I have a few friends who are glad the holidays are over. Truthfully, I’m kind of bummed. There are plenty of things that annoy me about the Christmas season. Most of them are my fellow humans. The traffic, the retail insanity and the feeling of rushing were way not fun. What I do miss, however, is the sense of celebration. In that way, I wish I had started sooner. I don’t mean the whipping out of the next holiday decorations before the current one is over. I mean looking forward to the actual holiday, rather than getting sucked into a vortex of to do lists.
It may help if I put more things on my calendar rather than let things slide until the last minute. God forbid I get organized. I’m theorizing that starting earlier will also allow us to do something fun and festive as a family even if I have to drag my daughter kicking and screaming away from her video games to pull it off. No, I probably wouldn’t post it on Facebook, either. I would enjoy feeling like those perfect-look-how-much-fun-we’re-having bastards, at least for a few hours.
The best part of the holidays started with Thanksgiving, largely because it was such a huge improvement over last year. After spending it at a restaurant previously, it was really nice to be home this time. A part of me didn’t really believe it was even going to happen so planning didn’t even start until a few days before. I was in no hurry to bring on winter after a fall holiday either. If anything, I think the retail bring on Christmas-so-we-can-get-your-money-now created an almost anti-holiday backlash, at least at my house.
The problem was that the next holiday was pretty close behind if I had thought about it. Now I get why people start their holiday preparations early, I said people, Not retailers. If I had it to do over again, which I do in about 11 months, I would do things like make and freeze cookie dough, print some address labels for cards, and get a clue about who I needed to buy for and how much. Over the years I have smartened up and I shop for people in the order that I see them. I’m guessing calendar notes will help here since I keep the thing on my fridge. (We’ll see how well this theory pans out by next year.)
Now that I am left with decorations to pack up and the winter in my face, I am choosing to not get mad. I am planning to get even. I am lucky that we have a wonderful group of friends and the fact that we have no pets makes our home the allergy friendly place to gather. Rather than deal with a bleak winter with no holiday to celebrate, I’m going to make one up, sort of. I will be using any cheap excuse that comes along to have people over and call it a festivus. I’m hoping that things like making a turkey for the Superbowl when we could care less about football will help me through the winter. I’ll also get rid of a turkey.
I’d like to figure out something to make a big deal about for March like Saint Patrick’s Day, even though we’re mostly Polish. If things get really bad, I may need to look into Mardi Gras. Maybe my real problem is that I’m just not a fan of winter. We delicate flowers need our heat and tax season doesn’t exactly make a person want to party.
I do want to take some time to enjoy each holiday as it comes, (major and minor). If I miss one on the calendar, I’ll make another. Up yours, winter.