Sheesh Murray! You are living up to your rep as the "world's youngest curmudgeon" with this one!

You have a three-year old daughter...how can you POSSIBLY be anything except positively SPINNING with excitement about the holidays, even if just vicariously through Scout's excitement, which has to be palpable??

Aren't you the same guy who just gave thanks for "people who think twittering is the sound twits make when they talk." ???? That made me laugh like an idiot.

Go hug your kid and watch Santa Claus is comin to town or Rudolph with her and lighten up, would ya?!!

I'm at the bottom of the hill yesterday, during a joyful sledding session in fresh snow. Mom and Scout are at the top of the hill, about to come down. I think to myself, "GOD, I've got a lot to lose."

I share my sour mood—which could be gone by tomorrow—only to try to explain its irrational cause to myself, and to anyone who might feel the same way.

I see you're "God I've got a lot to lose" and raise you a "And I bet I break my leg on this next run."

It's in our makeup, I fear.

As my son told me the other day, "Mom, you're a pessimist." Lousy kid.

(Merry Christmas.)

Eileen - you're not helping here!

David,

If you think the holidays are depressing now, just wait till you become a grandfather. Everybody expects you to be all cheerful and "ho, ho ho" and shit. And when you're not, they buy you a T-shirt with the Disney dwarf, Grumpy, on it. And then they get pissed off when you won't where the Grumpy shirt. Shall I go on?

Merry Christmas, all...

Will

Will, I hope with this blog post I'm "managing expectations" .....

... and managing them well.

Will

David, I'm with you. One look in my sweet children's faces and I'm seeing scenes from Dickens where we're destitute and eating out of dumpsters. Then I suddenly find myself wowing to find new ways to become a zillionaire in the next year so I can insulate them from all the world's ills. I try to counter my pessimism with reminding myself how much joy I'll deny them and myself if I walk around doomy and gloomy all the time. Sometimes it works. Eileen - tell Natty that calling Mummy mean things makes Santa very angry, and the outlook for his Xmas loot could be "pessimistic." Happy Humbug, All. - Amy

Amy - Baloney! Santa requires telling the truth, and it sounds like Mummuy WAS being pessimistic, so Santa isn't going to penalize Nathaniel for being truthful!

You people are giving me a headache with all this doom and gloom - Bah humbug to all of you! Now, I'm going to find myself some fortified eggnog and let sugarplums dance through my head (it will be worth tomorrow's resultant hangover, I'm sure!)

Amy, luckily, my pessimism is not so strong—or my enthusiasm for making magic for my daughter IS so powerful—that I can certainly toss off the gloom long enough to decorate Christmas trees, go visit Santa (even after Scout has chickened out of sitting on his lap twice and now requests to go a third time because she "thinks" she can handle it), and sneak out of the house to knock on the window and then run in in time to listen to her story about the "brownie" that just knocked on the window.

I think we must try to be depressed and anxious just as gracefully and as noiselessly as one can. Among other things, it gives us the best chance to escape the feeling. "Fake it 'till you make it," as they say in AA.

David

My wonderful mother, may she rest in peace, made holidays--especially Christmas--miserable for the rest of us. She placed huge, unrealistic expectations on herself (cards, decorating, cooking, baking, entertaining, gift-giving), always (of course) fell short, and became irritable. When I was old enough to realize that Christmas might mean presents but it also meant walking on eggshells around the house, it took some of the bloom off the rose, if you know what I mean, and Christmas became a time for anti-depression guerilla tactics. (Too much store-bought eggnog is NEVER enough.)

Now, however, I'm old enough to have been through bona fide hell and back a couple of times in my life. I know what I need to do to keep my sanity. I do things--any things--ONLY if they're necessary, or give me joy, or give other people joy. So for a while now I haven't sent out Christmas cards. I've never been a baker, so there's no problem there. We usually have Christmas at grandma's so I don't have to cook a lot. Our gift-giving list is short, sweet, and fun. And this year I haven't done a single bit of decorating inside the house. (Outside is a different matter. We live on a hill that coordinates hundreds of thousands of lights that attract limos and gawkers until midnight every night during December.)

And lo! and behold, Christmas is a happy time for me again. I can focus--almost without trying--on being kind to the poor harried salespeople and shoppers I run into. And I actually find myself humming Christmas songs.

Lotta wisdom packed into that post, Greer. Expectations are a big, big problem. Christmas depants a lot of so-called adults who haven't yet realized the journey is all (and the destination nothing), who haven't learned from a thousand perfect plans fallen flat ....

"A Thousand Perfect Plans Fallen Flat" -- gawd, that's poetry. In five words you sum up human existence. Joy comes to the aware and flexible....

Oh, you're just trying to cheer me up.

I'm with Jane. When my daughter was little, I overdid everything, and wound up cranky and exhausted every Christmas. So I learned to shop on the internet and, for the trip-to-Anchorage shopping days, I plan for a whole day with nothing else at ALL scheduled, take a list, set my head beforehand for dealing with crowds, and insert little pleasures throughout the day (stopping for a latte, pausing to listen to carolers or for a laugh at the Star Wars-costumed charity bucket bell ringers). I clean my house until I'm happy with it and don't worry about what my mother-in-law will think. I cook a Christmas goose every year, but I warn people beforehand that I'm completely unable to predict when it will actually be done, despite Julia Childs's best efforts to coach me in her cookbook, and thus to plan to spend the afternoon, and put out lots of snacks to tide them over until the feast is finished. I make sure to do the things that are fun or meaningful in my family and let the rest go. Like Jane, that included eliminating Christmas cards, frenzied baking sprees, and (for me) outdoor lighting (I live so far back in the woods that all I'd enliven is some doofus moose tangling in the wires anyway; which, by the way, actually DID happen in Anchorage; some goofy moose got drunk eating crabapples and got a bunch of Christmas lights entangled in its antlers and staggered off; gives a new meaning to the term "lit", eh?).

Anyway, David, despite the ribbing, I think that everyone falls victim to the stress and depression that this short-lighted time of year brings. Here's something that might help you prioritize (it always comes back to our children, doesn't it?). When my daughter was very young, I read somewhere that we will never know when is the last time we will rock our babies to sleep and carry them upstairs, or when is the last time they'll be willing to sit in our laps for a bedtime story; so to treat each time as though it might be the last time, because our children grow so fast. And that lesson has become so precious to me--so much is fleeting, isn't it? When I moved back to Knik from Juneau, I was staying with my mom until my family could get relocated. She'd get up early with me each morning to have coffee before I went to work. And before I left, I'd lean over the back of her wheelchair and give her a hug, rest my cheek against hers for a second, give her a kiss, and tell her I loved her. And one morning, it really was the last time. I am so grateful to have had that be the last memory--the forever-parting words be "I love you", the last touch an embrace and a kiss.

So, friend David, remember that you are loved, even when you don't feel loving yourself; and, failing the ability to offer you a warm, human embrace, I send you a cyber-hug, for what it's worth.

I'm with Jane on this one. I haven't sent Christmas cards in years. Instead, thanks to the joy of e-mail, I stay in touch with my friends the entire year rather than relying on the "annual Christmas letter" to share what I've been doing or learn what they've been up to. I gave my big 'ol artificial tree to my daughter and both kids have "their" ornaments from when I did do a tree. Baking? I can't remember the last time I turned on my oven.

However, each year I enjoy the shopping a little more. Why? Because I'm shopping for the people I care about and I don't buy for those I don't. I don't do token gifts or ascribe to the philosophy that just because you bought for me, I have to buy for you. If I want to reciprocate, I will. If I don't, I won't. The great thing about growing up is realizing that you don't want to waste your time on people who contribute nothing to your life. I value the quality of my relationships, not the quantity.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get that book on historical lighthouses ordered or a special someone won't be pleasantly surprised next week that I remembered his fondness for them.

Well thanks, Joan, for that cyber hug, which makes me blush and feel bashful in the same way when my older sister Susan tries it. She always concludes, "That boy just won't be nurtured."

Anyway, I'm afraid this post has become far too maudlin for the situation, though I am struck by all the intense thought and philosophical work and physical arragements we have all engaged in in order to make the holidays A.) as wonderful as they're supposed to be or B.) not as friggin' horrible as they used to be.

David, you're confusing "maudlin" with "tender." Must be a guy thing.

No, I just know that when Steve Crescenzo reads all this he is going to make our Annual Holiday Pool Shootout a complete and utter friggin' nightmare for me.