I love Christmas.
I’m writing that on its own line as a reminder to myself as much as anything else. I love the decorations, I love the food, I love giving presents, I love getting presents. Aside from my well documented vendetta against a certain polyester elf, I enjoy it all. I even like Christmas music, though that’s a statement that comes with more footnotes and caveats than a doctoral thesis.
I’d be cool taking Paul’s name off bare minimum 3 Beatles songs to square the books over this atrocity.
I bring all this up because I cannot mentally square my love of Christmas as an institution with how much I am ready for this holiday to be something I can look forward to again instead of having to actually deal with. It’s so exciting when it’s coming up and so stressful and unpleasant in the moment. It’s the holiday equivalent of commercial air travel.
Those decorations I love? Awful ideas. Who in the world thought that Christmas tree ornaments were a good idea around children? Can you even imagine that sales pitch?
“Check out this festive holiday bauble I made! Kids will love them!”
“That’s pretty. So you hang them up high where toddlers can’t scatter them all over the house?”
“Actually I was thinking 2 feet off the ground.”
“Oh. Well they must be pretty durable otherwise kids might break t-“
“They’re made of glass the thickness of a silk scarf.”
We have an 18-month-old currently, so I decided to rip the band-aid off early and just instated a no-ornaments policy this year. The likelihood was just too great of her taking every ornament off and breaking them the first day, pulling the entire tree over, and probably dousing the remains with kerosene and setting the whole pile on fire. The kid is resourceful like that.
The 8-year-old is taking it surprisingly well. It probably helped that I had her help me attach our tree to the wall with a bungee cord. When your holiday decorations need the same treatment as securing furniture in the back of a pickup truck, it tends to drive the point home.
Our tree was going to look just like this one…except bare, sideways, and next to a contractor bag full of shattered glass.
I could cope if that was the one thing about getting ready for the holiday that I seem incapable of managing, but that’s where it STARTS. My clock just ticked over to 12:01 AM December 22nd and there is not a single present wrapped yet. Repeat: it is 72 hours until Christmas day and I currently possess the same number of wrapped presents as I do thermonuclear warheads. I am woefully unprepared for both Christmas morning and a tactical nuclear exchange (though at least the latter would get me out of having to worry about the former).
I’m trying to convince myself that spending tomorrow night after the kids go to bed sitting up and wrapping presents will be pleasant. A quiet moment to sit in the dim light while the house is asleep, listening to a podcast, drinking tea, and wrapping gifts. That sounds nice. Almost as nice as enjoying a quiet house, listening to a podcast, sipping tea, and doing ANYTHING BESIDES WRAPPING PRESENTS FOR HOURS. I am fully capable of enjoying a quiet evening alone without devoting it to seasonal chores.
Why are we wrapping presents anyway? The stocking is always the kids’ favorite part. Couldn’t I just buy a gargantuan novelty stocking and cram the whole pile in there? No need for tape, scissors, bows, cards, or cleanup. Just 3 minutes to stuff everything into the yuletide megasock and then you’re ready to hit the ‘nog.
Big enough to hold a hoverboard, a puppy, a Playstation, and all the other stuff they asked for and aren’t gonna get.
The giant stocking in that photo is seven dollars. That’s it. The price of a Big Mac combo. That’s what’s separating you from never having to wrap another toy that the manufacturer thought would sell better if they made the packaging the shape of a shrink wrapped octopus.
Right now the fact that it wouldn’t arrive before Christmas is the only thing keeping my finger off the “Buy Now” button. Next year that festive seasonal rucksack may make an appearance.
Don’t let all this give you the wrong idea; I really do love Christmas. Any issues I have with preparing for the holiday are minor quibbles. The joy I get from the soft glow of Christmas tree lights far outweighs the annoyance of picking up ornaments broken by kids and dogs. The time I’ll spend wrapping presents is less than the time I just spent writing about not wanting to do it. For every obnoxious “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” there’s a “Chorus of the Bells.” With Christmas, the good is great while the bad is just kind of stressful and annoying.
…All I’m saying is that next year, my 80-gallon, industrial-grade cargo stocking and I are going to engage in a little strategic corner-cutting to help keep the fun front and center.
Anyway, Merry Christmas. Now go move the elf.
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