Deck the Halls with Stress and Worry

The search for perfect Christmas is once again over for this year. People start opening their eyes and holding their heads, slowly recovering from the nights of overeating and waking up to what someone named "consumer hangover" - the nausea you get when you start looking back at how much you spent, how much useless things you got as presents, how much you hate your family and how you promise to yourself that you'll never spend another Christmas EVER again. And knowing that that particular promise will be as effective as every promise given while hung over - be it booze, love or spending.

Sound fun? Sound like your life?Well, if the answer to the first is "no" and to the second "yes", has it ever crossed your mind that perhaps you should DO something at it?

I know I'm a Christmas Person - you know the one who actually likes looking for and wrapping gifts, baking gingerbreads (though I don't like to eat them all that much - probably got an overdose while younger) and decorating the home. I like to sing Christmas carols (or would like to sing if I wouldn't have a cold nearly every time and losing my voice in the process), make cards and just lazy around for the 2-3 days when every shop is closed and there's not that much to do. It's relaxing to do nothing (=work related) for a few days, I like to give small presents to people and I like the crafts included. It's as simple as that.

What bothers me somewhat is that it seems we are given 2 choices to how we are supposed to be celebrating our Christmas: It's either a christian holy day (=good) or extreme consumerism (=bad). There's always at least one article in every newspaper that asks (or tells us) whether Mr. J. C. is necessary to Christmas - and the answer is always "yes", on the grounds that without Him it will just degenerate into mindless consumerism, and we wouldn't want that, now would we? Put "Christ" back to "Christmas", we say!

Right.

First of all, I haven't seen him leaving it , so how are we supposed to put him "back" to it? Second, I don't think believing in J. C.'s dubious birth story saves us from the demon of Mindless Consumerism. Third, J. C. doesn't have the monopoly on religious stuff around the 24th of December, even though his PR firm was the best paid and got the whole thing named after him. I've been led to believe there's something called Hanukkah and the winter solstice which has been and still is celebrated as THE winter feast around cultures (not to mention the speculation about when J. C. was born in the real world that had something to do with lambing and february, but let's just not get into that particular piece now). All I'm saying here is that J. C. won't save your Christmas for you. If you fall for the Lie about a Perfect Christmas, well, you can mostly blame yourself for it, and it probably will lead you into buying and receiving lots of useless stuff, and losing your nerves several times along the way. What a nice way of spending your holidays, right?

Actually, I'm not that much into J. C. myself, and yet my Christmases seem to go along quite smoothly (nope, I'm not drugged either). And all I want for Christmas is that everyone would spend it as they want. My most boring Christmas was last year in Tokyo - boring because it didn't feel like Christmas at all. I'm not saying that the onsen and the works weren't nice and relaxing, not at all. It's just that it didn't feel like Christmas. So, if I'm able, I like to spend Christmas at home with my family - but that's just me. If someone want's to escape the whole thing - well, I'd rather they escaped and had fun while doing it than bitch and whine about the coming Christmas for months beforehand. Trust me, I know what I want for the few days off I have on Christmas, and it's not knowing that someone else is miserable because they don't want to do Christmas my style. I don't need presents (of course I like getting presents, who doesn't, but they're not the essence of what makes a Christmas for me). I don't need the whole extended family around me (in fact, I probably wouldn't even want them all - too much hassle). I just want some peace and quiet and candlelight.

Some salmon roe with finely chopped onion and smetana just makes it perfect.