Tis the Season

I am at home on Christmas and at peace -- listening to my favorite holiday CDs and sipping pomegranate mimosas and basking in the beauty of my fabulous fake Christmas tree -- just as I planned. I had expected to be depressed right about now, having decided to sit this one out -- no shopping, no sales, no headaches in January when the credit card bills arrive. I waited and waited, all day yesterday, all day today -- but the depression never arrived. The one in my head -- not in the economy. I'm enjoying the pleasure of my company, alone on the biggest holiday of the year -- when everyone expects you to participate and like it. And guess what, I'm not feeling guilty about not getting bigger and better gifts for everyone in the family and thinking they'd be disappointed because I didn't come through.
It helps that half of the nieces and nephews are now adults and the other half no longer believes in Santa. The pressure is off. It feels great to have a holiday free of consumer-driven angst. Free of the need to contribute to making the retailers' fourth quarter a little more profitable. Free of anger when the perfectly planned festivities don't go quite the way you planned, perhaps like the gunman in a Santa suit who shot up a party in Los Angeles. There was plenty of incentive not to join the crushing crowds of shoppers. The crumbling economy did coincide with my decision to sit out Christmas but that's not why I did it. I did it because I can and I wanted to.
Today I'm packing away all the painful memories of those awful Christmases past -- year, after year, after year. Good riddance! This is for all of the Christmases of my youth -- when once the presents were unwrapped, I'd feel empty and angry and for all the Christmases of my younger adult life, when I'd feel disappointment after all of the presents were unwrapped or there were no presents or the presents were the goods I coveted -- "Bye-Bye." I am so done with the Christmas blues. But Charles Brown's bluesy holiday classic, "Merry Christmas Baby," will always be a favorite of mine.