Two things.
1. This has become a widow blog. Let's all just accept it.
2. This post is about Christmas. Buckle up.
As I write this, I'm listening to the Pentatonix holiday station on Pandora. I've been watching Hallmark Christmas movies since Friday (I would have been watching them before then, but they only just started). I've been reading sappy Christmas books for the most of the month. I know I'm one of those people that most of the world is annoyed by. "Don't overshadow the other holidays!" they scream at me as I walk past the Halloween costumes to buy Christmas pajamas for my son.
For the record, I've been watching Halloween movies too, and doing all kinds of fall activities. I love and am looking forward to Thanksgiving. But I like to start my Christmas cheer early. Just in case. I should probably explain.
For a few weeks now I have been thinking about the Christmas tree in our apartment three years ago. We lived in BYU housing, and they didn't allow real trees, so we went out in search of a fake one. Josh said he'd rather have no tree than I fake tree and I was adamant that we needed something because no tree is just depressing. The year before we lived in this converted house with weirdly tall ceilings- and had like an eight-foot tree that my father-in-law got straight out of the woods, so you can see why it would be a bit of a let down. Anyway we found a dinky little fake tree and strung lights on it before Thanksgiving and then let it sit because we weren't going to decorate until after. We're not monsters. But then Josh got sick and the tree was never decorated. I pretty much moved out right away after he was gone. When we were packing up I sat in the chair next to the tree and stared at the bare branches. Like it was mocking me. A perfect match for the bare holiday.
The year after that my most prominent memory is sitting with Logan on Christmas Eve just the two of us. I'm honestly not sure what we did. Hopefully I tried to make it festive, but I think I was too sad. Christmas Eve is one of my absolute favorites parts of the season, and we didn't even get to enjoy it. Logan got ridiculously sick and had this scary rash. His hands and feet turned purple. It was awful and I wasn't holding it together well. So everyone went to my brother's for Christmas Eve like usual, but there was a brand new baby and we didn't want to risk exposing her to whatever Logan had, so we stayed home. And then on Christmas day he wasn't up for a ton either, so opening presents wasn't very fun.
According to extensive research (Hallmark movies), I think when bad things happen to people over Christmas it tends to ruin the holiday. Maybe I'm wrong. You can let me know. But I still love Christmas, I'm just scared of it. The bar for Christmas has been significantly lowered in recent years. Basically if I never had to step foot in a hospital I consider it a success. Last year I started celebrating about as early as this year, and I kept saying it was to redeem myself for the last two years that were so bad. But I think it was more of a defense mechanism. If I start celebrating early, and Christmas is lousy, then at least I will have had some comfort and joy before it all fell apart. This year I've realized it's a bit of a tradition.
I don't really have plan for the end of this post. I'm not trying to get everything to celebrate like me, or feel happy, fluffy Christmas spirit all year round. I think after a few rough years I was a little worried I was getting bitter about the holidays, and I really didn't want that to happen. I promise I won't shove Christmas down anybody's throat though. And if you're a die-hard Halloween fan and you see me playing Christmas carols on my ukulele, please don't stick my head on a pike?
No comments:
Post a Comment