Christmas: The Ultimate Anticlimax

Every year I look forward to Christmas, starting in July.

And I actually love the fact that retailers are pushing Christmas items onto shoppers earlier and earlier each year. The more the merrier, I say. It's like a win-win. Good for business, and good for people who love the feel of Christmas in the air, like me.

And when November rolls around, it's a welcome non-stop Christmas-a-thon. On tv, in the movie theatres, in the malls, everywhere, strings of lights, red, and gold. Ho ho ho and good cheer to all.

And just when anticipation is at its most heightened frenzy, just when you can taste your vacation days beginning, that's when it all goes downhill.

You know what I'm talking about. Those few days beginning the 22nd or 23rd, when you start to spend serious time with family. Everyone flies in from the far corners of the earth and you're all stuck together in unfamiliar confines.

Now, I love my family, but let's face it. Home is where the annoyance, irritation, and sometimes worse, the heartache is.

On Christmas Eve, you usually find that one person has an ill-temper because they have the flu, one person just has an ill-temper as always, and there's always at least another who's simply absent because he or she doesn't care for Christmas. That's if you're lucky.

If you're unlucky, there's been a massive blow-out fight and presents won't be opened until New Year's Day.

Either way, you're the one left holding the bag...of decorations.

I know life is not an ABC Afterschool Special: Home for the Holidays, starring Tracy Gold. But why does it have to be so stark, the difference between the Christmas in my mind and the one in reality?

All I know is, it's just another example of anticipation being a bitch. The more you make out of something, the more disappointing the reality is. Actual Christmas suffers for the immense build-up our culture produces starting in early October. The perfectly trimmed tree, the perfectly scrubbed white family on tv, the music.

But even so, I won't give up the anticipation. In my head there is a perfect Christmas and I refuse to "re-adjust" it to cushion the blow of reality. I'm a cautious pessimist in every other aspect of my life (I probably won't lose that last 5% of body fat, I probably can't get perfectly clear skin, I probably won't ever love my job, and I'll probably never furnish my house the way I want), but damn it, I'm holding on to Christmas!

I will never stop hoping, anticipating, wishing, and trying, trying, trying. I don't care how many gifts I have to wrap, how many trees I have to decorate by myself, and how many Christmas songs I have to play...by myself too.

For the love of Christmas. The Dream lives on.


Hope you had the Christmas of your dreams and boldly anticipate a great New Year.