At peace with the Christmas spirit

"What? You’re posting… again?"

Yes here I am folks, on a mini-roll. Don’t worry, it won’t last long. In three weeks (THREE WEEKS!) we’ll be happily holidaying and I will probably lapse in my dedications once again. *sigh* My current bout of creativity is attributable to the following happy coincidence: a) December is downtime in the land of lungs. b) After spending the last three weeks in that horrible state of semi-illness, I felt full of energy this past weekend for the first time in what seems like ages. c) It’s Christmas! I love Christmas.

I never really meant to love Christmas. Loving Christmas is my Mom’s job, and she does it better than anyone I know – to the point that, given the chance, she would probably beat out even the most zealous big box store in the race to Start Playing Incessant Christmas Carols First! In our teenage years, my brother and I instituted the “no Christmas music until December 1st” rule (to which I stick resolutely to this day), in an attempt to stave off Mom’s invasion of the CD player with the likes of Elvis’s Blue Christmas album – possibly the worst Christmas album ever produced (and the inspiration for Christmas Music Rule #2). In fact, during our teens, my brother and I developed towards the holiday that sort of disparaging nonchalance that adolescents invariably seem to adopt for anything that their parents enjoy. (phew! sorry that was an awkward sentence, are you still with me?) I even tried to make the transition to Solstice celebrations, if only for a pagan excuse to continue (secretly!) enjoying the festivities, and to further my resistance of becoming exactly like my mother.

By the time I got to University however, distance, soul-searching, freedom from the harsh judgments of high school, and a raging biological imperative brought me to the following conclusions: 1) My Mom is a pretty cool person, (Christmas album collection aside) and so if I do end up being exactly like her, that’s just one more check in the cool column for population Earth. 2) Christmas is awesome. Whatever religion lays claim to it, it is fun, and happy, and charmingly ritualistic. It has a warm, calming effect on me, even if I’m running around like a crazy person, and I, as you all know, am a fan of things that can calm me down. (Hell, I’m marrying one!) If I give into my genes, and become completely Christmas obsessed for the extent of the Yuletide, it’s only once a year, and I am still okay with myself.

So when my mother asks me on the phone if I played Christmas music on Saturday (December 1st), I can say without hesitation or embarrassment that I sure did, but that since I only had my downloaded iTunes Christmas music, I’ll be needing some copies out of her collection and WILL EXPECT THEM IN THE MAIL (hee hee). She then tells me that she is going to buy the Sarah MacLachlan Christmas album, and I say, but Mom, you already have that one. She laughs, and repeats this to my father. In the background, I can hear him start to giggle – a little hysterically.