Holiday Season

I'll admit it; I'm a bit of a Grinch.

As a child, I adored the Christmas season. There were concerts and dressing up and pretty trees and taking turns opening the Advent Calendar. I always participated in at least two performances, one for school and one for Church. When I got into high school, I was allowed to sing in the adult choir, so there were multiple concerts to sing which I adored so much more than the Christmas plays. Parties with friends made us almost seem grown-up.

College continued the good times, though minus church activities (we had a falling out, and I rarely look back). Then, at the end of college I floated into a really fun retail job. Fun, that is, except for the Christmas times.

You have to be extremely steadfast in your love of Christmas to have any cheer left after 8-10 hour days working in a busy mall, no matter how rad your store is. Christmas music screams continually. Shoppers are about 1/2 frazzled yet nice and 1/2 utterly selfish bastards. There's the tension that goes along with store owners worshiping the Dollar, and making sure the numbers are always better than the year/week/day before.

I did this for 3 years. (8 years ago)

It utterly killed any desire I've ever had for seasonally decorating. Killed dead. Last year I thought that maybe this year I'd maybe put up a tree, but when the time got here, I said "meh" and didn't bother. And Christmas music? Let's just say that this time of year I seek out and patronize shops that aren't playing any. Thank you Espresso Metro!!!

Instead of being a good consumer, I've been busy having fun making all my Christmas gifts! Everyone on my admittedly small list gets either something handmade this year, or gifts of food. I love giving gifts, ones that have meaning even if they are inexpensive, ones that I give from my heart. Getting gifts is fun too, I won't lie, but what really does it for me is watching moments of joy that others have seeing what they've gotten.