Bah! Meh! Blargh!
Well, okay, I'm not as bad as all that. But I do resent the way Christmas bleeds from the 25th all the way into mid-November and early December. I just can't keep my Christmas spirit going for that long. If everyone started talking about Christmas today (December 15th) instead of November 15th, I'd have more enthusiasm for Christmas-time. But instead, retailers insist on pushing the season ever earlier so that I have to see stocking stuffer sales in October and hear Christmas carols in November!
Perhaps this grumpiness is just a result of spending too many years in school. If I were still in college, this would be finals week. I'd be working frantically, stressed beyond the point of sanity as I tried to finish all my papers and tests before the end of the week. During finals week, every Christmas carol is cruel torture to a student: not only do they not have time to enjoy the holidays or decorate their dorms or do their shopping before December 20th, but they're also wallowing in enough anxiety to tinge the season's "joy" with a hearty dose of bitterness and fear. Christmas becomes some unreachable, idyllic Valhalla that can only be attained by surviving the gauntlet of finals.
This year, even though I can regard the approach of Christmas with equanimity in the absence of school work, I'm not yet ready for it. I'm in that in-between place where I've resigned myself to Christmas without yet being enthused for it: my shopping is almost done, yet my holiday baking hasn't yet begun, my mom's decorated the house with Christmas cheer, but I'm not yet listening to Christmas carols, etc.
I know that I won't get excited for Christmas until next week when my out-of-state family starts to arrive. Only then will I be able to imagine sitting in the basement of my grandparents' house with a slew of aunts and uncles milling around, munching on star-shaped sugar cookies, listening to one of my littlest cousins reading the Christmas story. Only then will I abandon my Scrooge-ish ways.
Until then, since I can't enjoy Christmas in earnest, I'll have to settle for reading David Sedaris and enjoying this:
What fun would the holidays be without a little emotional scarring?
2 comments:
They started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween on the radio!! No wonder we're done with the carols two weeks before Dec. 25th.
Hearing John Lennon's "..and so this is Christmas" song puts me back into the Spirit.
Oh, that picture!! You are baaad! :) Sandy's right--hard to beat John Lennon's song. On not such a classic note, I recommend Faith Hill's "Where Are You Christmas." (I think it was in "The Grinch" movie.)
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