This is the part of the holiday seasons that makes me batshit butternuts crazy and drives me half to drink and causes me to lose sleep and sometimes laugh out loud to the point of tears at possibly unfunny totally random shit that I read on other people's blogs. (Or maybe it's funny, I don't know, I'm not a nurse and I don't play one on TV. What-the-fuck-ever. MOVING ON!)
I call this time "The Doldrums," or perhaps "The Humdrums," or if I am feeling especially belligerent and self-lothing, "The Dum-dums." In any event, it is the time between St. Nick's and Christmas, that two weeks or so where nothing is necessarily happening except that the list of unfinished holiday-related bullshit lengthens as the number of hours of daylight shortens.
The older I get, the less I feel like dealing with this crap. And of course some of the drama is of my own making, which only exacerbates the problem. For example, every year I ask myself: 70 Christmas cards? Really? How do we even fucking KNOW this many goddamn people? And not even half of them send us cards, so why do we continue to bother?
And the answer, of course, is that these people are our friends and family and if we don't send Christmas cards, hand signed and hand addressed and hand stamped, if we don't do this, then I will be completely consumed with Catholic guilt and I will die of shame and my husband will never be able to show his face in public again because of my failure in my wifely duties.
Yes, yes, I know -- I bring this on myself. Christmas is only one day out of the year, and it's not supposed to be about presents or obligations, but about families and togetherness and celebrations of joy. I know all this. But the expectations! Everybody expects something, even me, and we feel put out and let down if these expectations are not met.
I wish I could turn it off, all of it. Turn off the lights tonight and wake up tomorrow and it will magically be Christmas. Cupcake will open her presents and G will open his and I will open mine and we will eat something, maybe some French toast and sausage, and then we will go back to bed and everything will be over. Done, until next year when it starts all over again.
So ... yeah, I'm depressed. It's the holidays. It happens. Never mind me. I'll just sing "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" over and over again, maybe read some Robert Fulghum books, and soon enough I will be done being Scrooge and I can go back to being me again. Not that being "me" is all that much better. But still.
i hear you on the whole christmas card thing. especially with postage being 40+ cents per envelope, it starts to get "expensive" fast. not sure what we're doing yet. i guess i should decide this weekend. maybe we'll do a new year's card and include the birth announcement in that, too.
ReplyDeletei know what you mean about the blahs, though. i mean, there's less than two weeks, and i'm still decorating? why? i'm just going to have to put everything away in three weeks. i'll have to start earlier next year ;-)
we start early -- usually right after thanksgiving -- and that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. in some ways it's worse, i guess, because it just goes on longer.
ReplyDeleteand it's a damn shame, because i actually do love christmas: the lights and the music and the snow and the presents. it's the rigamarole, the dog and pony show, nonsense, that drives me nuts.
like i said, it's the doldrums. maybe if i eat some cookie dough everything will be better.