It’s hard to feel the spirit when I’m busy worrying about final exams. On top of that, there are difficult family issues going on at home and we’re all touchy/explosive/emotional right now. Christmas just seems so big and complicated.
But then, I was downtown this week and saw the beautiful lights they’ve put up on McGill College Avenue… little kids wearing giant puffy coats and bright hats… the air smelling like snow… I came straight home and put up the Christmas lights outside. We’re going to have holiday joy this year, and I’m going to do my damndest to bring in the cheer for the rest of the family.
It’s easier to get in the holiday mood when you’re doing it for someone else’s benefit. It’s like smiling… fake it long enough and it ends up real. I guess it also helps that I’m not working retail this Christmas, for the first time in years.
But I swear, if I hear Céline Dion’s *O Holy Night * in the mall one more time I will explode.
I certainly am in the Christmas mood, especially now that the academic year has come to an end and my exams are all over. The weather has suddenly got a lot hotter (it was 35 today) and the gardenias and jacarandas are in bloom everywhere - a sure sign that Christmas isn’t far off. My church choir is preparing for our Advent carol service and for Midnight mass and I’m also rehearsing for four performances of Messiah. Yesterday we had the first of our office Christmas parties. We went to my boss’s place and had a BBQ and played backyard cricket. All very Australian!
Before I had kids Xmas was a pain in the arse and I couldn’t see the point of it all ( being a non-believer)but now the children have come along everything has changed. It’s had to because even if I’m not in the mood, they sure as hell are and I’ve come to enjoy it through them. The build up is stressful and my wardrobe (and my husband’s) is already groaning with stashed pressies but it’s worth it in the end just to see their faces on Xmas morning.
I’ve already had my best Xmas pressie; I won’t have to work on Xmas day. Yippee!
I think this means that, yes, I’m in the holiday mood…
My parents are the kind of people who put up a tree the saturday before xmas, even if xmas is on the Sunday, who take down the decorations on Jan 6th, and who didn’t let us mention santa or presents until after December 1st.
Old habits die hard, I’ll only feel in the mood once I’ve got my advent candle lit next week.
It’s old-fashioned, but I imagine it’s a sanity saving strategy when you have small children.
I was in the Christmas spirit before Thankgiving, but for the past few days I’ve been down in the dumps and haven’t even put up the tree yet. I need help getting back in. Even Bing Crosby and the Squirrel Nut Zippers haven’t helped.
I usually start getting in the holiday spirit right after Halloween. Then again, I’m a total holiday junkie. I’m downright giddy around the holidays. I’m flat broke, will be jobless in a week but still have a silly grin on my face and “ooh” and “ahhh” at all the decorations going up all over the place.
What can I say, I’ve never been able to resist that damn holiday cheer.
It comes from the depressing bit of experience of having my father die on Xmas day when I was nine.
When I was a teen I realized it wasn’t that that was bothering me about this time period anymore. It was many factors, but mostly the gross consumerism that appalled me then and still does now.
It is 29 years since my dad died. Yesterday we put up the tree . At my urging. Usually I wait until the week before. We watched the kids happily put up their ornaments from the safety of the stairs.
My husband and I both cried. They are so perfect.
Later on, putting on my ornaments, I came to the little mouse dressed as a chef. It was from my brother Tom. He was a chef until constant eye problems made him retire from that feild. it was down hill after that. A slow ride down hill. I started to tear up. I started thinking about what my life and what their lives would be like if it hadn’t been destroyed by such a terrible disease. I could not envision it any way but the way it has been and how I have learned so much in my life. I realized I wasn’t bitter anymore about the Lot In Life I had been given. I knew I had worked myself through it some time ago, but only realized it yesterday.
Then I spied the ornaments I gave to the kids last year . A girl and boy swimming. To mark their accomplishments in the pool and love of the water.
I started bawling. I mean flat out bawling like * I have never done before.[/size] Ever.
How did these two little grubs that I gave birth too grow up so fast and accomplish so much in their short lives? What did I do to deserve two incredible children?
I bawled so more and cried on my dogs furry back.
This is the first year I think I am going to really like Christmas.
It doesn’t mean I can’t resent The Man for pushing the Consumer Goods on Me. It doesn’t mean that I suddenly like the same turkey dinner that I’ve had every year of my life and married life. It doesn’t mean that the quality of presents just went waaaaay upward and my families are loaded with cash and good taste.
It means I am free to choose what traditions I want to create for my children and our family. Well within the threshhold of Mr. Ujests ability to accept Change. Anything NEW is suspect to him. So I have to introduce it through devious means, via the kids.
I’ve been living in Southern FLA for over 5 years now and it’s hard to get into the holiday spirit without environmental cues. Sub-tropical living has a timeless quality in that every day is about the same climate-wise. Today the highs were in the low 80s Farenheit. Great weather for walking to lunch but doesn’t inspire caroling.
That said, I am finally getting into the Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, it’s the Christmas of 1987. I’m a bit of a procrastinator.
I was in the spirit, but then it got pissed all over, and now all the stuff I usually really enjoy doing this time of year just feels like pointless crap to be slogged through whether I feel like it or not. (Yeah, I know, just don’t do it…but if I don’t do it now, I’m gonna be running like a chicken with my head cut off the week before Christmas, and then I’ll be too stressed-out to enjoy the holidays. I will not do that to myself ever again.)
But Rudolph is on tonight, and a big dose of claymation reindeer ought to perk me right up, especially when combined with a mug of hot chocolate, my reindeer antlers, Christmas tree lights, and presents to wrap.
I’m getting there. I just found out that I’m the lector at the Christmas Eve Midnight Service at church (I get to read the Christmas passages to the congregation), and that increased my good spirits. Give me a couple of weeks and I’ll be “ho ho ho-ing” with the best of them.
I’m not sure really. We planned on not having a tree, so I packed away the ornaments (I had to get the box down to get last year’s ½ price tags out) and I still feel kinda strange about it. I’m not much for the Christmas hype normally, but I feel like I don’t have anything to look forward to this year. I have to go visit a relative I don’t much like and the fun shopping is done, so I feel like only drudgery awaits. Maybe hot chocolate is the cure.
Yup! It happened this afternoon while I was driving home for lunch. I decided to fa-la-la-la-la along with James Taylor on the radio and BLAMMO I wanna go buy a tree and put up the lights and address my cards and buy my honey his West Wing Season 2 on DVD!
No money to buy anything, let alone gifts, and I’m not going to get my next paycheck until after winter break. My parents have decided (again) they have a serious problem with me spending time when I’m home with my best friend. Several of my sister’s friends are spending the holidays in Iraq. I’m going to spend Christmas with extended family I don’t particularly like and spend the entire time listening to them demanding I explain what one does with my type of degree when I graduate, why aren’t I doing something practical in life? I’m going to, no doubt, spend a lot of time making international calls to one of my good friends who’s spending the holidays with family in England. His family’s going to be interrogating him about why he’s no longer engaged, something that really puts him a great mood. I’m one of the few people in the country, it seems, who doesn’t celebrate any winter holiday.
Also, I re-injured my ankle just a few days before I was going to finally get back to karate class after resting it for two weeks. So it’s going to take even longer for it to heal now.
I have zero Christmas spirit going on. Being in Florida makes that extra easy. Ok, I lie, my only happy moment for Christmas will be the Secret Santa thing. I decided to get an Easy Bake oven for my Toys For Tots gift.
I’m still feeling like crap from my leaky bile duct. Gotta love that toxic bile floating around your abcominal cavity. I’m doing zero celebrating, no cards, no decorating and no friends or family for any celebrating. I’m still working on that divorce thing, so my local family is his, and my family is in Michigan (they’re not all that fun for the holidays anyways).
Unlike Eve, my drug of choice this year is Xanex, Valium seems to do nothing for me. On special days I’ll have a Percocet, I’ll keep that down to a couple/few a week.
Since I have the energy of an 85 year old, I’ll avoid most of the retail Christmas crap. Unfortunately, I still have to go to the grocery store. Those people ringing the bell… I know they are doing it for a good cause, but I really think I could kill them. The bell hurts my ears and makes me want to implode.
OH, and them people with them damn blow up things are pissing me off too. One house, with a TINY front yard has 4 stupid things.
Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.