Note: I meant to post this in a timely fashion, but didn’t.

Tis Christmas Eve and therefore I must discuss the mouse in the house (just one?  Dudes!  I have recently had 8 of them!) and all the magical glitter of my chimney through which a gigantic man (bigger than me!) is going to miraculously climb down (and might even shimmy) and also Tis the season to get thyself some extra cheery (STRONG) spirits just to wade through all the catch-words people love to toss around like peppermint candies every December.

I’m exhausted from reading hundreds of blogs where the bloggers feel the need to “Tis” and “Twas” their way through posts about the real spirit of Christmas (all the heart and charity and farts that smell like cotton candy) whilst they simultaneously partake in the sick madness of high commercial expectations.  Santa’s whole purpose is for us to have someone to give our list of worldly wishes to.

I’ve discovered some joy in this season, though, and if you need a Christmas facelift too- just listen up:

If you don’t leave your house much you will not have to hear any of that horrible repetitive insidious Christmas music that every public establishment plays between the day after Halloween and Christmas Day. 

Become a shut-in and you will be spared the shoving sprawling crowds, the angst, the bitterness, the poverty that longs, the depressing crap buying, and the truly violence-inspiring constant parade of songs about Santa.

I don’t get out much, in case none of you knew that.  I run errands.  I come with lists to minimize the time I spend in public.  I go to Kung Fu.  I eat out every Friday with my family when I can afford it, and I shop the Saturday Market every Saturday.  I don’t often go out to meet people, I don’t sit in cafe’s, I don’t ever shop for pleasure (I loath all shopping except grocery shopping, which I love), I don’t take walks downtown, I don’t belong to any clubs or social groups…

I also never go out in my own yard anymore.

I did meet a friend at Hotel Oregon last weekend and that was (as I think I mentioned?) punctuated by the yearly Dickensian Carolers who actually come into the pub and stand at tables and sing to you which is, for me, a very special kind of HELL ON EARTH.  I loath carolers.  They induce in me a rising panic that does not subside for long after their cheery singing asses are hauled off on the magic dust they rode in on.

I have to remind myself that they think they’re doing a kindness, offering a bit of magic.  They have no idea what horror they bring to those very few of us who don’t appreciate being accosted with insufferably “jolly” music.

So this reminds me of something someone quoted recently (yesterday):

“If you don’t have Christmas in your heart, how do you expect to find it under a tree?”

I don’t have Christmas in my heart and I don’t find it under the tree because I PUT CHRISTMAS UNDER THE TREE MYSELF.

So is my heart irreclaimably magicless and black?

No.

Christmas is meaningless to me.

But winter is magic.  Winter is my season.

Note unrelated to anything else in this post: oh holy hell- things have gone too far when people start cooking their food in plastic crock-pot liners.  That is a hundred times wrong and unhealthy and absolutely wasteful, lazy, and just gross.  Really really gross.  Seriously amazingly gross.  I am reminded of the horror I experienced when I saw the huge display of Turkey cooking bags at the poor-market.  Apparently oven “safe” plastic  bags to cook your turkey in.  There is something so wrong with people when they can’t even clean a roasting pan and are willing to feed their family (people they supposedly love) food that has been sitting in heated plastic- petrolium based most likely, chemically worked to not melt, and even if they are BPA free, cannot possibly be wholesome.  If any of you are using plastic bags to do your cooking: please stop.  If you love yourself, your children, your family, and/or the earth: please stop.