Fer Chrissake! It’s Christmas Eve!
Well I’ll be darned.
It’s a bright, beautiful, sunny day outside and I’m ready to face the day.
After confessing my depression yesterday, it seemed to lift and now I’m back to my old rasty self.
Lookout Santa! I’m comin’ after ya!
Very Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Even though I got no snow, I thought this was cute anyway….
On Dasher!
Image source.
I spent most of the day yesterday feeling blue.
No, not from the frosty wind chilling my face.
Blue as in full out, deep down, all the way to the soles of my feet holiday depression.
This happens every year.
What I can’t seem to work out is why.
I started thinking, sifting through the memories, trying to figure out when the shift occurred.
As a kid, I loved Christmas. Even after I knew the truth about Santa, I still loved the holidays. To me, they were always filled with magic and a quiet happy peace.
My mom loved the Christmas holiday and always did her best to make it a nice time. Dad was always a cranky pants about any holiday, but crankiness aside, he would let the holiday be what it was.
He was never depressed about it, more like uptight over money and not much of a “ho ho ho” kind of guy.
So I can’t say it started as a kid.
In fact, I was all about the holidays all through childhood, into my teen years and through college.
I think, based on my not very scientific analysis of a jumbled brain full of memories, that the holiday blues came on in my twenties.
When I was out of school, living alone in a really wonderful apartment in Albuquerque with a knockout view of the Sandias.
I had a good job with a good check and really, a pretty good life. But I was alone, and the season, for some reason, made me really blue.
I recall, that year, drinking a bottle of not very good wine and laying *under* my Christmas tree. A night spent looking at the lights and trying to muster up some joy.
Sad. It was a great drunk, but it was an alone drunk. And I was depressed again and hungover in the morning. Ugh!
So, ok. One might understand how a lonely twenty something making her way in the world might feel a little down at the holidays.
But that doesn’t explain yesterday.
I then thought about all the bad holidays over the years. The Christmas seasons that weren’t so happy.
Like the December my dad’s lung disease took a turn for the worst, and Mom and I spent Christmas day in the hospital, having to make some really difficult choices.
But The Lazarus Dad recovered that year. Really, it was something of a Christmas miracle.
So, while yes, December often makes me think of that difficult time, I don’t think that is the root of the blues I’m feeling today.
All is well in my little world. I have a wonderful husband who is the best holiday gift I could ever ask for. I have great friends and family. A place to lay my head at night and food to eat. And a rasty feline who makes me laugh.
So what’s the boggle, then?
Maybe now, at age forty, I feel a little blue because December isn’t just the holiday season, but it ushers in the end of another year.
Another year ending where I wonder to myself where all the rest of the days have gone. I wonder what did I do to make the days count?
The end of December has become a time, I suppose, for assessing myself over the year. For grading my performance.
And sadly, every year, I seem to only be able to see where I was lacking. Missed opportunities. Places where if I’d tried a little harder I might have made something really great happen.
Oh, I know, there are a lot of things I did right this year. There are successes that I don’t actually see when I let the dark cloud take over.
This post isn’t a plea for reminders that I’m ok.
This post is more a letter to myself. A report card.
That reminds me all on my own that I’m ok.
Because I am.
But for some reason, every year about this time I have to take the tiger by the tail and ride the very dark ride for a while.
Here we go: whooooooa!
One thing that always cheers me is pictured below. It’s an ornament made by my kindergarten teacher. I couldn’t tell you her name, but I remember the day when she placed a personalized ornament into my grubby little hands.
There was my name! In glitter!
I still have it. It’s looking a little tattered these days, but it holds a place of honor on the tree.
I look at this silky blue ornament with silver glitter and try to remember that kindergarten Karen who still believed that reindeer would bring Santa to my roof.
That somehow he’d slip down the very narrow chimney on our free standing fireplace (remember these babies from the 1970’s?) and leave us lots of toys and goodies.
That the day would start with the smell of mom’s homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.
That we could open the gifts in our stockings first, but had to wait a while on presents under the tree.
That Christmas day was full of surprise and wonder and laughter.
If I can remember that kindergarten Karen, I might just be able to pull myself up and out of these blues.
I’m a confirmed child of the West. I’ve lived all my years well to the left of the state of Texas.
As such, that means that these concepts of “winter” and “Christmas” mean a little something different than they do in all the songs I’ve been listening to today.
Yes, I admit, I succumbed to Christmas music today.
Ever since I was a kid, while I did like the ol’ Christmas tunes, I pondered about how many of them didn’t apply. And it’s not just about the weather.
Let’s take a look:
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.” Yes. But not here.
It was over 60 degrees today.
“Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh…”
Well. Again. No snow.
No horses dashing around much either.
“Frosty the Snowman.” Nope.
However, there used to be a house in Albuquerque that had a flocked tumbleweed snowman in their yard every year, so this is a maybe…
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”
I don’t even know what the hell that means.
Marshmallows roasting on an open fire? Yes please! With chocolate and graham cracker.
As an aside…to celebrate the anniversary of the day we met, The Good Man took me to stay in a Ritz Carlton Hotel at the beach. It is a beautiful and very high class establishment. One of the features of our room was a fire pit on the back porch, intended, I’m sure, to sit by, stay warm, and gaze romantically at the ocean.
To show just how classy we are, we cooked marshmallows over that fire pit…. One of the best nights of my life!
But I digress.
“Tis the season to be jolly…fa la la la, la la la la…”
Um. Huh? Cuz I’m looking around at all my fellow mankind and I can tell you that “jolly” is *not* what people are feeling this season.
“Fa la la la bite me” is more the mood out there.
“We three king of Orient are, sharing gifts we travel so far…” Well. Ahem. “Orient” isn’t really politically correct these days.
“We three kings of the Pacific Rim” or “We three kings of AsiaPac” is probably more appropriate.
“Silent night, holy night” Hmph. Silent, eh?
Not after I’ve had a couple glasses of holiday cheer. Nope, then it’s snoring night, drooling night. I sure can’t handle the booze anymore…
But when it comes to good old fashioned spiked egg nog, I’m helpless.
So for The Good Man, ain’t no silent.
“Silver bells, it’s Christmastime in the city.”
Ok. Sure. Those Salvation Army guys and gals are working the bells. I’ll give you that one. Check.
We got one.
I won’t EVEN go down the list from the Twelve Days of Christmas.
But if my true love gave me swans, French hens, partridges, milk maids, leaping lords and pretty much any of the items other than the five gold rings, we might have to have a little conversation about “did you keep the receipt.”
And that little drummer boy can take his pah-rumpa-pum-pum up with the judge because I’m calling in a noise complaint!
Which pretty much leaves us with “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
Fair enough!
Sometimes it really worries me that the things I can most easily remember, can get to most quickly in the old brain bucket, are commercials.
Especially those commercials from the formative years.
I can whip out a jingle or a tagline from commercials dating way back, and repeat ’em like Rainman in a phone booth (yikes, no more phone booths!).
What makes these commercials so sticky in the brain? I don’t know, but obviously this is the intended effect, eh?
So here in this Christmas season, I’ve been thinking about all of those old Ronco commercials. No, not the new Ron Popeil ads. Those are lame.
The old Ronco ads. Let’s talk 1970’s.
Remember when Ronco ads used to repeat, ad nauseum, at every commercial break?
Here’s a few I was able to find on the web:
Smokeless Ashtray
Boogie Nights Record Album (Click to play)
Ice Cream Machine(Click to play)
Look at this!! The early Bedazzler!!
Rhinestone and stud setter(Click to play)
Oh yes. Good times.
There are a few of my faves I wasn’t able to find. For example, the Egg Scrambler. A funny little machine that with a pinprick to the egg and the revs of a small motor would scramble it up inside the shell.
Or the Record Vacuum. I found a couple of those ads, but not the one I remember. In the one I recall, they ran the vinyl through the vacuum then tossed a handful of confetti at it (to prove the static was gone, I think?).
Ah yes.
But then, there will always be the gold standard of Ronco commercials.
Found on the web and brought to you.
“Hey good looking! I’ll be back to pick you up later!”
Enjoy
Mr. Microphone! (Click to play)
Yesterday was a weird day.
Sure, mid-December always gets a little bit dicey when going out to run errands, but yesterday was especially odd.
I had a list of things to procure and not a lot of time, so over lunchtime I started at the top of the list. First stop, Home Depot.
Oh Home Depot, I know so many people love you, but I rarely visit your orangey evil warehouse.
I needed some tools (I have a fun Christmas project for The Good Man’s little sister in progress). Since Home Depot is the Wal-Mart of hardware stores, and I wanted to spend only a little green, I decided to give it a try.
Wow, did you know there is some sort of force field going on in Home Depot? As soon as I set foot in the lumber aisle, I became invisible! It was really instant and rather startling!
The U.S. military should look into this!
The secret to a true complete invisibility shield!
A girl in the lumber aisle.
I found that on the tools aisle, I was only partly invisible. If I said, “hey, I need help!” then they could sort of see me. It wasn’t just me either, there was another woman trying to get help regarding a door knob she was considering.
She got the attention of one male employee who condescendingly answered her question then walked away…though she wasn’t done asking questions.
Oh, I did discover that in the gardening section, by the small pink canvas pruning gloves? They could see me fine.
Something about hardware and lumber.
Weird, huh?
My next errand was to go to the post office. A gift ordered online had arrived. Yay!
Well, it being mid-December and at lunch, the post office was crazy busy. We use a very small postal annex with only two employees, so that makes things an even bigger holdup.
It was a very, very long line.
Well, you know, this is to be expected this time of year.
Except for the cranky old man and the horribly cranky old woman in line behind me.
The old man kept cranking about how he can’t believe the lines and he had been there and hour before and the line was this long so he went and had lunch to wait it out and wouldn’t you know it the line is still long and how can this be!
You get my drift.
Then the lady chimed in.
“There are just too many people these days. Too. Many. People. You know why it is so crowded don’t you? Because of all the immigrants. Obama keeps letting all of those immigrants in. They all want the free stuff so those damn people keep coming in and it is just too crowded!”
Uh. WHAT!?!?!?
Crazy old bat continued on that line of rant for a bit longer, then went back to complaining about the line. She said, “Why is there only one person working, where is that [racial epithet redacted] who works here?”
I was horrified. Absolutely stunned into a horrified shock.
Evidently the “spirit of the season” is discrimination, racism and anger.
Once I picked up my package, I got in my car and made my way out of the parking lot. As I waited to turn out into traffic, I had the audacity to wait for a group of six kids from the nearby high school walking by on lunch break.
Audacity because the evidently impatient man behind me felt I shouldn’t have paused. So he laid on the horn and yelled “GOOOO!”
Well, clearly the spirit of the season has infected me as well, because I unrolled my window and shouted “WHAT THE F–K IS YOUR PROBLEM!?!?”
Tis the season to be assholish, fa la la la, la la la la……
Look at me pass on the season’s cheer….
I think I’ll hunker down at the house for the remainder of the year. It seems better that way.
