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Broke Wife, Big City...
The grown-up side of
Christmas
By Aprill Brandon
Something very strange has been going on these past few weeks. The
month of December is finally upon us. Which means it's almost
Christmas. And I don't even care.
I haven't started decorating, I haven't annoyed my husband by belting
out my dirty version of "Carol of the Bells" and I haven't even had a
sip of eggnog yet.
It's my favorite holiday and I haven't even acknowledged it.
But I think I know why. See, depending on your age, the holiday season
can be perceived in many different ways.
As a kid, it's all shiny, shiny lights and cookies and presents and
big, fat men with beards whom you've never met but nonetheless are
guaranteeing to do everything within their vast magical powers to make
sure YOU personally have a very merry Christmas.
As a teenager, it means three weeks off school, the anticipation of
your mom finally buying you those "ridiculously over-priced" (her
words) pants with the vaguely suggestive word on the rear that you'll
just DIE without and hanging out with your cool, older cousin with the
tattoo at grandma's house.
In your early 20's, it means one month of never-ending rounds of eggnog
and wine and seasonal beer and reddish-looking cocktails with cutesy
names like North Poletini and Santa's Sleigh Bomb at hip holiday
parties and festively decorated bars. And then going to your parents
where they feed you and give you lots of presents and do your laundry
if you ask nicely enough and then give you all the leftovers to boot
because you "look too skinny."
But then, one day you're married and 30 and BOOM! You realize it's
December but you wouldn't know it from YOUR house, which still has up
an odd mixture of Fourth of July, Halloween and Thanksgiving decor. And
it's all because YOU are suddenly in charge of MAKING Christmas happen.
And that's when you cross the threshold from "this is most wonderful
time of year" to "can we just skip Christmas this year and head to the
Bahamas?"
Because now when that massive ball of Christmas lights roughly the size
of Utah needs untangled, that angry, throbbing vein is appearing on
YOUR forehead, and not humorously on your father's head. And now when
you hear "Silver Bells" for the fourth time before you've even had
breakfast, it is no longer "festive" but some sort of sadistic audio
torture.
Suddenly, you're Googling how much the going rate for a semi-decent
kidney is on the black market in order to afford gifts for your
husband, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, in-laws and even your
stupid dog because your husband thinks it's mean if little Buffy
doesn't get at least one chew toy. Not to mention, now it's a faux pas
to not buy gifts for your mailman, hairdresser, neighbor, boss,
co-workers, cousin's baby, mother-in-law's dog and the barista who
serves you your Peppermint Mocha every morning.
And while before you always insisted that artificial Christmas trees
were just so "bourgeois" and that when you had your OWN home, you
wouldn't be caught dead without a real pine tree, this year your corner
is inhabited by a $19.99 three-foot tall fake tree that looks like it
died of some horrible fake tree disease in 1974. And then you stuffed
it with some pine-scented air-freshners from your car.
And even though you swore you were going to make gingerbread cookies
from scratch this year, two minutes inside the store made you grab the
closest pre-packaged dessert-like item and SPRINT back to your car out
of a not-entirely-unreasonable fear of being stabbed by a soccer mom
with a candy cane.
And let's not even get into attempting to make plans to travel to spend
the holidays with your family, or maybe your in-laws, and having to
decide which one and if you can even afford it and if you and your
husband and your stupid dog can even survive a 14-hour road trip in
heavy traffic without killing each other.
Of course, come Christmas Eve, when everything is finally done, you'll
finally find yourself falling under the magic spell of the season. And
so you snuggle down on the couch to watch "Miracle on 34th Street" with
some eggnog and sigh a sigh of contentment. Because it's Christmas. And
it really is the most wonderful time of the year.
Until you realize you don't even have kids yet.
And everything is only going to get worse when you do.
Sigh.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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