IT’S IN THE CARDS!

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I hate this time of the year sometimes. There are certain things I have to do that I just don’t like doing. Maybe I am getting old, or maybe I’m just a mean old Scrooge, but that is the way it is.

Just last week I was once again given the task of writing out the Holiday Greetings! You know, those cards that take all day to write because I love everyone and want him or her to have a Merry Christmas, a Blessed Christmas, or a Happy Holiday! This requires judicious planning, making sure that I have enough non-religious cards for my Jewish friends and religious cards for my religious friends and holiday cards for my friends who may or may not be religious, hoping not to offend anyone. This requires careful calculations and decision-making.

You go through your personal phonebook of friends, neighbors and relatives, weighting who should get a card, who sent one and who didn’t last season.

You start to second guess yourself, thinking, they sent one last year, will they send it again after I didn’t think they would send it in the first place?  Did I save that person’s address, or did I forget? And this year, I promise to put all the addresses on a separate list so I don’t have to go through he phone book anymore. This time I really will, except I’ll forget again!

Then it is time to put the little seals on the flaps that TLW (The Little Woman) wants on them, do I have enough? Stamps! Do I have enough stamps to mail these cards or do I have to buy more? If I hear another Christmas song on a commercial before Thanksgiving is over I will personally go postal, delivering right between the eyes of every creative director on Madison Avenue.

The Christmas tree will soon need my attention, and decorating the house. How I hate to decorate the house, because then I have to take it all down after New Year’s Day! I have to put the tree together out of the box and then get the string of lights to work and I absolutely refuse to decorate outside. I know it is your favorite time of the year, well let me tell you, I think after Christmas Eve, the holiday is over for me, so why drag it out?

Last year I had the inspiration of placing the decorations, still in the box, outside my front door. When you come to visit me, you reach inside the box, and select a decoration to hang somewhere, the tree, the walls, anywhere you want. When the season is over, as you leave my house, you take down the decoration and place it in the box. Don’t worry about the box; I’ll put that away.

Then there is the nightmare of Christmas presents. That is my own personal nightmare. It starts right after Thanksgiving and goes on at least once a week until Christmas is over. I dream I wake up and it is Christmas morning, and I have no present for TLW! I feel bad, very bad, cold and heartless guilt grips me.

I remember when I was working, and realize why I am like this about the holidays. It seemed in July we started to work on Christmas sales of magazines, products, etc., and it would be 99 degrees out and I’m suppose to come up with ideas that convey the Christmas spirit!

I’d like to quote a famous literary character from the 19^th century: “Bah! Humbug!”

But don’t get me wrong. I do love the season, even though there have been horrific times for my family and me during the season. One of my children was dying over that very holiday, and my niece lost a child on Christmas Eve, but that is all part of life itself. We celebrate life, and we don’t dwell, but I do know the pressures of this time of the year can put a damper on the joy. The commercialization has destroyed the meaning long ago, and the idea that we are nice to each other only once a year is laughable, and disingenuous.

But I do look forward to this coming holiday, I will be with the people I love, and I will enjoy wishing a happy new year to everyone, and hope it is. And one other thing, if I have ever offended you, I ask forgiveness, and a chance for us to discuss that hurt I inflicted. Remember I am as human as you are, and with emotion as imperfect. I dare you to talk and discuss it.