specialist psychotherapist and life/career/relationship coach in the United States today, for 33 years in 2025, and is in full-time private practice in West Hollywood, California, where he lives with his husband of 23 years. A library of hundreds of blog articles are available on GayTherapyLA.com/blog, GayCoachingLA.com/blog, and his podcast is heard by over 10,000 people per month in over 120 countries of the world. For more information on therapy or coaching services or to make an appointment, call/text 310-339-5778 or email Ken@GayTherapyLA.com or Ken@GayCoachingLA.com.