I have attitude about holidays. When I was in school, I loved them. I looked forward to them as a break from homework, from class, from the daily routine. But once I left school, I decided that way of being was fundamentally broken. What’s wrong with my life if I don’t enjoy the day to day stuff–if I’m only looking forward to the exception?
So instead I built myself a life I like day-to-day. And if I find myself not enjoying the day-to-day stuff, I adjust my life until I do.
Which makes holidays kind of unnecessary.
I know there are lots of good things about Christmas. It’s a time when we’re supposed to think about giving. But institutionalizing a holiday for that feels like a cop out to me. We’re supposed to think about giving, rather than receiving, all year long, aren’t we? Having a holiday for it just feels like an excuse for not being that way all the time. For me, Christmas is a religious holiday as well. But I’m supposed to think about and try to be like Christ every day, not just on Christmas. So if I’m actually doing my part (which I’m not saying I’m particularly good at), then I shouldn’t need a holiday to remind me to do it.
I like Christmas decorations well enough. I like getting together with family. To me, that’s really the point. So some of my musings may be caused by the Christmas we’re having this year–we had a year of awesome, but we’re worn out, financially and emotionally. So we’re staying home. And we don’t have kids, so a lot of the traditional things don’t really work all that well.
We have a tacky tree. I made a Christmas tree skirt and stockings, which was lots of fun, particularly because I got to dig out my Christmas fabric stash and use almost all of it up. I love to make things without having to go to the store. (That’s been a theme lately. There may be pictures later of the random crafts I’ve been dredging out of my bins of leftovers.) This will be the first year I’ll be a co-stocking-filler, which is kind of neat.
I didn’t get it together to bake anything this year, but the neighbors brought us treats. (Note to self: you live in a real neighborhood now. Do this next year.)
But really all I want this year is quiet. All I want is to not have to put on a production. (Some of this is, I think, inspired by the fact that I just did a production of Thanksgiving dinner, which was awesome, but which I would be happy to only be in charge of every third year or so. Christmas dinner this year = I think we’ll go out.)
And I don’t really have the social energy to gather with lots of other people, either. We’ll do a few things. Bingo with Drew’s extended family on Christmas Eve. Shooting gingerbread houses with the aunt’s family on Christmas Day. (If it’s as awesome as the exploding My Little Ponies on the 4th of July this will be the highlight of the holiday.) But I don’t have the energy for the endless social things which we could attend. I love all these people, I swear. I’m not scrooge. I’m just tired.
And so we come to today. Drew took the week off. Our house is empty. We already went to see True Grit, which was the holiday thing we’ve been looking forward to all year. (It didn’t disappoint. The Coen brothers never do.) So we have this whole empty day, and what are we doing?
I’m writing; Drew’s painting.
I guess that’s all the holiday we need.