veronika

It's only September but I recently had to defend the ol' mighty Christmas in a thread. I got a little carried away and thought it was worth a blog posting.
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You know, I love Christmas and for many of the reasons why you all hate it.

I love the huge Christmas trees that are squeezed into malls. I love feeling like a ball in a pin ball machine while walking from one store to the next. I love fighting for parking spots and really don't mind if I am forced to park in the very back. I love the Christmas music that blares through the speakers and the fake Santas and the lines of crying kids that are either hungry, bored or scared of the fat man dressed in a weird, red suit.

Presents. I love presents! I love opening them. Sometimes I rip the wrapping paper off of it and sometimes I slowly undo every piece of tape and ribbon. I love wrapping presents and think I am the best at it. The Scotch tape, tons of wrapping paper and tacky, sticker name tags! I love picking out presents and have a mental list, if not one on my computer, of what I want to get people and it starts around March. I have already bought a hat that has a beaver on it for my brother. Why? Cause he'll love it! And I love that he'll love it. I do know that he'll open it up, love it it and then just push it aside to open his next present. This is totally ok w/me. Why? Because my sister will still be opening up one from me, and my other brother, or my mom, or my dog...you get it. I am contributing to their piles of presents. Who doesn't like a pile of presents! Granted, not everyone in this world has the cash to have a present packed Christmas but this is what my Christmas looks like and I love it.

I love Christmas decorations. I love the cheese. It's fake, plastic, bright, tacky (I want to put "happy" next but I will refrain from the rhyme), silly and very, very fun.

Yes, Christmas is organized fun but I've never minded this. It's a designated time to love each other and as wacky of an idea that is, I totally buy it. I might not like my weird neighbor who always smiles at me but never waves, but I may consider giving her some reindeer candy canes. Why? Just because it's the Holiday season. This all stems back from my childhood. My year may have been bad, maybe my sister ignored me too much or maybe I felt like everyone ignored me too much....this all didn't matter when Christmas came along. We would huddle around the tv and watch Christmas movies, sing Christmas songs in the car (not always G rated), drove through the rich neighborhoods that had fancy lights and were just happy. Christmas was the time that, even though organized, we got along and pretended like our issues did not exist.

I'm down w/pretending for a month.