hey there,
just a heads up – this isn’t a question, so feel free to continue on your merry way if you’re not up for some casual reading. if you’ve got nothing better to do (like myself), then please, read on.
so, it’s getting close to the holidays, and that may or may not excite you. it might make you cringe in weary anticipation. you might be one of those people who thinks Christmas has been secularized and commercialized past the point of no return, and that the overcrowded malls and five-year-olds asking for a new iPhone for Christmas are the last straw in a year full of disappointments. fair enough.
or maybe the holidays are really rough because you’ve lost someone or you’re being forced to spend time with a family that is unsupportive or abusive. if this is the case, then i’m incredibly sorry for you, and hopefully i can help make the holidays a bit more bearable.
either way, i’d like to give you a list of AWESOME THINGS about the holidays to remind you that the holiday season isn’t just for despising.
1. holiday food. this time of year is the only time when people are shoving warm and chocolatey food at you left, right and centre. i mean, they’re being so forceful about it that it would be almost RUDE to decline, don’t you think? so go ahead. buy that apple pie. and the vanilla ice-cream. and the starbucks pumpkin-spice-cinnamon-nutmeg-reindeer-snowflake-happiness latte for the ride home. why not? it’s the spirit of the season!
2. i know winter sucks, but snow doesn’t. and i also know there’s this kind of 180 degree turn that happens sometime in adolescence when, one day, snow stops being for playing and becomes a background for romantic activities, but you don’t have to be engaged in a romantic relationship to enjoy the snow! you can take pretty pictures of the snow, you can watch it fall out the window snuggled up in your house (or studio or library or residence or whatever), you can shake branches of snow onto your friend’s head (never stops being funny), AND snowmen are always appropriate.
3. driving (or walking) around your neighbourhood and looking at the ridiculous light displays on different houses is super-fun. doing this with friends is great because you can take lots of crazy pictures together, but it’s nice to go around on your own and enjoy it by yourself, too.
4. radio stations start playing christmas music around this time, which is awesome because you either a) like christmas music or b) hate christmas music, in which case you can sing along to it in really bad warbles and have a whale of a time making fun of all these second-rate artists’ holiday albums.
5. shopping spree. you deserve a few presents of your own, don’t you? if you bought something for your annoying coworkers, then you sure as heck should buy something for yourself. and if you want to avoid the christmas present shopping madness, i’d recommend shopping in boutique stores instead of malls, or staying home and shopping online.
6. school’s out. need i say more?
7. lots of really cute holiday-themed books come out around this time of year, and even if you’re being forced to spend christmas at your mom’s house and she won’t stop bugging you about your future, you can always bring a novel along with you that’ll make you feel all warm and fuzzy (i’d recommend David Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice?and Let It Snow).
finally (and this is when i get all lame and my gooey, sentimental interior oozes out of my cynical outer shell), whether or not you care about the birth of Christ or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or ?Hogmanay, this is the time of year when everyone’s just a little more cheerful. it’s the time of bonuses and family and even if you don’t have those, they exist in the world and so there’s just a bit more kindness in the world too, i think.
plus, you may not have part of your biological family with you, you may be spending christmas far from home, but you have an adoptive family, and that’s your friends, and if you don’t have those either, then it’s this university, and this city, which will never abandon you and will always keep on pulsing and giving and welcoming you. and you’ll always have me, ready to answer all your questions and sass you as much as my gif folder will physically allow.
and most importantly, you’ll have yourself, and i think that’s what the holidays should really be about: appreciating yourself, and all the amazing things you’ve done, and revelling in the fact that you’re alive and kicking. so good on you.
have an awesome holiday season.
aska