"What else can I be [but cross] when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer, a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presently dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge, indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!" - Charles Dickens' A Christmas CarolSomeone alert Fox News! Boiled in pudding? A stake of holly through the heart? That's a war on Christmas.
I do not like this time of year and I never will. Nope. Maybe I liked it when I was a kid. I must have. Kids like Christmas. But it's difficult to remember that time, because now December is my least favorite month.
It's not all because of Christmas. I don't like winter. If Christmas was in July, I might be more on board. And even though the temperature has been extremely mild so far, I still know it's winter. It's like when you bump into someone you have legitimate reasons to dislike and the person acts surprisingly nice. You really must stay on guard because you know that, deep down, she's still a bitch.
So if Christmas didn't happen in the last month of the year, I might be on board.
Maybe.
There's just so much bullshit involved in this season. Black Friday which is now Black Thursday Night.
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The War on Christmas: Friendly Fire Edition | ||||
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And don't even get me started on those ridiculous elves.
Here's a question: If the elves are sent to watch over your kids so they can report their behavior to Santa, WHY do the elves act like such degenerates the whole time? (Click the link for something hilarious.) It's like sending criminals to report on the behavior of other criminals or sending strippers to tell other women to keep their clothes on or sending Lindsay Lohan to report on the behavior of Amanda Bynes.
There's also the Christmas movies and songs that are FULL OF CRAP. Actually, this sort of thing brought about one of my favorite holiday traditions, which is listening to Patton Oswalt's comedy routine about the song Christmas Shoes.
"Someone's in a bad mood on my son's birthday?"
Sacrilicious.
I wrote my mom about the possibility of some new thing that could happen (sorry for being vague). My mom said yesterday that she will pray for it to happen if that's what I want.
And all I could think is what the hell does it matter what I want anymore?
She said she's afraid that I'm letting rejection eat me alive.
Trust me, I'm not happy about my lack of optimism. I feel guilty that I'm not grateful enough for all I have so that my gratefulness will counteract my disappointment in things.
Maybe I'm not as great and strong as people want me to be.
I was trying to think of ways to get out of my 2012 slump and to adopt a new attitude.
When I worked at the newspaper in Shreveport 10 years ago, I participated in a leadership program. I remember the person running it asked, "What do you want your life to look like?"
It seems like a small question, but it's huge. I thought about it then and my first thought was, "Well, I don't want to be here anymore!"
Shortly after that, I turned 30. I quit my job, got a new job at Southern Living, moved from Louisiana to Alabama, and I changed my life.
Side note: My father-in-law always said the 30s were the hardest years and, damn, was he ever right. Biblically hard. Swarm-of-locusts hard.
I'm going to turn 40 in 2013 and I'm wondering what I want my life to look like.
First thought: Well, I don't want to be here anymore.
The thing is that I don't know what I mean by "here."
In this house?
In this red state?
In this cycle of hope and rejection?
In this bad mood?
Bah humbug.
Maybe I'm buying into the Mayan hype, but I think life as we know it has to change in 2013.
What do you want your life to look like?
That's something I'm going to have to think about, but I'll begin with this:
FRT Shout-Out: While I've moaned and groaned about things, BFF Tina has listened and been there for me. Every single day. That's an amazing thing. Sometimes you go through hard times and you figure out that a lot of people are only friends with you if it's easy for them. But there are people who, for 20-plus years, stick by you, comfort you, commiserate with you, and when someone does you wrong she says, "You fuck with Amy B., then you fuck with me."
Thanks, my friend.
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