Holidays are upon us..(or Holidays through my eyes)
I always think of Halloween being the holiday to kick off the holiday season. I wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween really until I was a teen. Every year I would try to put together a costume with whatever I could find in the house. These costumes never looked like costumes. Normally I just looked a little weird. Wearing a dress and calling yourself Miss Piggy, that doesn't qualify as a real costume. Wearing your favorite Sunday dress with a cone hat you made yourself doesn't mean you're a princess. But I tried and was quite proud of these costumes.
As a kid I preferred The Addams Family to The Munsters, claiming that they were far more believable. I watched all cartoons with monsters or ghouls. I had a vision of my future as a special effects make-up artist, not that I knew a thing about make-up. I liked everything creepy and weird. I didn't however like to be frightened. The characters I was drawn to were misunderstood and different. For example, Casper was a small child ghost who wanted friends, but everyone ran in fear. I always felt sad for him. After all it must have been hard to die at such a young age and be trapped in limbo.
I remember when Nightmare Before Christmas came out my mother refused to let me see it. I had to wait till it was on VHS, by then she had forgotten her initial hate of the trailer. Here was a movie about a spooky misfit who wanted to be someone else, try to share his discovery with people who would never get it the way he did... I understood. It might sound silly but this movie brought me to tears and still does to this day. It brought together 2 of my favorite holidays. Christmas & Halloween. When Jack sees snow for the first time and discovers Santa Claus I understood his excitement. Growing up in North Texas meant a cold muddy Christmas, not snow like I seen on TV, movies, and read about in books. As for Santa, he was forbidden in my house. Although I watched all the Christmas specials with Santa in them, I never had the chance to believe in him. Or even make believe in him. As a kid I was constantly confused about this, on one hand it was nice knowing that mom and dad were the ones who put the presents under the tree. It made me appreciate my gifts more. On the other hand, kids at school had wonderful stories of Santa visiting and I knew it was just thier dad or grandpa. This always made me feel sad.
Being told there was no Santa, tooth fairy, Easter Bunny, ect. Started my fear of people in costumes. One year, for reasons still unknown to me, my parents took me and my brother to see Santa. I guess it was just for the picture, who knows. I screamed and kicked and refused to sit in the lap of the man in disguise. I would run and hide behind my mother if we passed the Easter Bunny or other costumed creatures. After all I told you about my like of the spooky this might sound strange, I admit it does to me, but if Frankenstein’s monster walked up to me I would have been fine. He was after all just as misunderstood as me. But something about a rabbit and bearded man that was in every mall in America creeped me out.
Christmas was a holiday that always made me happy. Not because of presents or candy. Christmas just made me feel loved. Singing songs, making things to hang on the tree, helping mom cook, these were the things I loved about Christmas. Witnessing the Grinch's heart growing 3 sizes, Charlie Brown's small tree, Rudolph finally getting to be himself, the echoing words of adults everywhere saying, "You'll shoot your eye out!" and, hearing Bing Crosby sing about a White Christmas... something I had never seen as a child. (Something I witnessed for the first time last year at the age of 28.) Every year my dad and I watched White Christmas; I can still remember how he would sing along and bounce me on his knee to the "Snow" song. Even as an angry teenage girl I made time for daddy and White Christmas. This tradition has been carried out even after his death in '99. Although now it is played more than once during the holiday season, and always while wrapping presents. Even if Mark falls a sleep and snores through it.
Thanksgiving falls somewhere in between these holidays and New Years comes directly after. Thanksgiving has never been much of a holiday to me. New Years Eve has in recent years become a very important holiday to me after finally adopting this theory: Where ever you are, who ever you are with, and whatever mind set you have NYE will set your year in motion. If you go to a bar where you don't speak to anyone but your husband and your friend and you think,” This is the worst NYE ever!" that year will most likely be very lonely and unhappy and involve many trips to the bar. This was my life for many years. Then I found the connection, that NYE I stayed at home with my nephews and went to sleep before midnight. The rest of the year I was more family involved than ever before... a little over my head with family. The next year (last year) I went to a house party, I went into the night with my head held high determined to overcome my social anxiety once and for all. I connected with 2 people who are now very close friends, I put myself into conversations, I accepted that 2 friends, who were once close, were drifting away. 2010 has been my strongest year. I have learned more about myself this year than any year. I have made bonds this year that in the past I am sure I wouldn't have been able to emotionally handle. I have stood my ground even in the worst of situations. And yes I do think this has something to do with the way I spent my NYE. Magic happens if you let it.
So I guess this was my journal entry about holidays and what they mean to me. It was nice to lay my thoughts out and revisit the past. Let the Holidays begin!!