Why is it December?
Dec. 1st, 2012 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21That (the icon) is a picture of Aristotle the Cat. He was looking beleaguered because we'd been cleaning the house all day in preparation for company and he hates the vacuum cleaner and smelly cleaning things and people moving things around on him. I feel the way he looks today.
A small secret: I don't like Christmas, in the secular sense. In the liturgical sense, Advent and Christmas are my favorite seasons. But secular Christmas is just stressful and overwhelming and has...expectations. It even seems that looking back, even as a kid, everything seemed terribly fraught. That may be me looking back on it now, with adult eyes (we are all revisionist historians of our own childhood, aren't we?), but I do remember chafing against the strict orchestration of everything in one house and being overwhelmed and overstimulated in the chaos of the other house. And I was almost always sick, particularly before we figured out that I'm incredibly allergic to real Christmas trees. But even when we got the artificial tree, I still had bronchitis or a sinus infection or an ear infection most years because I almost always had bronchitis or a sinus infection or an ear infection all winter as a kid.
And then there was the Christmas my grandma died, and the many Christmases that one or another of my grandparents was in the hospital (usually they were home by Christmas Day, but not always). Oh, and the year my mom lost her job and my dad decided he was quitting his in the middle of December. That year was fun. For values of fun that include suppressed terror. And most recently, there's been the four Christmases where it's just me and my parents, because my brother lives far away and my grandparents are all gone now and I'm not holding up my end of the bargain by getting married and having kids, and it's just kind of depressing.
And it's cold and it's dark, and people are seriously insane in how they drive and how they shop and how they interact with other people. I worked retail for a very long time, so I am all too well acquainted with the special hell that is Christmas shoppers. I am terribly lucky that I'm not working retail this year. Even though, being unemployed and being broke for nearly my entire adult life means that I don't get to really participate in the fun of buying presents for other people- and I do like finding presents for people. A lot. It's part of what makes the whole thing bearable. And there's the ridiculous War on Christmas mess to boot. And the expectation that even if you're gloomy, you need to not ruin it for everyone else.
I do have good memories of Christmas as a kid. And when (if) I have kids of my own, I'm sure it will be easier to be excited and create traditions for them. And I do enjoy making Christmas cookies- and eating them, of course. And I'm going to be glad to see my brother and sister-in-law, who will be coming for the holiday. But seriously, if I could fast-forward to January 2nd, it'd probably be just as well.
A small secret: I don't like Christmas, in the secular sense. In the liturgical sense, Advent and Christmas are my favorite seasons. But secular Christmas is just stressful and overwhelming and has...expectations. It even seems that looking back, even as a kid, everything seemed terribly fraught. That may be me looking back on it now, with adult eyes (we are all revisionist historians of our own childhood, aren't we?), but I do remember chafing against the strict orchestration of everything in one house and being overwhelmed and overstimulated in the chaos of the other house. And I was almost always sick, particularly before we figured out that I'm incredibly allergic to real Christmas trees. But even when we got the artificial tree, I still had bronchitis or a sinus infection or an ear infection most years because I almost always had bronchitis or a sinus infection or an ear infection all winter as a kid.
And then there was the Christmas my grandma died, and the many Christmases that one or another of my grandparents was in the hospital (usually they were home by Christmas Day, but not always). Oh, and the year my mom lost her job and my dad decided he was quitting his in the middle of December. That year was fun. For values of fun that include suppressed terror. And most recently, there's been the four Christmases where it's just me and my parents, because my brother lives far away and my grandparents are all gone now and I'm not holding up my end of the bargain by getting married and having kids, and it's just kind of depressing.
And it's cold and it's dark, and people are seriously insane in how they drive and how they shop and how they interact with other people. I worked retail for a very long time, so I am all too well acquainted with the special hell that is Christmas shoppers. I am terribly lucky that I'm not working retail this year. Even though, being unemployed and being broke for nearly my entire adult life means that I don't get to really participate in the fun of buying presents for other people- and I do like finding presents for people. A lot. It's part of what makes the whole thing bearable. And there's the ridiculous War on Christmas mess to boot. And the expectation that even if you're gloomy, you need to not ruin it for everyone else.
I do have good memories of Christmas as a kid. And when (if) I have kids of my own, I'm sure it will be easier to be excited and create traditions for them. And I do enjoy making Christmas cookies- and eating them, of course. And I'm going to be glad to see my brother and sister-in-law, who will be coming for the holiday. But seriously, if I could fast-forward to January 2nd, it'd probably be just as well.