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I’m skipping Christmas this year. Well, not entirely skipping it, but skipping the stress of decorating, cookie baking, party attending, TV Christmas special watching, and the like. I may even avoid writing the obligatory Christmas Newsletter that touts all my family’s accomplishments of the past 12 months and leaves out all the unsavory stuff.
Every year, I’ve been paring down the list of “stuff I think I need to do in order to properly celebrate Christmas.” I’ve asked relatives whether they mind forgoing the adult gifts and just exchanging among the kids. We purchased most of our gifts online this year, and when I do hit the mall, I go at off times.
Lest you think I’m a total Scrooge, I’ll admit that I really do love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday of the year. But I also hate being crunched for time. It seems as if everyone has too much to do and too little time to do it year round. When November and December roll around, we try to pack three times as much stuff as we normally do into a 4-week period.
Why? So we can say we really lived it up during the holiday season? So we can impress our neighbors when they drive through our neighborhood to look at Christmas lights? Because we think we’re supposed to?
The photos in this post expresses my feelings about what my mom would call “overdecoratoritis.” A family in our neighborhood has a bad case of this disease, which strikes the day after Thanksgiving. They string up as many lights as humanly possible, covering every square inch of their house and front yard. They’ve got the manger scene next to Frosty and friends, with Rudolph adjacent to them.
I see these people outside stringing up lights night and day. And they’re arguing (loudly) about what should go where and accusing one another of doing it wrong. How festive is that? How fun is that? Sorry, but I’ll pass.
Continued in the next post
Good for you!