Day Thirty-Five: Holidaze

It's less than a week before the Christmas holiday and I have not shopped, nor thought about shopping, nor even really figured out where I'm staying when I go home or when I'm going home . . . In other words, I'm not exactly prepared.

Do you remember the days when you anxiously waited for the holiday season and it seemed like it would never arrive? Your Mom or Grams would bake and decorate and there was talk of Turkey, presents, snow, family, travel, or whatever your holiday tradition. Everywhere there was the sense of the impending holidays and yet the tentative childhood grasp on time and its relation to the passing of days made it a fuzzy concept. Fast forward to adulthood and you suddenly find yourself breaking out in a cold sweat as you realize Christmas is only TEN DAYS AWAY!!! (sub your holiday of choice for Xmas)

Being an adult often takes the fun and spontaneity out of the holidays if they are spent obsessed with planning, making lists, and checking items off a list. It's been a while since I enjoyed the holiday season. I have not had a tree in close to ten years, I stopped putting out the decorations, and the last two years I have not baked at all. There doesn't seem to be much reason to really celebrate anymore. I live alone, and the past couple of years when I was still technically with my husband I was still pretty much alone, either physically or emotionally. There just didn't seem to be much point to doing all that work.

How many parents truly enjoy the holiday season. I hear them all the time talking about how exhausted they are, how much they still have to do, how there isn't enough money to buy all the toys, and that there's the annual headache of dealing with extended family. As a child it was just great and fun. Moms made it special. As an adult I wonder what the point is if the "magic" you are trying to create, is the very reason there is no magic for you at the holidays. People work so hard to make it perfect, but between work, home, kids and all the other dozens of weekly tasks that must get done there seems to be no time for that joy we all felt as children.

The holidays used to be my favorite time of the year. Like my Mom before me, I decorated every room of the house, I baked a dozen different kinds of cookies and candy. I even enjoyed the holiday shopping with the stores all decorated for the season and classic carols being piped in. I think I lost my holiday magic when I lost the husband, but age and constantly moving didn't help. These days it's just another day and I hate that. I do not feel the magic, I do not let myself miss the decorations and cookies. Maybe this is normal. Maybe without children and grandchildren to live through, that holiday magic has no room to grow. In my case I guess it was love. When I lost my love, I lost my holiday spirit. Oh, I'll still do the requisite amount of shopping, but it will be the day before and without much real thought.

I do not mean it to be this way, I'd love to decorate and bake again. I want to put up a tree and to make snow angels and sing all my favorite holiday songs. I want to do these things, I just don't feel it. So it makes me wonder why parents work so hard to create that magic when they make such little effort to help it survive into their own adulthood. Are we so tired that even magic and joy has become just another item on a "to do" list? I hope it's not that way forever for me, but for now, I'm looking forward to January 2nd.