Just say no to Christmas?

— -- Susan Lee, a divorced mother of three in New York City, is taking a drastic step this year. "No Christmas for me," she says. "No gifts, no turkey, no tree, no kidding."

Lee, 41, a marketing consultant, says she needs a break from the stress and spending that are integral parts of the holiday. Her kids will celebrate a traditional Christmas with their dad, but she's ignoring all the rituals.

"I start dreading Christmas from the time the decorations go up in the stores," she says. "It stopped being fun for me, so I'll find out this year if I can do without it altogether. I think it will be a relief. It already is."

The holiday is in no danger of extinction. Retail sales broke records over the Thanksgiving weekend, and online sales are up 15% from 2010, according to ComScore, a research company. A Gallup Poll found that Americans expect to spend an average of $764 on Christmas gifts, $50 more than a year ago. And forecasters expect spending on Christmas to rise 3.1% to $3.4 billion this holiday season.

Still, says Leah Ingram, who runs the Suddenly Frugal blog at suddenlyfrugal.com, many people are scaling way back this year, if not opting out of Christmas completely. Homemade presents and shared experiences are replacing expensive store-bought gifts among people who are feeling the pinch financially and those who object to the season's rampant consumerism.

"Everybody has too much stuff, and maybe that's where it's coming from," Ingram says.

Some people simply loathe the holiday. A Facebook search for "I hate Christmas" turns up dozens of results, including pages and posts from people who say they despise almost everything about Christmas: music, shopping, family gatherings, trees and lights.

Others have no choice but to downsize Christmas. Kate Pearson, 33, a single mom in Atlanta, lost her secretarial job in January and has told her two children that they're starting new traditions this year.

They drew a festive, 6-foot tree on craft paper and taped it to a wall. "Instead of gifts, which I can't afford, we're writing letters to each other that we will open on Christmas morning," she says. "We're going to tell each other what we love about our family. And that's it."

Pearson says she's looking forward to a bare-bones Christmas. "I cringe when I think of all the money I've spent in previous years on Christmas plates, napkins, candy, decorations and junk," she says. "Never again, even after I find a new job."

Watching their spending

Sarah Stewart Holland loves Christmas, but there's a lot less of it in her life this year.

She and her husband, Nicholas Holland, decided that real Christmas trees are too expensive, so they borrowed an artificial one from her parents.

They're not buying gifts for their son Griffin, 2, or his brother Amos, 6 months. They stashed some of the presents Griffin received for his birthday and will wrap and put them under the tree.

They'll e-mail holiday cards instead of buying and mailing traditional cards.

They won't exchange presents with each other or family members. Instead of their usual holiday open house, they'll have a potluck dinner with their closest friends.

"We're trying to be conscious about our spending," says Stewart Holland, 30, who lives in Paducah, Ky., and blogs at saltandnectar.wordpress.com. She and her husband, 32, both are paying off student loans from law school.