I’m not a big lover of Christmas.
You can probably blame that on working in retail for many years. Nothing sucks the joy of the holiday season when you see people acting like assholes and trying to one up each other in terms of gift giving. Don’t even get me started about the day after Christmas Beyond Thunderdome Return Fest…that still gives me hives. Because of this, this is how I’ve viewed Christmas for most of my adult life:
My family, thank goodness, gave up exchanging gifts a long time ago. For us, the holiday is all about getting together as a family. This year, it’s even more important since Mom is still going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. She’s doing great, but we’re still in the unknown, “what is going to happen now?” phase of her treatment. Makes me want to get together and spend time more time with my family.
With my in-laws, I think we finally convinced them that we don’t want gifts this year. We live halfway across the country from them and all we do is create a list of stuff we want off Amazon and they buy the stuff. Merry Christmas? I’d rather not have the items, if that’s all that’s involved. Besides, we have everything we want anyway!
This year, I decided to go pick up more Christmas decorations. The meager amount I had worked well when I lived in a 900 sq/ft townhouse, but now that we live in a big three bedroom house, what I have looked sad when I decorated last year. Thus, I went out and bought a 7.5 foot tree, decorations, and other adorable decorations (those birds! *squee*):
While I’m still not big on the whole “gift giving” part of the holiday, I am participating in my work Secret Santa exchange, which is proving to be interesting! I also enjoy the added sparkle of the Christmas lights and the decorations sprinkled throughout the house.
Perhaps my cold, black Christmas heart is finally thawing out? Who knows. But for the first time in a long time, I’m kinda enjoying the season.
I’m still not sending out Christmas cards, though… 🙂