THE HOLIDAYS

Hey there sagacious reader.  Welcome to the New Year.  I hope it treats you the way you deserve to be treated.  And I trust you have been behaving well enough to have only good things in store. I am concerned for those of you who received lumps of coal. Try to do better this year, ok?

Ah, the holidays: a happy time -- family, friends, good cheer.  Well yes, there is usually plenty of that. At least in places that are well stocked with alcohol! But for some there is also high stress and serious debt.  Nobody talks about that part of the holidays. The stress we just manage as best we can and the debt we simply put off until the new year.  We are very well adapted to postponing the inevitable; to ignoring the 'dark side'.  At least until January rolls around.

The holidays start out pleasantly enough. Thanksgiving.  A time for family and friends to get together and enjoy a good meal and good conversation. Everybody pitching in to prepare the big meal; sitting down together to enjoy the food, chatting happily, sharing their lives; everyone joining in to help with the clean up.  Is that how it works in your family?  I remember it more like this:  The women pitch in to prepare the big meal while the men sit around drinking and watching football; everyone sits wherever, the men usually in front of the TV, the women trying to talk and be heard over the football game; the women joining in the help with the clean up while the men continue drinking and watching football.  Now that's Thanksgiving!

Then comes Christmas.  A mad flurry of activity: shopping, gift wrapping and house decorating.  Don't you just love all the extra traffic, the hoards of people vying for the same parking spaces as you, the waiting in horrendous lines to purchase gifts you may or may not be able to afford?  

Not to mention the hours spent wrapping said gifts and labeling them so they are opened by the right people. Add to the good times; climbing ladders to put up your outside lights and stringing more lights through your bushes and around your windows. Filling your lawn with pudgy red Santas and cute little reindeer. Then fill your home with red and green doodads and whatnots to provide the proper holiday spirit inside.  I'm exhausted all ready!  All I can say is thank god for the internet; the wise shoppers' choice for making this time of year a little bit easier.  

On the bright side; for many of us there are Christmas parties. Now those can be fun!  No stress, no debt.  Just good eats, free alcohol (hopefully) and good friends to share it with.  And any exhaustion incurred there is worthwhile.  All in all, these parties are a beacon of light in an otherwise hectic season.

So, to the good times of the season, the happy moments shared, I have nothing to say but Happy New Year!  To the stress and the debt and the exhaustion of the season I definitely say BITE ME!