Anti-Holiday Rant

Here's an image of my mind, my house, my life at Christmastime........a chaotic mix, like these shadow patterns. Over the whole scene is the smile of sunshine......that should be an encouraging consolation.

"These boots are made for".......walking in snow and casting shadows.......yesterday, anyway. See tomorrow's post for LOTS of snow in photos!
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OK........now to the real reason for this post, which has been pushing and pummeling to become an anti-holiday rant. I can't fight it any longer.
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I want to like Christmas......truly I do, but the season always ends up taking me too far out of my normal routine/comfort zone. Here's the deal......my normal routine is all I can sort of successfully handle. When the days turn short and cold in late November, I am ready to hole up and rest for awhile, but is that then allowed or expected. NO! All of sudden, its time for giddy holiday preparations.......decking the halls and all that, which completely goes against my grain.
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Last Friday, a moment I had been dreading arrived.......my college daughter came home for the holidays. Its not that I wasn't happy to see her, its just that I knew I would now have to go digging for tree ornaments in the cramped closet where we keep the Christmas stuff. Sure enough, she walked into the house, took a look around---and, mind you, I do have few decorations up, and several small lighted trees sitting around---and exclaimed, "You don't have the Christmas tree up yet!" She meant a big, real one. I said, "I bought a four-foot artificial one at Target; you can put it up......and I will try to find the family ornaments."
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OK, this is going to sound awful, but we didn't decorate a tree the past two Christmases. In '06, I was still in a semi-mental-breakdown state after my big crack-up the spring before. My husband went to a tree farm and brought home a gigantic tree, which infuriated me (inside) . I didn't really want a tree and certainly not one that big, so all I did was put lights on it, and nobody else made a move to do add anything to it. One problem was I just couldn't bear the thought of digging through that Christmas closet. Last year ('07) we didn't do a tree because we were all too emotionally drained from Husband's father passing away shortly after Thanksgiving. Thus, when I started digging in the closet yesterday, I realized I hadn't unpacked most of the boxes in there since Christmas of 2005.......it seemed like a lifetime ago. And, wouldn't you know, the family ornaments were in a box buried clear down in the farthest, hard-to-reach corner of the closet.
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Christmas of '04 hadn't been very good, either......I had been badly shaken by recent deaths in the area, plus I was very involved with the Sunday School kids' Christmas Eve program that year. It doesn't sound like much, probably, but it happened to be the first year that the Sunday School teachers were asked to organize and run the program, where in previous years it had been done by our Lutheran dayschool teachers. The Christmas Eve program is a HUGE deal at our church......people have VERY high expectations for it. I was the Sunday School teacher for the 3 and 4-year-olds. Normally, their part was simply to sing "Away in a Manger".......which is enough for kids that age to do, in my opinion. Well, under the new program regime, the little kids were expected to do and learn more. And, the leader kept handing out new songs for me to teach to the kids, and it seemed I was supposed to be able to do that in a 20-minute span of time. Have you ever tried teaching a unfamiliar songs to 3 and 4-year-olds? Well, I somehow survived the program, but it had been very stressful. Add in that it was traditional for us to host the grandparents at our house for food and opening of gifts after church on Christmas Eve, which involved alot of preparations, too. It was all just too much.......too many expectations, plus I think I was starting on the road to the breakdown, back then already.
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Though I certainly appreciate the true meaning of Christmas---the birth of the Christ Child---there are times I descend into thinking that holidays were invented just to torture women. We're expected to do all sorts of extra stuff.......decorating, baking, shopping, etc. And, we're expected to be just happy as punch to be doing, doing, doing all that, and never get tired, either. Think about it.....down through the centuries......WHO "decks the halls" the majority of the time? Women. WHO makes wassail for "here we go a-wassailing"? Women. WHO makes the figgy pudding so we can wish everyone a Merry Christmas? Women. WHO doesn't rest while "God rests the merry gentlemen"? Women.
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My husband works very hard.....year-round.....but, I can tell you that his routine does not change during the holiday season. He does the same thing every day then that he always does......cow chores and more cow chores. He doesn't do any baking and cooking, or decorating, or shopping. He doesn't have to deal with the stress of an out-of-the-ordinary routine.
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Tomorrow night (weather permitting), I am hosting an annual get-together of several of my friends from childhood school days. Usually, one of the other gals hosts it, but I, in an unusually heady moment a few weeks ago, offered to host it if she didn't feel like it, while at the same time being quite sure that she would still choose to have that party at her house. Her house is very nice, and VERY NEAT. Her husband cleans! Can you imagine! Well, I suppose he should be willing to do that since his wife has very busy accounting career going on.
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Long story short......after some confusion, I did find out just the other day that I was indeed hosting the party. The last time she and I talked, I had vented a bit about the holiday hectic-ness that seems to creep in every year.......she replied with, "Why do you think I'm heading to Mexico for Christmas? I want to get away from all of that." Well.......I'm happy for her.......she and her husband have the time and the money to do such a thing. I would do it too, if such a thing were feasible.
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You'd be impressed with my group of old friends.......heck, I'M impressed with them! We've known each other since kindergarten.......played jump-rope every recess........traded Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery books, competed for top grades, marched in band together, played basketball together, etc., etc. The friend I mentioned above went to college AFTER her kids were born, graduated top in her accounting class at UNI, and is the financial director at a community college. Another friend also went to school for accounting and is an assistant county auditor. Another is an attorney in Los Angeles. Another is a curator at a college museum. The first friend mentioned is married, the rest never married or are divorced. All of us grew up on farms in the same community, so we'll always have that common background, despite our diverse careers or noncareers.
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Now.......where was I going with this post? I can't remember. Mostly, its a whiny, complaining, ranty venting of my feelings about what Christmas has become for me at this stage of my life. My life has tipped upon some milestone fulcrum, and now I'm the one hosting the family holiday dinners.......instead of us going "over the river and through the woods to Grandmothers' house"........I am becoming the Grandma, even though I'm not a Grandma yet. I've never been much of a party person, so it ALL just goes against my grain. Inside I scream that I simply want some time to myself.......that I wish everyone would go away. And, in some ways, I think I've been saying that---inside---for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, I think I took a wrong turn somewhere, but I have no idea where or when. Maybe I was meant to be a guy.....so I wouldn't have to cook, bake, keep house, plan parties. Maybe I was meant to be a bear, so I could hibernate this time of year. Who knows.
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OK......thanks for being a listening ear. No one else will put up with my thoughts. Yesterday, I muttered to my husband, "I don't like Christmas anymore." He said, "Well, don't complain to me about it......its not my fault." Which is true, of course.
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Remember......come back tomorrow for a more upbeat post about that famous winter substance.......SNOW!
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