One of my BFFs is jetting off to Kona this weekend for a month-long stay and I am still holding out hope she will kidnap me and make me go along. And when I say "make me" I mean, my bag is packed. But more likely I will be here for the duration of the Falalala-ing with December 26th circled in red on my calendar -- my favorite day of the time period from Thanksgiving to New Year's. What some call a let-down, I call relief.
Relief from the traditions, expectations, "to-do" lists, socializing, shopping, wrapping, cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, last minute shopping, lists, lists, lists, socializing, socializing, socializing, socializing….
I hear your advice, so don't even bother. You would be amazed at how little I do for the season compared to when my kids were young and I ran around like a friggin' Martha Stewart clone. To look at how I do the season now, comparatively, you'd think I was comatose. Still…
I don't think it is entirely my own doing that causes me to fall into a Christmas Season funk. I think it's the whole craziness that has grown up around it and this culture of commercialism that has influenced even the ways in which we think we are rebelling against it all. As if the pressure weren't great enough to create a meaningful, festive holiday I now am asked to "walk my talk" at an even brisker pace.
The pressure to "shop local" means no gifts or gift cards from stores my family loves. (I must have been a terrible mom to raise children to adulthood who go the mall for clothing -- where's your sewing machine??? And buy their lumber at Lowe's -- grow your own!!!) No bulk items from Costco that would make food and drink more affordable (even if I only buy organic, free trade, uncaged cheesecake?). No new Christmas music downloaded from I Tunes (get out the old clarinet; make your own music!), No new books (and every single other thing I can imagine) from Amazon (Fine…I'll write a book and impose it upon my unsuspecting loved ones). It's just a different version of the quest for perfection.
So, yeah. I'd like to be sitting on a beach about now and on Christmas morning, papaya juice running down my chin, Mai Tai in hand, I'd raise my glass to shield the sun. My BFF and her hub would then serenade me on their dual ukeleles plunking out a little "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", as the waves kiss the shoreline. Yep, that sounds about right.
At least, that's the view from here…. ©
I hope you intended for this to be humorous because I was laughing all the way though it.Not having kids or grandkids and always having to work on Christmas eve or day if it snowed, I never really got into the craziness of planing and buying a lot for Christmas. But I know that what you're describing is real for most people and must be exhausting.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm going outside and build myself a coop for some free range chickens.
Thanks, Jean. Glad you found it funny. I actually started out thinking I was going to write about something entirely different, and this emerged and gave me a chuckle. Isn't it fun when the inner writer's voice just takes over? (Get a heat lamp for the coop.)
DeleteI know, it is fun! Some of my best things come from ramble writing, where you free your inner self to just cut loose and go in a direction you don't plan ahead of time.
DeleteI meant to mention the first time that three of my great-great nieces and nephews our of five actually do have free range chickens and none of them had them growing up. And they don't live in the country. It just cracks me up for some reason, what young people do and think is so modern and forward thinking when our grandparents used to do the same things.
Oh, that free-range cheesecake, shade grown, freetrade, humanely constructed (that means with a glass of wine in hand)
ReplyDelete