We Insist You Have A Merry Christmas
As Christmas bears down on me like a merciless juggernaut whose dominance I must celebrate or risk being labeled a Grinch, I can’t help thinking it’s not just a question of attitude.
I do try repeating the usual mantras: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” “Take time to appreciate what you have,” “Remember the reason for the season,” etc. And they help, sort of. But there are reasons I have to cajole myself into the holiday spirit, and these reasons are woven so deeply into the fabric of Christmas that it’s hard for one not very powerful person to unravel them.
First and foremost: bemoaning the materialism of the modern Christmas does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it’s all about Stuff. That in itself is almost guaranteed to trigger resentment in most adults. Stuff dominates our lives to a barely tolerable degree most of the year already; the second sleigh bells start to ring, it slides into intolerable territory. Here’s the Stuff Progression you go through when you’re the woman of the household living with four people in a tiny, closet-less, garage-less beachhouse:
1. Realize, at least six weeks in advance, that you’ll need to organize and get rid of Everyday Stuff to make room for Holiday Decoration Stuff and Present Stuff.
2. Make attempts -- some sustained, some sporadic -- to deal with the Everyday Stuff.
3. Wake up one morning less than a week before Christmas and realize that, despite your best efforts, the house looks like the Stuff Monster visited in the night and vomited all over your living space.
4. Ruthlessly pack away and give away as much Everyday Stuff as possible, incurring the wrath of spouse and children in the process.
5. Break out several bins of Holiday Decoration Stuff. Haul in a tree and find a way to incorporate it into your crowded living room. Decorate, find somewhere to put the bins, now filled with the Everyday Stuff the Holiday Decoration Stuff displaced.
6. Achieve a Fragile Truce in which the Everyday Stuff is at a level that doesn’t interfere with the Holiday Decoration Stuff and you are allowed a brief moment of relaxation and gloating.
7. Quickly invite people over, to give them the impression that the Fragile Truce state is how you live all the time.
8. Watch your extended family arrive and overwhelm the Fragile Truce with bags and boxes of More Stuff: coats, presents, appetizers, diaper bags...
9. Enjoy a brief, happy frenzy as your kids open bags and boxes of More Stuff.
10. Clean up the Packaging Stuff. Wearily attempt to assimilate More Stuff into your already-at-capacity household.
11. Bring out the bins. Replace the Holiday Decoration Stuff with Everyday Stuff. Pack another box or two of Giveaway Stuff.
12. Finally reach a semi-tolerable equilibrium. Ask yourself: “Where the #@$! was the ‘holiday’ in all that?”
My husband’s family used to celebrate Christmas Eve in his aunt’s enormous Victorian house. But she sold it, and this year for the first time we celebrated a week early at the Lawn Tennis Club, which is a lot like an empty house that you bring all your stuff into, decorate, have your party, clean up, and leave. Though it was a considerable amount of work -- especially the cleanup -- there is much to be said for this system. Decorating a nearly-empty house is way more fun than attempting to balance a poinsettia on a stack of kids’ school projects and shoehorn ornaments into a cluttered living room. During the party you can flip through a small photo album featuring Lawn Tennis Champions, 1930-1970 -- and is that really so different from perusing an album full of dead people that happened to be ancestral to your husband’s family? Working in a giant kitchen, where every surface is spotless and empty and the cupboards are filled with stacks of plates and wine glasses lined up in military rows -- well, that’s just a delight. Possibly best of all, there’s a giant empty room where the kids can run around, whacking each other with their new Light Sabers and shrieking.
On the wishlist for next Christmas: talk my four siblings into chipping in on a Christmas House. It doesn’t have to be fancy or glamorously located. It just needs a good-sized kitchen, a couple of big rooms to gather in, and a closet to hold all the holiday decorations so we don’t have to keep them in our own closets. We’ll meet there on Christmas Day and book the surrounding weekends for get-togethers with our in-law families, friends, and co-workers. When the parties are over, we’ll clean up and go back to our own undisrupted households. And while you’re at it, Santa, (to misquote the great Bill Watterson) I’d like a pony.
I do try repeating the usual mantras: “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” “Take time to appreciate what you have,” “Remember the reason for the season,” etc. And they help, sort of. But there are reasons I have to cajole myself into the holiday spirit, and these reasons are woven so deeply into the fabric of Christmas that it’s hard for one not very powerful person to unravel them.
First and foremost: bemoaning the materialism of the modern Christmas does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it’s all about Stuff. That in itself is almost guaranteed to trigger resentment in most adults. Stuff dominates our lives to a barely tolerable degree most of the year already; the second sleigh bells start to ring, it slides into intolerable territory. Here’s the Stuff Progression you go through when you’re the woman of the household living with four people in a tiny, closet-less, garage-less beachhouse:
1. Realize, at least six weeks in advance, that you’ll need to organize and get rid of Everyday Stuff to make room for Holiday Decoration Stuff and Present Stuff.
2. Make attempts -- some sustained, some sporadic -- to deal with the Everyday Stuff.
3. Wake up one morning less than a week before Christmas and realize that, despite your best efforts, the house looks like the Stuff Monster visited in the night and vomited all over your living space.
4. Ruthlessly pack away and give away as much Everyday Stuff as possible, incurring the wrath of spouse and children in the process.
5. Break out several bins of Holiday Decoration Stuff. Haul in a tree and find a way to incorporate it into your crowded living room. Decorate, find somewhere to put the bins, now filled with the Everyday Stuff the Holiday Decoration Stuff displaced.
6. Achieve a Fragile Truce in which the Everyday Stuff is at a level that doesn’t interfere with the Holiday Decoration Stuff and you are allowed a brief moment of relaxation and gloating.
7. Quickly invite people over, to give them the impression that the Fragile Truce state is how you live all the time.
8. Watch your extended family arrive and overwhelm the Fragile Truce with bags and boxes of More Stuff: coats, presents, appetizers, diaper bags...
9. Enjoy a brief, happy frenzy as your kids open bags and boxes of More Stuff.
10. Clean up the Packaging Stuff. Wearily attempt to assimilate More Stuff into your already-at-capacity household.
11. Bring out the bins. Replace the Holiday Decoration Stuff with Everyday Stuff. Pack another box or two of Giveaway Stuff.
12. Finally reach a semi-tolerable equilibrium. Ask yourself: “Where the #@$! was the ‘holiday’ in all that?”
My husband’s family used to celebrate Christmas Eve in his aunt’s enormous Victorian house. But she sold it, and this year for the first time we celebrated a week early at the Lawn Tennis Club, which is a lot like an empty house that you bring all your stuff into, decorate, have your party, clean up, and leave. Though it was a considerable amount of work -- especially the cleanup -- there is much to be said for this system. Decorating a nearly-empty house is way more fun than attempting to balance a poinsettia on a stack of kids’ school projects and shoehorn ornaments into a cluttered living room. During the party you can flip through a small photo album featuring Lawn Tennis Champions, 1930-1970 -- and is that really so different from perusing an album full of dead people that happened to be ancestral to your husband’s family? Working in a giant kitchen, where every surface is spotless and empty and the cupboards are filled with stacks of plates and wine glasses lined up in military rows -- well, that’s just a delight. Possibly best of all, there’s a giant empty room where the kids can run around, whacking each other with their new Light Sabers and shrieking.
On the wishlist for next Christmas: talk my four siblings into chipping in on a Christmas House. It doesn’t have to be fancy or glamorously located. It just needs a good-sized kitchen, a couple of big rooms to gather in, and a closet to hold all the holiday decorations so we don’t have to keep them in our own closets. We’ll meet there on Christmas Day and book the surrounding weekends for get-togethers with our in-law families, friends, and co-workers. When the parties are over, we’ll clean up and go back to our own undisrupted households. And while you’re at it, Santa, (to misquote the great Bill Watterson) I’d like a pony.
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