My Secret...

In hind sight, I can maybe, kind of, sort of see why POPSUGAR didn't want to publish this. Yet, at the same time... I feel like I cannot be the only one that feels this way. Statistically, it would be an impossibility for me to be the lone person in this category. Now that the holiday has come, and passed, I feel even more comfortable posting this...

Alas, I present another failure - may it make to laugh a bit, and send it off to the people in your life that would appreciate it the most.  

There’s One in Every Family

As Halloween drew to an end, I began to notice Christmas décor popping up in stores. The inner sigh I heaved was as deep as any I have ever heaved… Christmas before Halloween is just wrong. Yes, there is such a thing as decorating too early for Christmas. Yes, there is a “war on Christmas”, but it’s not exactly what you are initially thinking. My war on Christmas is strictly to keep Christmas in December, where it belongs. I don’t want sparkly trees, elves, and the fat man to show up while I am pigging out on small Snicker bars, and wolfing down mini-KitKats! I just don’t. At the beginning of November, I saw people hanging Christmas lights up. I heard some local radio stations playing Christmas music! Discussions of how many Saturdays were left before the big day arrived kept popping up in radio ads. As I deep eye rolled over this I realized, and not for the first time, that I am a Grinch.

There is one in every family.

I am the one in mine.

This actually doesn’t bother me the older I have become. I hate Christmas. There, I said it… I hate it. I won’t lie, pictures on Facebook or Instagram of the piles of presents under people’s Christmas trees make me want to shout profanities. Is it a status symbol to be able to fill the entire underneath of the Christmas tree? I hate it. I hate feeling like I have to buy Christmas gifts. To me, it cheapens what Christmas really ought to be about, and no amount of colored lights, loud singing, or candy canes make that feeling go away. Because I am pretty sure that is all my kids care about, and I am sure that is all your kids care about… the freaking Christmas gifts.

I usually wake up dreading all the bills we will have to pay come the first of the year over all the toys we had to buy for our children. There is nothing more brutal than trying to keep up with Black Friday ad’s, Toys’R’Us commercials, and the children’s little friends whispering about how awesome all their many things are. Last year at Christmas we were visiting family, and I literally cried as I bought Christmas gifts for everyone. It was so bad, that I washed my hands of buying Christmas gifts ever again. My husband is now in charge of gifting at the holiday, and it is honestly the best choice I have ever made.  

As a parent, I always find myself walking a fine line between spoiling our children rotten, and giving them the bare minimum. My oldest is old enough to thoroughly understand the concept of embarrassment, and jealously. As a young girl, there were very few Christmases full of the flurry of brightly colored paper; there were very few Christmases were I felt a feeling of abundance. I don’t want my own children to feel the feelings I have about Christmas, but I also don’t want them to expect the world offered to them each Christmas morning.

Furthermore, I am not sure Santa is really a great idea either. Don’t get me wrong, Santa is a’coming to our house, but I don’t think I like Santa. There is something about a giant fat man crawling down the chimney, peeping to see if you are sleeping, and then leaving gifts that just screams Horror Genre. Then he flies away on his sled pulled by eight tiny reindeer? Please. It’s a believable as the damn Elf on the Shelf… which we do have, and is currently riding in the Millennium Falcon that lives on top of the kitchen cabinets.

………..

The good news is, I am extremely good at faking Christmas cheer. Even more good news is for every Grinch like me, there are literally dozens of others that are exclaiming their love for Christmas from the roof tops… literally, in the form of their many colored lights, and animatronic deer set to Jingle Bells. I guess I am glad for that, because otherwise the world would be pretty drab around Christmas if we were all Grinch’s.

I probably won’t ever like Christmas, but I will continue to fake smile my way through the many renditions of Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and The Little Drummer Boy. I will trim the Christmas tree in grumpiness, hang the stockings with care, and then wrap the gifts. I will always be an active participant in the season, despite hating it, because I love my children and I love my husband. My hope is that they will remember that, like the Grinch, I was there year after year to catalogue, critique, and be present for each Christmas. I’m their Grinch, and I think they need me around just as much as I need to be around… because nothing makes a Grinch more of a Grinch than being left out.

Btw - your welcome.