I am un-Christmasing.
I am un-singing the carols, un-decorating the tree, and un-wreathing
the door.
I am going into solitary confinement, concealing myself in a
gelatinous cocoon, double-fisting Zoloft, and emerging in a few days as a
born-again Pagan.
Un-Christmasing is a mammoth task, considering that for the
past two months, I broke a sacred promise to myself from last year to minimize
and simplify, and have been decking the halls, hanging the holly, hauling the
credit card, and hurling harsh language – all in a psychotically-motivated
effort to make Grandmother’s house look like a Thomas Kincaid painting when the
family travels over the river and through the woods to get here.
Why do we women indulge in this annual masochistic ritual of
what can only be regarded as the equivalent of bowel strangulation, like a band
of conspirators, connoisseurs of human folly? It is truly an exercise for the
mentally defective.
I suppose that as matriarchs, we try to preserve mindless
traditions with awesomely brainless expectations, which is further evidence of
diminished neuron function during the entire month of December.
Honestly, I’m at a loss to explain the phenomenon. Nostalgia is the opiate of the masses. It’s also exhausting.
So, in keeping with tradition, I am indulging in my post-holiday
rant, a privilege I have earned from the frustrations and festivities of the
past 60 days.
Last year, I made a vow and swore an oath, (actually, I
swore many oaths) that this year would be different…I would be different. I would not take on a hemorrhoidal task that
would bring a vale of sherpas to their knees.
I would take a sabbatical from the insanity…and simplify. I would observe the true meaning of Christmas,
and resist the urge to indulge in the frenzied, annual, excessive Christmas
decorating competition with friends and neighbors. I would savor serenity, ensconce my mind in a
protective Zen euphoria, assume the lotus position, and commune with my inner
Mother Theresa.
However, right on schedule, the day after Halloween, as if
pre-programmed by galloping dementia and a diabolical demon of depravity, I
morphed into “The Noel Nazi,” “The Cherub of Cheer,” “The Ogress of
Observations,” “The Deaconess of Decoration,” “The Empress of Entertainment
Excess,” “The Matron of Merriment.”
I haplessly witnessed my own transformation from a mild-mannered
Grandma into a teeth-gnashing, seasonally adjusted perversion of Lou Ferrigno. I
became…THE HOLIDAY HULK!
It’s like my wobbly-bosomed body has become the host for an
alien life-form – “traditionus tyrannus!”
The holidays are snugly nestled between protracted idiocy
and prolonged insanity, as if for a space of time, I’m plunged into the vortex
of some surreal Middle Earth, and I become a constituent with fellow residents
like Bilbo Baggins and a cadre of unusual suspects. Bags ring my eyes like black-mascara funereal
wreaths from too little sleep and too much Red Bull. And welts as big as anvils threaten to drag
my eyelids down to my neck wattles. Not
even mortician’s putty can conceal the carnage.
Why do I expose myself to the yawning mouth of a labyrinth
from which, once entered, there is no escape?
Knowing, as I do, that I will eventually have to face the Minotaur?
Perhaps it’s an attempt to self-mythologize, before time
demands that I become surgically modified and prosthetically endowed.
Of course, on November 1st, visions of myself as
the seraphic, ethereal embodiment of beneficence, Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel incarnate, dance in my head. By the afternoon of December 25th,
my hair is matted by sleep deprivation, and my eyelashes look the legs of a
dead spider. I’m more “mold,
Frankenstein and myrrh-der” than “angels we have heard on high.”
Then there are the inevitable curves that one does not
anticipate:
- “Stop peeking in the packages, Necie, and UN-SEE what you just saw!”
- “No, Carter, a Thesaurus if NOT a very literate dinosaur!”
- “Asher, it’s FIGGY PUDDING, not FRIGGIN’ PUDDING!”
Naturally, I prepared my annual Christmas Eve feast. I counseled with the butcher about how I
planned to cook the ($200!) tenderloin.
At those prices, I wanted to get it just right. He just looked at me. Then he informed me that if I proceed with my
feloniously arsonistic culinary protocol, there would arise from my oven a
great column of smoke and ash, to exceed any volcanic discharge of Mt.
Vesuvius. He asked, straight-faced, if I
planned to cremate the beast and scatter the ashes.
OK. Point made. I do tend to over-cook things to the point of
incineration. I just have a fear of
boccilinus gigantus, and prefer to have the children alive when Santa
arrives. Carpet bombing the roast seems
like the best way to kill alien amoeba that could infect the tribe. The butcher assured me that would not happen.
On Christmas Eve, we sang the carols designed to invoke the
Spirit of Christmas…comfort and joy, peace on earth, good will toward men. But we sounded less like herald angels rockin’
Handel, and more like the “Farkel Family Singers” on steroids.
Asher’s seismic activity had us laughing through “Silent
Night,” (“Silent night!” Really???!!!) a
blasphemy of such proportion it nearly halted Santa mid-flight. That child would test the patience of all the
Saints and Angels.
Christmas morning was anything but a Currier and Ives
rendition. In a display of
overly-muscular gift-opening, fragments of bows and wrapping paper ascended,
like projectiles erupting from a missile launcher. My place looked like the casualty of a targeted
attack from grenades, Molotov cocktails,
and Isis.
Definitely not how Dickens envisioned it.
Well, too late came too early, and by 10:00 a.m., the adults
were collapsed in recliners, hollow-eyed, grinning foolishly, uncomprehending,
staring blankly, stuporous, unable to blink, while morsels of fruit cake
drooled down our chins, muttering incoherent soliloquys to no one in particular. We looked for all the world like a collection
of mutant, manic-depressive Mr. Peepers impersonators in an opium den.
I think, by most standards, this Christmas was a triumph.
But I am starting my New Year’s Resolutions early. Next year, I do solemnly swear to decorate
less, simplify…focus on the TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS…fa la la la la…blah…blah…blah…blah
Happy New Year!
