POLL: How do you deal on Father's Day without your dad?

Given the wrong set of circumstances, holidays are like an emotional pressure cooker. Take Christmas, for instance. If you're mourning any kind of loss in December, the relentlessly cheery carols and elves are like fingernails on a chalkboard for the grieving. We don't want to think about glitter and bows and sugar plum fairies--we're just sad.

This is the case for many of us on Father's Day. The farthest thing from our minds is a day at the grill with old pops, chowing down on burgers and laughing into the sunset. Whether your father has passed away or has never played much a figure in your life at all, it can feel like the department store commercials for polo shirts and electronics just won't go away.

That's the problem with the advertisements and movies that surround certain holidays: the images are unrealistic, and there's no space for how we really feel. We should be gathered 'round a campfire, holding hands and singing Kumbaya. But for many of us, the realities of divorce, death, disappointment, and dysfunction strike a lot closer to home. The result is that we feel guilty for not having what everyone else apparently does, and a sense that we're on the outskirts looking in on the experience everyone else is enjoying. Why not just pour a little more salt in these wounds?

So let's be real and rally together. For many of this, this holiday is no great shakes. How are you going to deal?