Holidamnit

Disclaimer and warning: I am all too aware that Christmas cheer is a waxing and waning commodity; below, I take the opportunity to bitch and moan a bit about recent seasonal miscellany that has me crawling the walls. If you're currently in a jinglerific, glittertastic, heart-grew-three-sizes kind of mood, I advise you to step away, soak it all in, and come back here after you've burnt something or gotten tape stuck in your hair.

Meep. It is just under two weeks away from Christmas. Pretty much every year since I actually had exams and such the week before Christmas, instead of pageants and choral programs and classroom parties and a disproportionately crafty curriculum, I have made Christmas miserable for myself. So basically, since I learned about Santa. Internally, I turn in to Buddy the freaking Elf, ready to explode with glitter and maple syrup I'm so stuffed to the gills with excitement and cheer. Accordingly, I then propagate a cycle each year that looks more or less like this:

1. Voluntarily succumb to the earliest retail holiday campaigns available, usually early-to-mid November. WHEEEE!

2. Become kind of overwhelmed with excitement, and/or borderline-spiteful determination to NOT be one of those adults who "gets through" the holidays, and allow/force myself to ENJOY them (!!! - lots of exclamation points and wide-eyed naivete).  Begin shopping in earnest, feeling slightly smug about my phenomenal gift-selecting abilities and the copious amounts of time I still have to accomplish the task (this is what 4th graders learn to call "foreshadowing).

3. Stumble upon adorable gift packaging tins, purchase ALL THE THINGS, and decide to bestow my delicious holiday treats upon those I love in addition to their psychically-selected present(s) - because a) it gives me an excuse to bake/make said treats, b) it gives me an excuse to buy and use said premium packaging, and c) I'm still a southern only child of a phenomenal cook, hostess, and housewife, with many other such ladies as family/friends, trying to prove I really am a grown-up despite basement boomerang #3, and am therefore trying to mark my metaphorical territory regarding holiday dishes and treats while I still can; I find force feeding gifting to be a satisfactory method of doing so. 

Oh, oops. Anyway, then,

4. [Insert life-stage-appropriate, year-end, normal-person, stressful thing - exams and "ohmigod how do I have that many 'zeros' in my homework column?", then "I don't care if I missed half the semester, 'Incompletes' are for losers and weak people and I WILL finish this paper/final on time and I WILL get an A! I WANT TO ENJOY MY HOLIDAYS!!!" 

or this year, "I'm a total moron and scheduled participation in a time-consuming, physically-demanding research study for three days, out of town, each week in December before Christmas - OH, and I work retail near the bottom of my store's tenure totem pole. Also, who knew there were four separate versions of 'All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth'? What a disgusting song..."].

Become completely overwhelmed in a different and not-so-glittery way with all that I have committed myself to...to myself, pull up my elfin bootstraps and rededicate myself to making THIS the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! NO GROWNUP FESTIVUS CYNICISM FOR ME!

5. Angrily sweep through big box store, hoarding ingredients with little-to-no regard for actual quantities required, "knowing" I can use it next year sometime, or return it, because it's totally normal and classy to return 8 bags of white chocolate chips on December 27th. Begin to worry slightly about my state of physical health (having already given up on the mental), as said sweep has left me short of breath and exhausted, and not quite so full of glitter, really, at all. Intentionally deny that I could be getting sick, and convince self that I am simply overtired from seasonal load on my general ease of over-stimulation. Ooooh, sparkly things...

6. Marinate in cognitive dissonance. While driving home, give myself another pep talk - often enhanced with an intentionally self-imposed guilt trip about how lucky I am to even have people I care enough about to care this much about their gifts, to have the means to buy gifts at all, to have parents and friends and aunts and uncles and cousins who love me despite my myriad various neuroses. Recapture glitter-explosion feeling and head home to bake my self-congratulatory culinary buns off.

7. Hear "Do They Know It's Christmas?" on the radio while pulling into driveway. Re-explode. "NO, there will NOT be any snow in Africa this Christmastime, because it is summertime in Africa on Christmas, post-colonialist morons." "Also, many African nations are predominantly Muslim or otherwise religiously inclined, so it's really not such a tragedy that they don't 'know it's Christmas' ...""REALLY? 'Thank God it's them instead of you?' REALLY, BONO?!? 'ONE CAMPAIGN' BONO?! WHAT KIND OF A FREAKING BLEEDING-HEART CHARITY SONG IS THIS, ALL MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU, OH AND SUCKS FOR THE STARVING KIDS, HUH? YOU DO KNOW AFRICA ISN'T A *COUNTRY*, RIGHT?!" Become increasingly convinced that I actually am getting sick, as even this miserably written, horrifically Americentric and condescending garbage shouldn't send me into such a blind rage quite so quickly. Or at least, the rant shouldn't leave me quite this out of breath, and taking this long to recover. 

8. Eat or drink something I feel like I shouldn't, be it a truffle, martini, soda, or salad. Feel happy and smug, and resolutely continue with my treat-making mission, taking deep breaths and reminding myself that this is why some people find me exhausting. Have a few kitchen mishaps but nothing beyond salvaging, and only four minor crying incidents, two of which involve injurious accidents. Mass-pack my treats in ziplocs and head to bed.

9. Wake up bloodshot but bushy-tailed. Package treats in previously-purchased adorable premium packages, with adorable fillers and fabulous bows. Panic that I have not yet PURCHASED several of the perfectly-selected gifts I need, and - horrors - have a few beloved cherubs for whom I do not even have a well-formed perfect-gift concept. Attack retail outlets with gusto, leaving only a handful of for-sure-will-be-in-stock options open for annual Crack-O-Dawn-Christmas-Eve-Shopping with Faja. Return home and wrap said presents, exhausted. 

Remove scotch tape from seat of pants, hair. (Both places. every year.)

Pat self on back.

10. Cough violently as a result of light self-pat. Continue coughing violently, and sneezing violently, and wheezing loudly, and panting like a pug through remainder of holiday, despite proverbial kitchen sinkful of all big guns, short of IV therapy, being thrown at your overeager, childishly manic, and now frail and "spoon-less" ass. Drink warm beverages. 

Regardless of whether and when I get my tree up and decorated, or if my previously planned Christmas Eve Fashion Fabulousity has been reduced to denim, cable knit and sensible shoes, return to and remain in a state of humble gratitude for the duration of the season - grateful that my damn-near-entertaining-and-culinary-professional of a mom thinks my treats AND packaging look worthy of purchase by strangers, and that her sentiments are echoed by others whose opinion on such things is worth its salt; that she no longer asks for my help planning, prepping, and hosting to make me feel loved and included (though it does), but because she values and respects and admires my taste and abilities; that she even does go to the lengths she does to make holidays - and most every day - beautiful and celebrated.  Grateful that my dad has the luxury of taking a good week or two off at the end of each year to spend time with us, and take me shopping and for breakfast on Christmas Eve like we have every year but one, making me feel like a beautiful, precious, safe and loved little girl in a way most of us seldom experience anymore; and that he cares what I think and have to say, and has instilled in me the sense that it matters, that natural and classic is beautiful, and that strong, intelligent, funny women finish last, boyfriends be damned. Grateful they're both still here.  

And grateful that yes, everybody really, truly, seriously LOVED their gifts. 

Bonus #11: Swear to myself I won't do this next year. Return to step 1.