feel it or not, here it comes

There's every chance I've mentioned this by now, and perhaps over the past couple of years I've made similar points, but this is Christmas season, and I suppose I could make the point again.

This one is different though. I may have hated Christmas in the past, but the combined efforts of Momma's love of the season and my own desire to give my children some of the assumed magic of the season has worked to make me less of a Scrooge.

I'm not feeling the exact Scroogely leanings I may have in the past, but I'm just not feeling Christmas at all this year. I did take a couple of minutes earlier today and found the two songs that almost always work. And they basically failed. I could almost feel a little glimmer of the light as Little Elf sat down in Santa's chair, almost feel a spark of the joy as Run, DMC and Jay found Santa's wallet and returned home for Mom's chicken and greens, but even Christmas in Hollis wasn't enough. I'm not sure what I expected from The Ramones other than getting to hear one of the greatest bands ever, and really, Merry Christmas Baby isn't the most inspiring of songs when it's the cheer and joy of the season you're after.

We have a tree. I had no part in choosing or decorating it. Last week in my little town was warm enough to have gone out any day, but Momma worked most days, and it rained every day. She broke down and bought one from the hardware store to avoid missing out. It was decorated while I was at work.

The tree story doesn't really bother me. I wonder if I'd been part of the picking and putting and related decorating if I'd have begun to get the feeling, but I don't really regret not being part of it. It isn't really bothering me. On top of that, the remains of the decorating, the unused ornaments, the various baubles that are not tree bound decorations, still sit around in the floor, taking up space. The kitchen is a wreck and has been for days. The recycling is piling up, empty but rinsed beer cans, rinsed and flattened milk jugs, overflowing paper bin, roasting pan in the sink filled with disgusting grease water and various other dishes that have found their way onto the pile.

With the separation of Momma's and my finances I've been unable personally to purchase any more than one gift and that for The Boy. I did help Momma pick our usual pile of books, but she paid for them. The other gifts for them she went shopping for, and my only help there was reading off, over the phone, the list she'd made and forgotten.

I'm sure the financial situation is not helping. My first check from the new job was for most of a week, and my next check is due the day after Christmas, and I'm not really getting the hours I need to make it a reasonable size. Giving Momma money to cover some of the gift load will help me feel that I've helped purchase gifts for my children, but I was only actually present for those I've mentioned. She and I haven't discussed gifts between the two of us. I don't know what family plans there are, and I don't know how she plans to work her boyfriend into any of this.

So I'm back to the just not feeling it this year. That it's only days away doesn't have the same creeping yet suddenly there feeling of years past. I kind of just want it to be over. January promises to be the month of change as I look forward to moving out. My own family is getting together a week and a half into the new year for our annual family get together, and my mother would very much like for us all to be there. There's a whole nest of potential vipers in that one brother has a new wife this year, one brother apparently just left his girlfriend to return to his wife, and one brother (me) has finally told the family that he's gay. I almost don't want to bother with the possible situations and discussions I can only imagine. And will Momma and I be able to coordinate our schedules and money to be able to make the drive south?

I just want all of Christmas, every single last little bit of it, to go away. It's not so much that I want it to be over because that suggests getting through it. I don't want to bother with having to do the stuff that Christmas is so much as just want it to go away.

I'm not celebrating an interstellar entity coming to earth to fornicate with a human woman and recreate himself in human form who is both father and son in one divine package, and solstice, though it celebrates the return of the light and the growing day always just seems like another lie as we actually look forward to more winter and colder days and nights. I hate the cold, and I'm already tired of my feet being cold and my fingers being clumsy and stiff. I want spring and renewal and a new love.

But, as the time honored saying suggests, I can wish in one hand and shit in the other. I think we all know which one will find itself fullest quickest.