So it’s the weekend of Thanksgiving, we’ve shipped my little brother back to the confines of his dorm, leftover turkey pot pies are baking in the oven, the house is on fire outside with icicle lights, the tree is up and ornament..ed… and Christmas carols are making their way onto my piano. Man, I can play a mean Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy. Ahh, holidays. You smell that in the air?
It’s the scent of panic.
Holidays? Holidays?! You mean it’s time to make vacation time and funds to meet out of state family and buy presents make a gift list for people to potentially buy presents for but probably end up just making a shit ton of cookies for them and plan Christmas events at church alongside finding time (and more money) to go snowboarding and hang out with all the people coming back to the state and grab a boyfriend to kiss on New Year’s?
Okay, you’ve caught me, I’ve never really done the New Year’s kiss thing. Always seemed kinda… odd. What if you messed up your timing and started making out too early and suddenly you have to take a breath right when the clock struck 12? Or maybe you’re in such a rush to get to that fresh New Year kiss that you end up butting heads and one of you gets a bloody nose? Or what if the ball dropping on TV is like two seconds slower than your watch which is three seconds faster than your cellphone; which do you follow? There are far too many factors to take into consideration!! Not to mention, breakup rates are highest the 2 weeks before Christmas, so you probably won’t have a boyfriend by New Year’s anyway. Shucks.
Back on topic: Thanksgiving is officially the kick start of the ridiculously long and over hyped holiday season. You find yourself dozing off in a warm and fuzzy food coma, and the next thing you know you’re trapped in between two middle aged women who are tearing off limbs at the nearest Black Friday sale, stocking up on gifts for people they probably only see annually and spoiled children that haven’t believed in Santa Clause for years and probably borrow money from their parents to buy their parents’ gifts, if at all.
I’m not harping on the holidays; Thanksgiving is nice, Christmas is cheery, and New Years is refreshing, if not the deadline of false hopes and promises. But do they have to be so back to back? Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham and New Year’s champagne could probably be taken in a single pill without you noticing the difference. Within the span of a few weeks the home magazines are changing interior decorations from brown and red to red and green to black and gold and then we get pink (Valentine’s) and green (St. Patrick’s) and yellow (Easter) and argh TASTE THE RAINBOW (…Mardi Gras?).
On the flip side, July, August, and September are awesome months, not just because they bring the nostalgic promise of summer vacation, but because there’s just that one holiday (fourth of July) at the beginning, then three months of major holiday free bliss. The only theme in shopping malls is either SUMMER SAVINGS or BACK TO SCHOOL SALE, both of which are not lit up by bright colorful lights across every pole and shelf on the street. Not only that, it’s relaxing.
Here in the dead of winter when the rest of nature is rightfully sleeping away, it’s as if humanity is trying to fight our natural hibernation urges by injecting ourselves with liquid snowflake sugar cookies. Nay, we say, we are not mere beasts of the land that sleep through the coldest part of the year! We are highly evolved. We are humans! Manic, shopping humans! And we spite thee, Old Man Winter, by spending the bulk of our yearly incomes and pouring the vast majority of our energy into this two month frenzy! We are happy! Happy! WATCH AS WE STAB OUR CLINICAL DEPRESSION IN THE BACK WITH SHARPENED CANDY CANES! (New statistics show that suicide rates do actually fall during the holidays… yay?)
And then along comes February with the celebration of our romantic lovers (Remember? The ones who broke up with us right before Christmas) and the dwindling gym passes as we slowly realize that once again our New Year’s resolution has been forgotten under the pile of normal life. Holidays are great for boosting spirits and being all hopeful and such, but there can be too much of a good thing. Ever tried eating only pie for a week straight? The holidays are kinda like that. You have awesome sugary fruity goodness for a few weeks, then life hits back with a solid dose of reality diarrhea.
Which reminds me. My turkey pot pies are burning. That’s what I was smelling…
Dry Amusement 