Celebrate is definitely the wrong word
There's a kind of lawn decoration made of the kind of plastic normally used for beach balls. It's an inflatable snowman or Santa, surrounded by a lumpy sphere which is transparent in front, with an opaque back, which conceals a mechanism for blowing small white styrofoamy bits around the inside of the contraption. I think there must be a light included, as well. In short, it's a giant automatic snow-globe for one's lawn. I've seen several of them now, in the yards of various suburban neighborhoods.
I had never even suspected the existence of such a thing, but now that I've seen them, they seem strangely inevitable. It's just another reason that this holiday, and this culture's approach to this holiday, give me a bad case of the screaming horrors. It seems like it's become a requirement that everybody spend huge amounts of money on hideous plastic crap, in order to impress and outdo their neighbors, who are in turn doing the same thing.
And then there's the issue of gift-giving, which is a whole tangled nightmare of misery unto itself. In a sort of general way, I like giving people presents. It's fun to find or make something, and realize hey, so-and-so would think this was really cool, and play with shiny paper and twenty-three different colors of curling ribbon, and wrap it up festively and give it to them. But the heavy obligation of having to think of gifts for people who I spend the rest of the year ignoring and being ignored by, and who I therefore have no idea of what they might like, only ever makes me feel guilty and stupid. Even when I think I've come up with an answer, a sad transformation takes place in transit. By the time I've flown myself and my gifts back east, all my ideas which had seemed so light-hearted and clever are suddenly incredibly pointless and ill-advised, and I end up wondering whether it might be better to just hide the stuff in the bottom of my suitcase, and quietly dispose of it somewhere inconspicuous instead of inflicting it on anyone. Is it better to be the person who gives no presents at all, or the person who gives everybody stuff that they have to smile politely about, and then find a place to store, or feel guilty about just sending it all off to the local thrift shop? We all seem perfectly happy paying no attention to one another the whole rest of the year. Why should we make an exception just because it happens to be some specific day in the darkest coldest part of the year?
Giving people food is one way around this dilemma, so I tried making some cookies last night. However, my hands are still all horrible and sensitive, and the oil from the lemons has made them break out again in a poison-ivy-like rash. They itch. My dad has offered to bring me some cortisone cream to try putting on them.
I had never even suspected the existence of such a thing, but now that I've seen them, they seem strangely inevitable. It's just another reason that this holiday, and this culture's approach to this holiday, give me a bad case of the screaming horrors. It seems like it's become a requirement that everybody spend huge amounts of money on hideous plastic crap, in order to impress and outdo their neighbors, who are in turn doing the same thing.
And then there's the issue of gift-giving, which is a whole tangled nightmare of misery unto itself. In a sort of general way, I like giving people presents. It's fun to find or make something, and realize hey, so-and-so would think this was really cool, and play with shiny paper and twenty-three different colors of curling ribbon, and wrap it up festively and give it to them. But the heavy obligation of having to think of gifts for people who I spend the rest of the year ignoring and being ignored by, and who I therefore have no idea of what they might like, only ever makes me feel guilty and stupid. Even when I think I've come up with an answer, a sad transformation takes place in transit. By the time I've flown myself and my gifts back east, all my ideas which had seemed so light-hearted and clever are suddenly incredibly pointless and ill-advised, and I end up wondering whether it might be better to just hide the stuff in the bottom of my suitcase, and quietly dispose of it somewhere inconspicuous instead of inflicting it on anyone. Is it better to be the person who gives no presents at all, or the person who gives everybody stuff that they have to smile politely about, and then find a place to store, or feel guilty about just sending it all off to the local thrift shop? We all seem perfectly happy paying no attention to one another the whole rest of the year. Why should we make an exception just because it happens to be some specific day in the darkest coldest part of the year?
Giving people food is one way around this dilemma, so I tried making some cookies last night. However, my hands are still all horrible and sensitive, and the oil from the lemons has made them break out again in a poison-ivy-like rash. They itch. My dad has offered to bring me some cortisone cream to try putting on them.