All I want for Christmas is to skip the whole thing.
I’m not looking forward to it. At all. I have reasons. Darn good ones too. So why don’t you hear me out before you label me “Scrooge” and move on?
Reason #1
Last year my mother was in the hospital at Christmas. This year – she’s in Heaven.
While that’s great for her, it leaves a pretty large hole in our family. If you knew my mother, you would understand that her shoes might have appeared small, but they are impossibly unfillable.
Just like I cried through Mother’s Day, I have to face my first Christmas without my mom. It’s not easy. They say people are more depressed at Christmas than any other time of the year. And I can see it.
It’s a time built around memories. Sometimes memories hurt. Grief cuts like a knife.
This is the biggest reason I vote for skipping directly from December 23rd to December 26th this year. I have others…
Reason #2
Things are changing in the old Hughson household.
This year, Christmas morning will be different. Next year, it will be different again. I’m the one who instituted a host of Christmas morning traditions. Same breakfast. Same cocoa. Same reading of Luke 2.
Change is great. It is inevitable. It is not for Christmas.
Reason #3
I am going to Mexico for a week and return home on December 20th.
This is great news for my sun-loving psyche.
This is horrible news for the traditional holiday baking plans. I am not planning to decorate my house – must keep it staged for prospective buyers for one thing. Who will water the tree while we’re gone? Why do I want to expend energy decorating when I’ll be gone for a week?
Reason #4
I get sick of all the hype and materialism. I’ve posted about that subject in the past.
Christmas is about two things in my world: Jesus and family. None of that needs a Black Friday for shopping explosions and excellent deals. I’m happy to sit around singing carols and playing games while with my family. Who wants to fight the crowds to find the perfect gift only to realize – there is no such thing?
Reason #5
Everything gets topsy-turvy in my daily schedule once December arrives.
I just want to lock myself away with my computer and finish writing something. I want to check off my writing goals and reach that pedestal of published bliss.
Yes, I’m out of touch with reality. This could be why I write fantasy novels.
No one is going to fast forward past the next few weeks. I don’t want to miss a moment of the family vacation in Mexico.
I might want to skip Christmas, but it won’t happen. As the Grinch found out,
“He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!”
I guess there’s no chance for me to actually skip Christmas, is there? In that case, all I want for Christmas is … a happy day with my family.
I will be kinda skipping Christmas this year. It’s been this way for a while now. Our family (including extended family) don’t buy presents for the adults anymore. My husband has to work on Christmas unless it falls on the weekend. We don’t put up a Christmas tree because one of our cats loves to climb. I rather like December being this way. The seasonal depression doesn’t get as bad.
I love getting together with my family. Now that my sons are adults, things are changing. All the Christmas morning traditions won’t be the same with only my husband and I.
Because of the emphasis on family, the losses we’ve experienced in the last few years are just magnified. I usually don’t experience the depression until after everything is over, but I’m already going there and it’s only December 1!