I Am The Grinch

True confession time - I have exactly zero Christmas spirit this year. I have given it a lot of thought and I have concluded that it was the vacation that threw me off. Usually we have Thanksgiving here at the house and sometime over that long weekend, Christmas "arrives." It comes in the form of trees, decorations inside and out, cards that are already addressed and go into the mail, and presents that have been pre-purchased get wrapped and go under the tree. Even if I don't really feel it that weekend, it is usually enough to kick-start the season for me. 

This year, however, we were in England for Thanksgiving. While we may celebrate the pilgrims coming to the new world and "making friends" (ahem) with the Indians and all that, they don't bother to celebrate our leaving and surviving, so I was missing my traditional starters whistle. I would have thought that all the decorations in London would have done it for me, but they didn't. I think I was so focused on making sure everything on the vacation went off without a hitch, I really didn't give two minutes thought to anything coming up after we were to arrive home.

So I have been trying like hell to "fake it until I make it" but it's not working. Not at all. I went so far as to schedule a fake Thanksgiving the weekend after we got home that required attendance from all the kids. Even bonus daughter had to come over and eat! I thought that would do it, but no such luck. 

I put up the tree...but only because Thing 2 started to question it. Then I waited 3 days to decorate it, which is a no-no. You put it up, you decorate. Period. It's an event! Even worse, I left the stockings in the box until the other day when my mother began to question it.

I mailed my Christmas cards on DECEMBER 17th!  Now, if you don't receive a card from me, you won't know this, but this is perhaps the biggest Holiday Cardinal Sin that can be committed in my book. I ALWAYS send my cards the day after Thanksgiving. Always, always, always. I am certain there are people on the east coast right now who have sunk into mourning assuming I am dead since they don't have a card yet. I didn't feel like writing a return address on them and since I'm concerned there are a few with the wrong address, I took the lazy way out and used beach/summer themed return labels with my mother's name on them.

My Christmas Card pic-in case you didn't get one

I hosted a cookie exchange in my house without a single decoration out. 

The Hubs put up our large outside wreath on the patio. So he didn't have to involve a ladder.  Then he looked at me and said "This is as far as I'm going this year. No more lights." To which I replied "Who cares. Looks fine." The thing has been plugged in and lit 24 hours a day ever since, because we are too fucking lazy indifferent to set the timer.

I keep pushing onward, but instead of getting more into the spirit, I'm getting more irritated.  I don't want to have to go to a bunch of stores and buy gifts, so I ordered them all off Amazon Prime. But now I'm peeved with Amazon for sending so many damn boxes that my trash can is filled up. I went out with Thing 2 the other day and she wanted to get a special gift for her sister, but she had no idea where to get it. I drew a complete blank and then said "Did you check Amazon? Because they can have it here in 2 days. I don't know where to get things anymore." Which was met with her saying "And I'm sure that's how they want it." So we went into Pier One and I was pissed at them for having Christmas crap everywhere. All I could think was "Why the hell would I buy someone a reindeer as a gift? As soon as I give it to them, it's USELESS for another year! I need the regular stuff!"

Then I had to go to the bank. Which happens to be just outside the mall. I cannot even begin to tell you how put out I was with the traffic around the mall. I took every back road I knew of and there were still hoards of people everywhere. All I thought was ...could these people PLEASE go home! 

My other Christmas card pic-since I'm sure you didn't get one

I don't want to buy any more presents because the stores are so crowded. I don't want to cook ham for Christmas dinner because I don't like ham. I don't want to wrap gifts. I don't want to deal with all the trash from everyone unwrapping gifts. I don't want to take down the tree and decorations I didn't want to out up in the first place.

I am the Grinch. My heart is two sizes too small this year. 

So what I need are some friggin' Whoos to start singing and straighten this all out.......right?

Maybe not. Maybe I'll just give myself permission to skip it this year. The only problem with that is that I know myself well enough to know that the spirit will eventually kick in. I also know myself well enough to know that day will be somewhere around January 8th, give or take a day. At which point I will be royally screwed.