Tuesday, December 17, 2019

I Am So Tacky


Oh Lord. I've just spent two hours writing a post about Christmas that wandered and meandered and held resentments and memories and resentful memories and feminist complaints about how it's always the women who are expected to create the impossible Christmas magic and I've deleted all of it. 

Anyway, that's a picture from my kitchen where the Christmas ornaments and lights have hung for over a decade (I sure got my money out of those twinkly stars!) and that's not even all of the Christmas kitsch that decorates my kitchen and house year 'round. 

I have stayed home all day long. It rained like crazy and now it's getting cold and I have felt and do feel much better. 

I don't hate Christmas. I just hate Christmas the way we do it now. 
I think that pretty much sums it all up. 


Love...Ms. Moon

10 comments:

  1. I don’t hate Christmas either. I hate the expectations. And I especially hate that I fall prey to them. Glad you’re feeling better and love that your decorations stay up year round.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can do Christmas any way that works for you. I expect a nice, quiet day and that is normally what happens. Chanukah is much more low key.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I dislike the expectations of family and everyone happy and getting along and a meal that magically appears without effort. I read an article the other day about anger and where it comes from. The gist of the article was that optimists have more anger because they are disappointed.

    "Though the angry may seem negatively predisposed to life, they are in their hearts recklessly hopeful...Our greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground-rules of existence."

    This makes sense to me. Christmas is a constant disappointment because my family is not better than they are every other day. I am not a better person just because it's Christmas. I still get tired and hungry and irritated. I let myself down and let others down, others let me down. This Christmas nobody is coming, I have no meal to cook and I feel good, not sad like I normally do.

    And I love your angels, guarding the doorway.


    ReplyDelete
  4. I like Christmas, but I dread the weeks building up to it. My husband and I spent two Christmases alone in the past 10 years, with no family. It was fun and a huge relief. We didn't even put up a tree. I felt the same wicked joy I used to feel when I was a teenager and skipped school.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I get it. I totally get it (and as we have noted before I have the same twinkly stars). I enjoyed christmas until the big event (my mother being fingered as the other woman by a philandering husband) when I was in junior high and after that the forced phony family togetherness she insisted on was a fucking trial...no fun allowed, no spirited conversations, only ooey gooey fake sentimentality and no matter how much thought you tried to put into her gift she never got anything she really wanted. and then of course I rejected christianity about the time I turned 20.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Instead of taking down my window skeletons I am thinking of tying some red ribbons around their necks and calling it done...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Well, that's because the way people do it now is INSANE.

    We always had very simple Christmases when I was growing up -- not quite like Laura Ingalls Wilder getting an orange and a penny, but close -- and I never felt deprived. The presents mean more when there are fewer of them. Seriously, it's easy for me to say, but try not to put all this pressure on yourself. None of your family members are going to find you or your Christmas wanting in any way.

    ReplyDelete
  8. yes, hate those expectations. what would happen if women around the world just didn't DO anything? Would their male mates or male family members pick up the slack? NO. Would everyone blame women? Maybe. Who cares? Time for some radical self-care. Merry F*ing Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I do feel women seem to bear the brunt of making christmas *happen*......and I actually never really was hit with that realization until recently. Still..... the worst part is the pressure everyone seems to feel and the anxiety of performing said rituals (from gift purchasing to cooking perfect meals) and the rampant consumerism that accompanies all of this. It's become so unpleasant....... I try to shun all of it.....do what my heart feels like doing (baking for friends) and let the rest go. I love your christmas lights and cherubs (angels?)....... I have lights up all year round in my dining room window and I love them too. Glad you are feeling a bit better.....but perhaps the thought of christmases past in Cozumel make you rather melancholy too
    susan M

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.