Sometimes I wish I could just find someone that gets it. I think if someone else gets it than I will not feel so abnormal. I start dreading the holidays oh about November 1st and I can’t wait for New Years to get here. It isn’t really like me to wish the days away. New Years is one of my top three holidays. July 4th and Easter being the other two. December 31st means it is all over with until next year and I am relieved. I often refer to myself as a scrooge, but after looking up the definition I can clearly see that I am not. I feel a little better.
Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness.- Wikipedia
I want to clarify that I am a Christian and I believe on December 25th that we should all commemorate the birth of Jesus, but this isn’t really what Christmas is all about. It is all the other festivities that I despise. This is what I wished people would get. I do realize that the reason I may view Christmas comes from growing up in a home that never had the money to celebrate, but I truthfully think that is more to the fact that I don’t have my place to go to every year. I got tired of trying to decide which place, home, family and friends that I would fit in with and celebrate. I do realize that I am extremely lucky to have options since there are people out there that have none.
I remember the first handful of years that I was on my own. I have many pictures and memories of celebrating with friends, families of friends, my distant family, roommates, boyfriends and families of boyfriends. I went all out, got excited and enjoyed them as much as I knew how. Every year there was a new tradition I would try to start to only be disappointed to not be able to do that tradition with the same people next year. As the time passed it just got exhausting and after spending a holiday alone I realized I enjoyed it just as much. It wasn’t because of me that I didn’t spend the holidays alone every year it was because everyone else didn’t get it. Everyone else just doesn’t understand how someone could sit alone on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They feel sorry for you, they want to invite you over and hopefully make your Christmas an awesome one. What they don’t get is that I don’t need that to make it better. I really am happy just being able to have another day off of work to do what I wish.
This year I was told that if I decorate, try and take action in holiday festivities it will put me in the “spirit” of Christmas. I thought I would give it a try. I figure it doesn’t hurt anything and maybe something magical will happen. I am a firm believer that one should never get too old to believe in a little magic! I recorded some Christmas music, pulled out the decorations and even had some candles going to get the scent of Christmas. I shouted out on my face book page, took pictures and had friends encouraging my behavior. I was set and ready to try and embark on this holiday season.
When I pulled down the boxes I was surprised to see how long it had been since I had decorated. I think it has been close to five years. I admit I was disappointed in myself, not because I care, but because society does. I don’t want society to frown upon my behavior. After all the effort I put in to this evening of decorating was finished I sat on my couch, looked at the blinking lights, smelt the apple cinnamon and since my apartment is rather small I was surrounded by red and green. The only thing I felt was the need to reorganize, wash, clean and pack all the stuff back up. I ignored this urge for a couple of weeks and continued on with trying to get in the spirit.
I signed up to do some holiday volunteering at the local children’s hospital. I made a point to rent Christmas themed movies on Sunday evenings to watch with my boyfriend. We put a Christmas puzzle together to hopefully start a tradition and even drove two hours out of our way to go to a spectacular drive through Christmas light show. I sent out my bills with a Christmas card. I even downloaded Christmas ring tones that I assigned to my most frequent callers.
I am still just as ready for the holiday to be over as I was to start trying to embrace it. I almost have everything cleaned, reorganize, put away and packed back up. I will have the normal conversations with friends that I have every year about trying to get me to come and join their families. I will keep wishing that someone will get it, respect it and know that it isn’t as bad as they think it is. On a lighter note, I do hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. I will be rather interested to compare this year to next year and every year after that. Here are some pictures of the amazing lights that we saw. Everyone should experience Santa Land at least once.
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