Spirit of the Season

This pretty much sums up the feelings that get stirred up for me during the Yuletide season.

Dropped $700 on presents, and I'll still get passive-aggressive grief because I only got so-and-so a card. Packed malls, insane drivers, lousy weather, annoying carols that have been permanently etched into my synapses. Hours, even days lost: not to make the holidays bright, but just to get them bloody well over with.

The unending obligations to relatives you only see once a year. The forced merriment of corporate head-office mandated Holiday Enjoyment Events. Guilt, anxiousness, self- and other-loathing. Stress. My gods, the stress.

"Bah, humbug!" doesn't even enter into it. The Grinch was just mildly miffed. I'll face down the Holiday Spirits with an untested, backpack-mounted atomic-powered proton-colliding device and think very hard about crossing the streams.

Followed, of course, by the driving need to have forced fun one week later. Thinking you're a miserable loser if you don't get a peck on the cheek. And then, and then promising yourself that it'll be better next year.

Not the most wonderful time of the year.