1) Very long history with abusive parents.

2) An eight year window where my parents fought over where I spent my holidays.

3) Not being close to my family, having a very, very different world view and moral system, and living in a different country christmas and birthdays became awkward, including the fact that the actual gifts were often ridiculously ill-suited for the recipient. I remember my own mother giving a can of cashews once. I'm allergic to them.

4) For whatever reason many folks in my family don't handle the stress they create for themselves during the holidays or 'special' celebratory day like birthdays very well. So there's always a disaster brewing in the kitchen that always will wind up causing some kind of outburst with harsh words and tears.

5) I became a widower without becoming a father.

6) There is a massive wealth gap within my immediate family. My sisters had lots of children and there's simply no way I could afford giving gifts that kids in their economic strata really like, to kids I basically don't know very well (and of the three I do know I seriously dislike the eldest). So this became a 10 or so year window of resentment due to the perception of the lack of proper reciprocity.

7) I discovered many years ago that the best way to avoid aggravating situations with my family was to make sure I visited on days that weren't significant and to make myself very scarce otherwise.

8) Not spending money on frivolous stuff allows me to save up for other things I want or need that I otherwise couldn't afford. I'm currently saving up to move house so that I can reduce the heated living space in favour of having a larger workshop.