MERRY CHRISTMAS
How strange you could say it is to wish Merry Christmas at the end of the day; the reason for my doing so is four-fold:
#1. I kind of forgot to do it last night.
#2. Did you really expect me to walk upstairs halfway through the day when there was pyjamas to be sat in and food to be consumed? (Do not think my laziness dissipates on the holiday.)
#3. This was the only time of day where I felt compelled to even look at a screen, let alone put words on it.
#4. I find myself at that strange, hazy kind of time where I am too full of carbohydrates and I look at the tree which now has nothing under it, and I'm sad.
I took all my presents upstairs, landed them on my bed, and started to put them away. Fluffy socks went in drawers and books went on shelves and CDs went into CD players and got turned on to shuffle. My pile slowly diminished, and now was more of a heap. The few that were still on the bed didn't have obvious places to go, no drawer assigned for them, or the ones that were were now too full to even comprehend squeezing soap into or something. I'm staring at my pile of presents, and I hate that they're going away. I hate it because then the day is over. The novelty has become normality.
So I make the entirely conscious and semi-stupid decision to not put away the rest. I move them to the floor at the end of my bed- a ridiculous and inconvenient move- and I say "No. You are not going away." They'll go away eventually. Get worn and put into the wash. Or I'll run out of soap and squeeze a blob onto my hand and then decide that actually it's kind of easier if I just take it into the bathroom.
But not today.
While still in a pile, they remain my presents. In drawers, they become my things. My possessions. Like they always were.
And I want to remember that they weren't. That, until this morning, these things were not mine. they were anonymous shapes in colourful paper. They were promises. They were smiles from family members as I eyed one or two from grandparents that were placed under there. But they were not mine.
My friend said to me on Christmas Eve, "Why the hell are you so excited? It's just Christmas."
My response to this is that I feel exactly the same way, except I emphasise the third word as opposed to the second.
It's just Christmas.
Christmas.
And yes, I could sit here and list a load of things wrong with the season, some socialist will tell me that it's commericialised and what about other people and it's not really about Jesus or religion or faith or miracles anymore. And to this, I say, "Well, yeah." I can't argue that flashing lights and an abundance of chocolate is truly the meaning of Christmas. But I am not religious enough to say that I really feel an impact when it comes to this loss of faith. I was never one to pull out a mock baby Jesus and thank my lucky stars that I was not born in the barn of an inn where sheeps and cows and shizz licked my face. It's not that I don't care, it's just that this is not what Christmas is about to me.
Aside from my immediate family (the ones contained in my four walls, who bitch about what I keep on the TV and how my sister's music is too loud and how blowdrying my hair at two in the morning is not really appropriate nor fair), relatives are not a huge thing to us. I have never sat around an enormous table and laughed and caught up on a year I was not part of, and pretend that I wasn't really really uncomfortable with who I'd been sat next to. I never had this. I had four people sat around a tiny square table that we did not use for any other time of the year, pulling crackers, wearing stupid hats and eating far too much.
So no, the loss of the traditional family doesn't mean that much to me.
My traditions are as follows:
* I will stay in my pyjamas all day.
You're very welcome to come over, but pyjamas are on. YOU ARE WARNED. I'll open presents, I'll make you a cup of tea, I'll say "And what did Santa bring you?" to your children. I'm the perfect host. But I'm in pyjamas. (And my sheer comfort is probably why you are getting such a warm welcome.)
* My mum will buy me a magazine and wrap it up as a present.
I do not know when this started.
Any kind: gossip, fashion, home and garden. She will see something on the front page that she knows I will like, and fuck what the rest is, she's buying it.
* I will not look at my presents until the morning.
This involved a rather embarassing journey through the living room last night, led by my mother, hands firmly clasped to my face as I tried to go upstairs.
I do not want to know.
I don't even want to guess from the shape.
I don't even want to know what the wrapping is like.
This comes from the fact that when I was younger, my mother would send me and my sister to bed and then put all the presents out. I would wake up in the morning to feast my eyes on the sheer magnitude which befell me. A pile, a heap, for me.
I would dive in, eyes eager, hands even more so. And where my sister tore the paper, leaving it in rainbow shreds on the floor, I would peel tape, refold paper up, inspect. Every corner, every word, every image I etched into my brain and then put it into a neat pile that any kind of heavy duty Tetris player would be impressed with.
We have the makings of a 'traditional' Christmas. The kind you'd see in catalogues or in sitcoms.
We have early morning present-opening.
A tree, lights, tinsel.
We have a turkey dinner that is huge and that nobody finishes and we have leftovers that everyone will still pick at for days.
But what we go without is the calling of these things tradition.
It just is.
It just happens.
Every year.
You can call it tradition, you can call it habit, it still happens.
And every year, I will get sad that the day is over.
I've had horrific Christmases. And the best.
That same gnawing in my stomach will appear at about 9pm and proceed until the next day.
Anyway.
So I guess my point is, is that I'm kind of glad that list of reasons led me to writing this at the end of the day.
I am saying 'Merry Christmas' to the day you've had, or are having. I'm saying 'Merry Christmas' to your own set of traditions and your own families. I'm saying 'Merry Christmas' to you and to your Christmas.
Because it is yours.
#1. I kind of forgot to do it last night.
#2. Did you really expect me to walk upstairs halfway through the day when there was pyjamas to be sat in and food to be consumed? (Do not think my laziness dissipates on the holiday.)
#3. This was the only time of day where I felt compelled to even look at a screen, let alone put words on it.
#4. I find myself at that strange, hazy kind of time where I am too full of carbohydrates and I look at the tree which now has nothing under it, and I'm sad.
I took all my presents upstairs, landed them on my bed, and started to put them away. Fluffy socks went in drawers and books went on shelves and CDs went into CD players and got turned on to shuffle. My pile slowly diminished, and now was more of a heap. The few that were still on the bed didn't have obvious places to go, no drawer assigned for them, or the ones that were were now too full to even comprehend squeezing soap into or something. I'm staring at my pile of presents, and I hate that they're going away. I hate it because then the day is over. The novelty has become normality.
So I make the entirely conscious and semi-stupid decision to not put away the rest. I move them to the floor at the end of my bed- a ridiculous and inconvenient move- and I say "No. You are not going away." They'll go away eventually. Get worn and put into the wash. Or I'll run out of soap and squeeze a blob onto my hand and then decide that actually it's kind of easier if I just take it into the bathroom.
But not today.
While still in a pile, they remain my presents. In drawers, they become my things. My possessions. Like they always were.
And I want to remember that they weren't. That, until this morning, these things were not mine. they were anonymous shapes in colourful paper. They were promises. They were smiles from family members as I eyed one or two from grandparents that were placed under there. But they were not mine.
My friend said to me on Christmas Eve, "Why the hell are you so excited? It's just Christmas."
My response to this is that I feel exactly the same way, except I emphasise the third word as opposed to the second.
It's just Christmas.
Christmas.
And yes, I could sit here and list a load of things wrong with the season, some socialist will tell me that it's commericialised and what about other people and it's not really about Jesus or religion or faith or miracles anymore. And to this, I say, "Well, yeah." I can't argue that flashing lights and an abundance of chocolate is truly the meaning of Christmas. But I am not religious enough to say that I really feel an impact when it comes to this loss of faith. I was never one to pull out a mock baby Jesus and thank my lucky stars that I was not born in the barn of an inn where sheeps and cows and shizz licked my face. It's not that I don't care, it's just that this is not what Christmas is about to me.
Aside from my immediate family (the ones contained in my four walls, who bitch about what I keep on the TV and how my sister's music is too loud and how blowdrying my hair at two in the morning is not really appropriate nor fair), relatives are not a huge thing to us. I have never sat around an enormous table and laughed and caught up on a year I was not part of, and pretend that I wasn't really really uncomfortable with who I'd been sat next to. I never had this. I had four people sat around a tiny square table that we did not use for any other time of the year, pulling crackers, wearing stupid hats and eating far too much.
So no, the loss of the traditional family doesn't mean that much to me.
My traditions are as follows:
* I will stay in my pyjamas all day.
You're very welcome to come over, but pyjamas are on. YOU ARE WARNED. I'll open presents, I'll make you a cup of tea, I'll say "And what did Santa bring you?" to your children. I'm the perfect host. But I'm in pyjamas. (And my sheer comfort is probably why you are getting such a warm welcome.)
* My mum will buy me a magazine and wrap it up as a present.
I do not know when this started.
Any kind: gossip, fashion, home and garden. She will see something on the front page that she knows I will like, and fuck what the rest is, she's buying it.
* I will not look at my presents until the morning.
This involved a rather embarassing journey through the living room last night, led by my mother, hands firmly clasped to my face as I tried to go upstairs.
I do not want to know.
I don't even want to guess from the shape.
I don't even want to know what the wrapping is like.
This comes from the fact that when I was younger, my mother would send me and my sister to bed and then put all the presents out. I would wake up in the morning to feast my eyes on the sheer magnitude which befell me. A pile, a heap, for me.
I would dive in, eyes eager, hands even more so. And where my sister tore the paper, leaving it in rainbow shreds on the floor, I would peel tape, refold paper up, inspect. Every corner, every word, every image I etched into my brain and then put it into a neat pile that any kind of heavy duty Tetris player would be impressed with.
We have the makings of a 'traditional' Christmas. The kind you'd see in catalogues or in sitcoms.
We have early morning present-opening.
A tree, lights, tinsel.
We have a turkey dinner that is huge and that nobody finishes and we have leftovers that everyone will still pick at for days.
But what we go without is the calling of these things tradition.
It just is.
It just happens.
Every year.
You can call it tradition, you can call it habit, it still happens.
And every year, I will get sad that the day is over.
I've had horrific Christmases. And the best.
That same gnawing in my stomach will appear at about 9pm and proceed until the next day.
Anyway.
So I guess my point is, is that I'm kind of glad that list of reasons led me to writing this at the end of the day.
I am saying 'Merry Christmas' to the day you've had, or are having. I'm saying 'Merry Christmas' to your own set of traditions and your own families. I'm saying 'Merry Christmas' to you and to your Christmas.
Because it is yours.