This year, I’m spending Christmas with my family in Iowa. Even though I don’t leave until Thursday, I mentally checked out on Monday morning. Haven’t gotten hardly any writing or publishing work done since.
Have I blogged about my thoughts on Christmas before? Looks like I haven’t. There’s a lot of things that I really love about Christmas, but there’s also a lot that I can’t hardly stand.
Things that I hate:
- The movie Elf. Every single aspect of it.
- About 80% of the Christmas music played in retail stores.
- The crass commercialism. BUY BUY BUY!
- The neverending war between “Happy Holidays and “Merry Christmas.”
- Pretty much everything about the Santa Claus myth, especially the emphasis on convincing small children that it’s real.
Things that I love:
- Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
- Handel’s Messiah.
- Nativities and creche displays.
- Christmas caroling in general.
- Christmas trees.
- Secret Santa gift exchanges.
- Spending time with family.
To be honest, every December 26th, I let out a small sigh of relief. The holiday season is a minefield.
New Year’s is a much more enjoyable holiday. I’m one of the few people who actually enjoys setting New Year’s resolutions, and while I don’t always keep them, there have been some amazing times when I have.
There’s a sense of rebirth that I really like with New Year’s. It’s a time when we all decide to put away the things of last year and focus on the possibilities ahead of us. That’s what resolutions are all about, and why I love setting them.
Then there’s Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere anyways). It’s always insane how short the days get in winter. Even in Utah, which is not that far north, the lack of sunlight can really get to you. So it’s always nice to know that the shortest day is here and from now, they will only get longer.
So yeah, that’s pretty much the holidays. I probably won’t write much between now and January 1st, though I do hope to finish a short story. I figure that’s a small enough goal that I can actually get it done. As for blogging, I’ll at least do a New Year’s post, after I figure out my 2017 resolutions. Can’t promise anything other than that, but you’re probably all busy doing holiday things yourselves too.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’s! I’ll see you on the other side of the holiday minefield.
