Sunday, November 28, 2004

Me, The Holidays, and The Baby Jesus: Learning to Love Again

Thanksgiving was lovely. My family went to the home of some close family friends who invited several other families from the same old crowd at my parent's church. It was like a large family and made me grateful for the community where I was raised. All those kids are like my cousins and all their parents my aunts and uncles.

The only slight drawback to a large mixed holiday gathering is that every single family cannot observe every single tradition so Saturday night my parents had my sister and I over for "the good dressing" and to start Christmas decorating. As I sat on the floor of the living room waiting for my mother to drop the cable to another part of the living room (don't make me explain, it involved a television move), I was able to rediscover my mother's vast Precious Moments collection. If you don't remember the pastel runny-eyed porcelain children that I shared a home with for the first 22 years of my life then you obviously lived on a different hemisphere in the 70's and 80's. I resisted the urge to "accidently" break this one and made a mental note to check collector's prices soon as I can just picture my sister and I when the time comes to move them out of that house.

This Christmas, I need to figure out how to find a healthy relationship with the baby Jesus. I mean, I love him as an adult, I really really do but this is my first non retail Christmas in 5 years and well, I just don't like Christmas. I mean, I like it once I am out of school and have time to exhale from working two jobs but advent? Not so much. I am excited to be making a lot of gifts and avoiding too much shopping. Perhaps avoiding all malls will help with the creeping bitterness I find at this most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps by the next time I speak to you, internet, I will be decked in tinsel and singing carols with all my angst behind me.

Perhaps not. But it can't be as bad as it is when I spend my nights pimping lotion.

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