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| Me, right after getting drummed out of the elf corps for insisting on wearing black. |
Have I forgotten any? Maybe, and this time last year, I’d have been too frazzled to know the difference. This year I’m too tranquil to give a fig.
But whether I stay calm or not, I’ve decided the holidays have been responsible for way too much upset in my life and this year I’m done with that nonsense. This year, I don’t care if Santa falls off the roof and dies; it’s not going to get to me. Even if he lives and sues, I’m staying zen about it all.
We let the holidays stomp all over us with their big, black, rubber snow boots, and come to think of it, it’s not the holidays' fault; it’s ours. By ours I mean the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents, the retailers, all of us. We either make the holidays hell (retailers and Black Friday shoppers) or we allow our holidays to become hell (normal people and Black Friday shoppers).
Blame it on my baby boomer mentality if you will, but I don't remember Christmas pressure starting so early when I was a kid - I don't think it did, anyway. Or maybe my parents just didn't buy into it so I wasn't aware of it. These days we allow shopping chains to start ho’ing us around in their greedy grips before our jack-o-lanterns are moldy. We start worrying that our homes don’t look like the hotel in White Christmas. If we’re Christian we start resenting our Jewish friends for getting off so easy and if we’re Jewish, we think it would be cool to get more presents for once.
This doesn’t even factor in for Kwanzaa or St. Lucia’s Day. In fact, the real holiday miracle is that the faithful haven't burned the world down at least once by now.
Boxing Day is the only winter holiday I can think of that doesn’t involve a lot of candle-burning, but still, every year, people beat each other senseless thinking they’re supposed to be boxing like boxers. Or they smack each other stupid with empty, leftover gift boxes. It’s TRUE. (No it's not.) But who really understands British and Canadian holidays besides the British and the Canadians?
Here’s the reality for far too many of us this time of year: Helpless and hopeless, we throw ourselves under the next one-horse open sleigh that comes along. And most people don’t know this, but the song, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is based on a true incident which happened in 1947 when a stressed-out grandmother named Iva Haddit threw herself in front of a rogue reindeer at a petting zoo in Minot, North Dakota; all this in an effort to land herself in the hospital until the holidays blew over. That’s true too! (No it's not.)
This year I’m getting on Etsy, buying myself a handmade kerchief and settling my brains for a long winter’s nap. I’ll go down before Christmas and get up in time for Groundhog Day. And if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, I’m goin’ back down.
You can call me in time for the summer solstice.
