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Blah Humbug

Blah Humbug

It’s beginning to look a lot like…meh.
It’s the most wonderful time of the…meh.
Jingle meh, jingle meh, meh meh meh meh meh.

I gave up on Christmas this year, just couldn’t do it. The only reason the house is even a little decorated is because Tom and the boys did it one Sunday afternoon while I battled the hordes for groceries. Christmas cards will be Groundhog Day Greetings if I’m lucky, and I have not baked nor consumed a single Christmas cookie. I do, however, have a wicked craving for latkes. Happy Hanukkah.

I have nothing against Christmas, per se. Just a intense holiday ennui. A complete ambivalence towards the season.

About this time last year we knew we were moving, and started the soul-sucking process of culling/packing/moving everything we own a thousand miles east. The year before that we were in “who is gonna snap and end up on CNN first” mode. So around Thanksgiving I waved the white flag and called it quits with 2011. We’re amicably separated right now (though not really); divorce will be final in around 11 days or so. I may pop a cork to celebrate.

There is just so much going on right now that not only can I not find any holiday spirit with two hands and a flashlight, but mustering up good cheer is a feat not worth attempting.
It’s not depression, it’s a chronic case of meh. I don’t even feel bad that I don’t give a damn, and usually I’m wracked with holiday-induced guilt.

Oh, and if someone doesn’t break the truth about Santa to my sons I’m going to snap and scream it in a fit of frustration. That will win me Mother of the Year, in a year when I had sooooooooooo many other epic parenting fails in the running.

And true to how this year has been going, two paragraphs I thumbed on my iPhone have disappeared. Something about remembering the reason for the season and that I’d rather just buy a birthday cake.

So. Meh. Holidays. Eat, drink, be merry.

And please may I have a Mulligan because no one should be meh about Chriatmas.

7 Comments

  1. I hear ya! You and me both!

    I dont celebrate Christmas but all of my family and friends and co-workers do. Which is fine. Honest.

    This year? It’s all I can do to get thru the day.

    Maybe (probably) cause it’s the first Christmas without my nephew Terry – he died the day after our family reunion in August – and Christmas just isn’t the same this year. So I’m doing everything I can to get thru it with the hopes that next year things will be easier. At least I hope it’s gonna be easier. Hopefully for both of us!

  2. /ei

    I sincerely didn’t have an ounce of holiday spirit until I got my year end bonus. Money made me feel just a tiny bit festive.

    I am not gay, but I think I have more than the usual amount of male perspective though. My radio station was talking about what Christmas would be like if men were in charge. Think things like “Black Friday would always be on Christmas Eve” “Santa would drop gift cards in the mailbox at the front door.” and “Christmas dinner would be pizza and wings.” And I thought that maybe this is the problem, I have male apathy about the holidays but female guilt.

  3. trish

    Christmas is not my holiday (since I’m neither Christian nor a small child), so this is always a “meh” time of year for me. I used to do a lot more “faking it,” but now I just opt out of anything I don’t truly want to do — I’ll bake cookies if I want to eat them, but no cards, minimal gifting, no energy-hogging Xmas light display. It’s kind of empowering to be grinchy. 🙂

  4. sooveverything

    When life is spinning you full tilt like a Tilt-a-Whirl on crack, you can be ‘meh’. When it is hard to find your car keys much less your gift list, then your mind & body go into survival mode and really, that’s okay. 2011 SUCKED for you – so chuck it out the window. Let’s raise a glass to 2012 and the hopes that next year ‘meh’ will be a thing of the past and that some little ‘angel’ lets it slip about Santa – soon – very soon.

    BTW – T inferred there was no Santa ALA Super Fudge by Judy Bloom in 2nd grade. He point blank asked me and I could see it going very badly if I lied – since he was in the middle of his ‘we can’t lie or do anything even remotely bad since the Catholic Priest told me I will rot in hell if I do’ phase. Maybe have the boys read about Fudge?

  5. Right there with you, sister. Oh.so.there.

    BTW, loss of the Santa thing doesn’t make it better. My oldest figured it out a few weeks ago in front of my middle, who wasn’t ready. Now, I’m under the gun to make this a smashing Christmas, so that all hope is not lost for all future Christmases. Did I mention that we’ve all be drop-dead sick all month, and I have four days to make miracle this happen?

    “Meh” covers it beautifully.

  6. Erica

    Egg nog helps. You might still have the mehs but they feel better with a good buzz.

    I think my eldest (8) will believe in Santa forever. She personally witnessed a Christmas miracle a couple of years ago. We were visiting my sister and didn’t have enough stockings. So Santa filled the stockings for my girls, then the stockings magically refilled (ie were removed and filled while the girls were playing).

  7. Sarah

    I’m feeling meh about the holidays this year too… but I have thrown myself full force into decorating, and cards, and baking… (and drinking) in effort to outrun the rebound of my screaming against the wind.

    To hell with 2011 and here’s to a better 2012!

Whaddya think?

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