The Holiday Season: Here We Go Again

I'm not the kind of guy who humbugs his way through the holiday season (Thanksgiving through New Year's Day), but I don't look forward to it either. Until 15-or-so years ago, it was my favorite time of the year. Today: not so much. Now this five-week period is more of an interruption to my schedule and a drain on my bank account than anything else. I don't dread it, but I could easily do without it.

Here's a breakdown by “special” day.

Thanksgiving. I vaguely remember, as a young whippersnapper (Only the second time in my life I've written that word and both times were today. Kind of catchy. I like it.) when we lived within a couple hours drive of family, doing actual extended-family Thanksgiving meals. You know, a kitchen full of older female family members creating traditional family dishes while the men sat around smoking cigarettes be'essing about life and the kids played outside.

When I was age six, we finally moved sufficiently far away that more often than not, Thanksgiving was just my parents and me. My sister and her family made the trip for Christmas. Working solo, my mother continued making all the dishes to which we were accustomed: turkey, chestnut dressing, Pennsylvania Dutch dried corn, jellied cranberry sauce and so forth. From that point forward, the day became more about the food than family for me.

By the time I was 23, both my parents were gone. With my mother's passing in 1975, I was cast adrift for Thanksgiving. As a Thanksgiving orphan, I've always had friends who invited me to their homes for their Thanksgiving meal; but it was their Thanksgiving meal. I gratefully accept an invitation each Thanksgiving, but it's just not the same because the meal isn't the same. Often I try to preserve some of my family's tradition by whipping up some dried corn and bringing my own cranberry sauce, but it's still not the same.

Christmas. My father died in 1973. I spent that Christmas and all but two Christmas holidays since with my sister's family in New Mexico. The two I missed fell on the Christmas after I relocated somewhere new: South Florida in 1984, and South Carolina 10 years ago. I just didn't have the money or the motivation to make the trip.

My sister's family does Christmas the way it should be done. Christmas is such a big deal to them, historically the house is completely decorated by Thanksgiving. And, I mean completely decorated. Outside and inside. My brother-in-law spends days putting a train set under the tree with its very elaborate village. There are lights, candles and poinsettias all over the house. Her adult children follow suit in their own homes. This will be the first year my sister isn't hosting the Christmas dinner. The family has simply outgrown a sit-down meal at her house. This will be yet another change.

Because I'm never home on Christmas, I don't decorate....much. When living in Florida, I threw a big holiday wine tasting and decorated for that. I don't entertain at my Greenville home. Other than some out-of-town guests, I've had people over maybe half-a-dozen times since moving here. It's not a house set up to entertain. I usually put up some outside Christmas lights, but this has more to do with making it look like someone is home during the 10 days I'm gone than it does about dressing up the house for the holiday. Taking down Christmas decorations makes me melancholy. I've always hated it. I now use the fact that I'm never home for Christmas day as an excuse not to decorate.

Along about Thanksgiving, I begin stressing out about the gift giving aspect. To whom do I give and what do I give them? The family just keeps growing. I used to have 6 people to concentrate on and now there are about 20. That doesn't even count nonrelatives. It's just a lot of pressure.

There is no way for me to look at the Thanksgiving-New Year's holiday period any differently than I do any other holiday, which is that it's a huge interruption to my revenue production. Not only am I spending all this money on travel and gift giving, but I'm not making any money. It's a double whammy. In fact, the not-making-any-money part oozes into the first week or two of January. This brings with it a lot of stress. Not that I don't have savings, but that I must dip into savings to survive this six-week or longer revenue drought. This sucks much of the joy out of the Christmas season for me.

New Year's. This is a day that to me simply means I advance the year when dating a check. At my age, I don't view the new year as a fresh beginning. I see it as being a year older and more likely that something is going to go wrong with my health, my house or a loved one. Although no one would ever accuse me of being the glass-is-half-full guy, I have always been basically optimistic that things will somehow work out. They always have for me. How else can you explain my freelancing for basically the last 20-plus years and still having my nose above the water line? But I long ago quit waiting for my ship to come in. I don't think it ever set sail.

The odds simply aren't with next year being better than this year. I'm no longer in my 30s. Things are winding down and not up. I'm not sad about this. It is what it is. I don't even dwell on it, but it does frame my perspective on the new year. I don't hate it. I just don't care about it.It is meaningless to me.

And there you have my thoughts on the next few weeks. I'll be glad to spend some time with my family in New Mexico and tip a few in honor of the holidays with assorted friends. But, this time of year just doesn't mean to me what it once did. I have lost my enthusiasm for the holidays.