It’s that time again, where parents encourage an overweight stranger to touch their children and whore nuts are all the rage at Whole Foods. No, it’s not one night in Bangkok, it’s Christmas.
I love Christmas. I hate it. I’m conflicted. Christmas is a struggle for me because I feel split between two different parts of myself: Little kid me and the jaded asshole I’ve become. On one hand, Christmas was a big holiday for me growing up. My mom loves it, more than loves it, she’s essentially a Christmas elf, in both her physical size and joy. Every year, her home explodes into what can best be described as a Christmas cornucopia. When she’s not actively decorating her house to look exactly like Santa’s workshop, she maintains the Christmas spirit by blasting Manheim Steamroller in July. Honestly, the only thing she’s lacking is real Santa and a fleet of flying reindeer.
Because of my mom’s unbridled enthusiasm for the holidays, there’s a part of me that is filled to the brim with nostalgia come December. I love Jingle Bell Rock, holiday cheer, and decorating my tree. However, there’s an equal part of me that loathes the whole thing. I really struggle with the waste, consumerism, and the fact that it’s become a giant corporate clusterfuck. I’m also not religious. However, I’m positive that Jesus wouldn’t approve of us celebrating his B-day with 2 billion tons of wrapping paper in a landfill and a discounted Walmart Kitchenaid Mixer.
So how do I keep celebrating a holiday that I love while making it mean something more than psychotic sales at Target and feeling drained when everything is about gifts, gifts, gifts? I love gifts, like a lot, but I like gifts to mean something, not just, “here, I’m obligated to do this and try not to choke on it.”
The solution seems to be to reinvent the holiday altogether. What I like about it:
Celebrating the change of season from fall to winter.
Eggnog.
Food.
Doing acts of service.
Being grateful for stuff.
Giving people I care about things that might make them happy.
The tree.
Stockings.
Time with friends and family.
Winter solstice. Look at me, the ice queen!
What I’d like to do is turn the holiday into what I think it was supposed to be in the first place: A jolly time for giving and being grateful while also being drunk among people you like. My new holiday will be a time for getting together with friends, making some kind of grateful list (also good for depression! double win!) drinking a ton of spiked eggnog, decorating a tree (yay to praising the environment! Thank symbolic tree for oxygen!), visiting relatives and bestowing gifts of locally bought goods or services (local economies!) wrapped in some kid of eco-friendly bag (because wrapping paper just really pisses me off), donating to an important cause, forcing friends and family to also donate to cause and/or dragging them or guilting them into doing nonprofit work with me. And, eating so, so much food. Food is life.
It’s basically just about food. Booze and food.
What are some traditions that you do for the holidays? I want to hear how all of you will be celebrating this year (or every year).
m.e. evans 
When I was married, my husband and I, every Christmas Eve, would share a Harry & David cheese/cracker/salami gift pack, because my aunt gave one to us when we were first married, and we loved it, cheesy though it was (no pun intended). Then we would watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and Dr. Seuss’s “Grinch” (the old-school cartoon one). And open one present, usually from his mom, because she just didn’t get it, so we didn’t feel we were “wasting” a gift-opening opportunity. Ha! And we would have a seafood feast that night, since we were at my SIL’s on Christmas Day – that way, we at least got our own celebratory meal in.
Now that I’m single, I still try to watch those two classics if I can get them each year (the ex got custody of the DVDs, as they were a gift from me). This year, my BF will be in town the entire week, and we’ll have the seafood feast Christmas Eve…we’ll have to come up with some of our own traditions!
Merry Christmas, M – I hope the New Year is fabulous for you all…and that you get to NYC, damnit!
Wynne! Yes! Me and F do seafood on Xmas eve, too. That’s his fave part I think. My mom let us open one gift on Xmas eve and it was always a new pair of pajamas for the year. I still love that. I forgot about those movies!!! I need to revisit them! I also love sharing snacks on Christmas Eve. That’s a really cute idea and sounds cozy af. Yes to NY! 2018 we will meet for drinks!