I've never really had much holiday spirit of any kind - was never very against it or for it. Just basically indifferent [insert sob story about growing up poor with giftless Christmases, boo-hoo] to it all in a way that I've not been very good at articulating. I'm a terrible gift-giver. I just can't preemptively imagine what other people want materially-speaking, and I Scrooge-ishly explain that away by claiming I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with the commercialism/religiosity combo that is modern American Christmas. Sales, discounts, pre-orders, layaways - it all skeeves me out. I'm not very festive. Christmas lights are a lot of work. I hate the combination of green and red. Christmas movies and songs are repetitive. I'm a real grouch RE: Rudolph & Co., Kris Kringle & wide-eyed children, Christmas miracles & mangers, &c. predictably. Last week, my wife showed me The Grinch with Jim Carrey for my first viewing ever. It's been her favorite holiday movie for years, and it's the first time that I've memorably identified with a holiday movie. I watched the cartoon right after. Altogether, it was a real breakthrough, and I think I've finally found my niche in all the seasonal joy and hoopla as "a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce." I've finally got some (anti)-holiday spirit, and it's never felt better.
My mother is crazy, also alcoholic, also a narcissist. Christmas was always terrible because about two weeks before Thanksgiving she'd decide it was the worst holiday ever and full of materialism and hate hate hate and she'd get drunk about 5pm every day and fight with everyone and hate hate hate and we're not celebrating christmas and we're not celebrating new years and hate hate hate and I never loved you and I hate everyone and hate hate hate and then usually about December 23 it was why is everyone so glum this is the happiest time of the year cheer up buy things love love love love love love love love love drink drink drink drink drink So the rest of us developed a bit of a bunker mentality towards Christmas. It sucked. Early on I got in the habit of buying a branch on my way home from school. They usually had them for wreaths and shit. You can jam one of those in a cinderblock and put a jar under it and it's sort of a tree. I think I was eight when I bought some lights at the hardware store. So fuckin'A it was Christmas in my room even if out there in the rest of the house it was fighting and professions of hatred (for some reason the longer the nights the better my mother's ability to harangue people through multiple dawns). And early on I learned which "christmas" music could be played without causing armageddon. So my holiday playlists are unorthodox. Christmas was also the only time of the year my mother baked. That was when she made her "favorite" cookies and also made them for her siblings that refused to bake because they didn't like working with lard. There were three cookies in the pantheon: Lebkuchen, which takes three fucking days to make and is badly misinterpreted by my mother (the germans fuckin' chocolate dip that shit whereas my mother just lets the dough dry out), Biscochitos, which are to "cookies" what "churros" are to eclairs and date pinwheels, which are a joyless nihilist's take on the jelly roll if they were out of sugar. Making these cookies always made her mood worse, and making these cookies involved the whole goddamn family so we were pressganged in to sitting there grinding fucking anise by hand in a goddamn hand-crank coffee grinder that only came out once a year to hand-grind fucking anise, while we listened to her harangue us about how much she hates Christmas. I found a recipe for bourbon balls way in the back. It involves crushed nilla wafers, karo syrup and cocoa powder. And whatever booze I could steal out of the liquor cabinet. I started making those when I was maybe eight. Nobody else ate them. I still make them. Nobody else still eats them. They're fucking delicious. My father, meanwhile, loves eggnog. He's also allergic to eggs. So Christmas was where he made seriously boozy eggnog to escape from his (now ex-) wife and then spent the season piss drunk and on the crapper with the liquishits (a dual escape, if you will). That probably kept me from drinkin' for a good 10 years. But I don't live in that house anymore. I have my traditions. My wife has graciously invited them into her traditions. And Christmas is a very different thing. And every year, I talk to my parents less and less, and every year, I enjoy it more and more. End-of-the-year holidays are about spending time with people we love in the close quarters we're required to take when the weather turns cold and uninviting. The important thing is to make of it what you want, not what is required of you. Finding your balance and fighting for it builds inner strength, which shelters inner peace, which creates outer calm. If emulating the Grinch is what gets you there, do it. After all, his small heart does grow three sizes that day (straight out of fuckin' Dickens). In a similar vein, you might enjoy a little Murray/Goldthwait as well.
Fuck, this is too familiar. Maybe I'll sit down with a drink tonight and write some of my own dysfunctional Christmas tales. To be honest, that doesn't sound too appealing, so I don't think I will - hope you understand. I'm not sure of your age, but I think you're in your 30s-40s. My wife and I are just starting our holiday traditions (both early 20s). We're a bit behind you there, but I think The Grinch is going to be part of the tradition now. We'll memorialize a few more memories on our trip to London too. This is good shit. I appreciate it, truly.Finding your balance and fighting for it builds inner strength, which shelters inner peace, which creates outer calm.
That you have a loving wife and that you're starting your holiday traditions puts you a good ten years ahead of me. Mine remained bleak until my late 20s. I think I was 20 when I came home for my last Christmas; I refused to duck and cover and cower behind the door when my mother went crazy so she emptied four 2L bottles of diet coke on my shoes (then threw two more at my head). What makes them not bleak is contrast. Find something fun. Do it twice. Cuddle with your wife. Tell her how nice it is. Then tell her a story of the way it used to be and let it go, like a dark bird finding another perch. I'm pretty dispassionate about this shit these days because I've let most of the crows out of the cage and all I have is doves. There remain dark birds aflutter but the bright ones crowd out the dark ones.
I think getting married and having a family to avoid my own family on holidays would be a real positive. But since I assume family always makes their families miserable, that isn't high on my priority list. It's a bit of a catch 22.
I thought Christmas sentimentality was a forced sham. But it's grown on me tremendously. I think what's helped, at least in regards to Christmas music, is to choose when I listen to it. If I'm walking around a mall, I'll resent the hell out of it. When I'm home cleaning the house? I'll put it on blast. Except for Mariah Carey. I never liked her. Favorite holiday movie: National Lampoons' Christmas Vacation. No Christmas is complete without it.
"Hey, wanna hear me squeal at a frequency usually reserved for sirens, thereby destroying any sort of appealing timbre usually found in the human voice?" "No, Mariah. I really don't." "I bet I can hold it for a looooooooooooong time..."Except for Mariah Carey. I never liked her.