The Morning After: A Holiday Hangover
God, I hate Christmas in the middle of the week… especially if I don’t get any time off. I was supposed to get off early on Christmas Eve, but our branch manager didn’t seem to realize it was even a holiday. What an idiot.
So it was right back to work this morning, and I was actually surprised at how exhausted I am. I heard a co-worker say the same thing… and I realized we had a holiday hangover. All that loving family time sure can take a lot of energy… even if you aren’t the one entertaining. And if you had people over, you may fall asleep before the end of this post.
So it is finally over, and the clean-up begins. I have learned the hard way to find all my user manuals to all electronic gifts and not accidentally throw them out with the warranty cards and packaging. Then there are boxes, to save or not to save? The bows, which ones are keepers? And where will I keep all that left over wrapping paper?
Of course, I have to put up all those decorations too! Jesus Christ (no pun intended!) Funny how I get the exact opposite feeling taking them down as I felt putting them up. Where there was a mixture of excitement and hope is a mixture of exhaustion and relief. Because honestly, I can only take so much of Christmas. Get the tree out. I’m glad it’s over… and I have six or seven whole months before the music starts up again.
Christmas Day went well; everyone loved their gifts and generally got along. The adorable puppy (a 6 month-old Jack Russell terrier) we adopted for my in-laws peed on my comforter. But if that is all that went wrong, I’m thankful. I needed to have it cleaned, anyway. My favorite gift this year is the XM radio for my Avalon. (Extra points for my husband!!!) My son gets the credit for my voice recorder… in support of what he views as some comedic talent on my part. What a compliment.
We went to dinner late, but everyone was still eating. It was hard knowing that Dylan was hungry but wouldn’t eat. Before we left, he didn’t even want any rice. It casts a shadow over my feelings about holidays to come, knowing that he may not be able to enjoy them like everyone else. It doesn’t seem fair. His cousins are all on the heavy side of healthy, but he is rail thin, his body never absorbing the nutrients it needs to thrive. If something doesn’t help him, I don’t know how we’ll cope.
So now that I can take my wreath off the door, knowing one of the worst years of my life is almost over, I am not sorry to see it go. I know that nothing really changes with the arrival of a new year, but it’s nice to symbolically get rid of the last one and try to move on. As for resolutions, I don’t bother. I have too much reality in my life right now to half-commit to false promises conjured up by my own self-loathing. Besides, any time is a good time to change, not just January 1st. Who needs the added pressure of knowing everyone else has made resolutions too? It’s a timetable for collective failure. By February, everybody in the breakroom is depressed, giving in to the vending machine.
I think I dread the holidays not just because of family issues, but because of this feeling I get when it’s over. An inevitable, vague disappointment settles in on me, and probably a lot of other people, because Christmas is always anti-climactic compared to the holiday fantasy we have built up in our minds. Nothing makes us feel inferior like knowing everyone else is having a better time than we are. That is where my disgust with retail advertising comes in, because that is their main selling tool: using our lack of confidence against us.
Maybe one day I’ll spend Christmas day in my own home, with my own grandchildren. I’ll be older, hopefully wiser and probably more grateful. I hope I can learn to enjoy the parts of Christmas I really love and avoid the dread and stress. I want to be more zen, more able to relax.
If I can just keep the cats out of the tree….
