So, I didn't realize this until yesterday, but I hate Christmas. It turns out, I'm not alone in how I feel about this, but Londo's crotchety-ness isn't really surprising to me. I am, however, surprised by my feelings.
When we are kids, Christmas is a wonderful, magic time. Everything is done for us, without us thinking about it. There are decorations, good food, presents, candy, carols, cards, time off of school. It's great! My sister, brother and I would wake up our parents, run downstairs and open our stockings, and then all eat breakfast together. Usually, my dad would make our favorite eggs-in-toast, while mom was working on the Christmas dinner. After breakfast, we'd all go open presents. Then we'd either go to my Grandmother's house or have the family over to our house, and there'd be more presents and games and food. It was so much fun.
Now, I'm not only an adult, but a parent. Now I have to do the present buying, decorating, present wrapping, baking (although this is my favorite part), stocking stuffing, cooking a contribution to the Christmas dinner, holiday card writing (which I still haven't finished), and on and on. There is just so much stress--it hardly seems worth it! Especially to celebrate the birthday of someone who was most likely born in August or September!
Perhaps all the holidays this time of year (including placing the celebration of Jesus' birth during this time period) is really to celebrate the solstice, lengthening of days and return of the sun (or sun gods) during the bleak winters that humans struggle through. Then why do we put so much on ourselves to do this time of year? It seems to me like we should make this time of year easier on ourselves because winters are tough, and the lack of sunlight makes people more tired. Did I mention that I have Seasonal Affective Disorder with my main symptom being overwhelming tiredness/exhaustion? Yeah, this time of year is especially rough for me, even without my sleep deprivation from the Pumpkin.
But I will have to continue celebrating Christmas, especially now that I have a child. I will soldier on and try to do as much as I can with as little stress as possible. (I'm hearing the Mission Impossible theme in my head...) Maybe I can hide my feelings and keep the magic alive for the Pumpkin and any other children we have. I think Londo and I just need to start earlier, which we always mean to do. When are they old enough to start helping out more? ;-)
Edited to add: I meant to say that there were some really bright and beautiful moments to Christmas day and even the holiday time in general. There were some moments of pure joy and beauty in amongst all the stress and frustration. Mostly due to the Pumpkin and other kids and their joy at everything. And that was precious.
5 comments:
Totally understand.
Until this year I hated Christmas as an adult as well. However, I found ways to make it better. For one, we did almost no decorating. I did 95% of my Christmas shopping online. No huge baking (just little bits). Even what I think will be our Christmas breakfast was a "cheat" (Trader Joes scones with warmed Ikea Glogg).
For me it was all about letting stuff go and not feeling bad about it.
If we didn't have the Pumpkin, I believe we would celebrate Christmas by waking up at noon on a beach somewhere.
Completely understandable. I think Becoming Mommy has the key and something I will try to remember next year.
I was a little disappointed with myself this year because I didn't put lights on the bushes, make a ton of cookies or even cook the Christmas meal (we opted for the Honey Baked Ham meal package). But Christmas turned out well without those things. As a matter of fact, my relatives who were here yesterday said it was one of the best Christmases (sp?) they've had in a long time. Of course, that had every thing to do with our lil' Monkey and nothing to do with the meal, decorations or anything else. :)
Perhaps there's something to be said for that too. As long as the wee ones have a good time, we can relax and have fun too. They don't care about all the things we tend to think are important.
We'll both find a happy medium someday, I'm sure!
Have a Happy New Year!
I didn't put up a tree this year and I got so much crap for it. I like Christmas okay but a tree would have been one more thing for me to do and for me to have to tell Boog "no, no" about. I decided to save us all the trouble. We weren't even here anyway and he doesn't know the difference.
It still amazes me how much crap I got for it though. Here's to less to do this time of year!
I'm the opposite. I didn't much like Christmas as a kid (it was ALWAYS disappointing and not because I didn't get gift I wanted, we're talking a whole other level of disappointment). But now, as a parent, I'm loving everything about it. I only do what I think is fun and let all the rest slide. The trees? SO FUN! The baking? I love it! The shopping? I wish I could do it year round.
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