Holidays...bah humbug!

I went to my first holiday party and already I'm pissed.  Ate GREAT food but still pissed.  Isn't Christams supposed to be about love and joy and sharing your gratitude with others...yeah right.. I am a single mother who has just shopped, wrapped, baked, tree-shopped, wrote lists, did errands, drove kids a million different places, missed her workouts, worked every day through the last two weeks in the name of the holidays  I got my energy from the holiday cheer and the excitement of my kids...I love surprising them.  I always start out with good intentions and I promised myself this year would be different.  Christmas is not only a holiday but my birthday..what could be better than that.  Last weekend my kids picked out a tree while it was snowing...it was postcard beautiful and when I'm with them I feel the joy that I think Christmas is about..they are so HOPEFUL...they sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer when they put the angel on the tree.  They are my angels and if I had enough money I would take them both and escape to an island for a week because when the three of us are together we are crazy and happy and have so much fun.  It's when everyone else comes into the mix that things start to unravel.  First I'm the UNATTACHED one.  The one most likely to be voted the "Cat Lady".  People don't even ASK if I'm seeing anyone anymore because they've given up hope.  Can't drink because I have no designated driver to take me home.  No funny stories of "my husband did this ... my husband did that".  I'm looked on with pity and people avoid me like the grandma with dementia!  The only subjects have to do with kids or husbands so if your kids are older and you have no husband ...what the heck else is left?  I want to scream at them:  "I am a person!  I'm a fun girl!  I am not pathetic and I don't go home and cry all night" (well sometimes but its not a regular thing).  I always end up with the kids.  I love kids and they seemed far more entertaining than the adults.  So I bought my life-long friend's (like a sister to me) THREE children Christmas presents and she didn't even THANK me and she critiqued all my presents asking how I could buy her six-year-old daughter a Bratz doll.  Okay I'm sorry but it's a DOLL..but according to her the Bratz doll is "ugly" and "slutty".  (May I point out her daughter was ecstatic and played with it all ngiht) Wow...I'm sure Barbie could be considered "slutty" if you wnat to really look at things. So my friend's husband told me he would step on it and smash it's head in when he got home.  I was furious.  My daughter had Bratz dolls and she is the best sixteen-year-old I could EVER ask for.  I was furious.  I had gone out of my way to get her kids things and that's the response I get?  Maybe I should mention that she hasn't bought my kids Christmas gifts EVER since they were born.  I am not a materialistic person and I really don't care about presents but it's the THOUGHT.  Its expectations and even though mine aren't even that high anymore they are faltering.