I’ve finally gotten over my mental work/home torpor, and kicked myself into high gear. When you’re in logistics, sometimes holidays stop having meaning beyond having to go through a bajillion things that Costco and Co. need to keep consumers happy. Santa must have presents! Santa must have things! Santa needs the help of giant shipping containers filled with candy and random crap!
It starts with Halloween, of course. All that candy has to come from somewhere. And then Christmas, which bleeds into Valentine’s Day, then Easter, and St. Patrick’s Day, and somewhere along the lines, I stopped seeing the meaning behind the day because all it meant to me was work.
I couldn’t even get in the holiday frame of mind anymore, because all the shipments for Christmas pour in by October, and come December, the powers that be (hi, Hershey’s!) are already shipping out the things for Valentine’s Day, so I end up in a very weird sort of headspace because that’s how far ahead one must plan when it comes to cornering the market on sweets.
Last year, I trimmed our tree the day before Christmas. The year before that, we ended up in Dollarama a few days before Christmas Eve because we were too lazy to haul everything out from storage. We should’ve done storage. The shelves looked like a plague of Christmas locusts had descended and carried away everything that looked remotely- Christmassy. That was the Christmas of hastily- cobbled together decor. The highlight was a truly sad plastic tablecloth that featured snowflakes and snowmen because everything with holly and Santa was taken.
I made up for it with dinner, though. I’m not big on decorating, but I skimp on nothing when it comes to a Christmas/New Year’s Eve dinner. Turkeys will cry.
This Christmas had begun to feel like more of the same, except we had actually gotten our decorations out of storage at the beginning of the month. Everything was still in disarray so the living room looked like a half-hearted Christmas explosion that had started with a bang and ended with a whimper. There was tinsel gathering dust in a corner.
I had even gotten to the point where I didn’t feel like sending out my usual Christmas cards. It’s an annual custom I started when I moved here in Ontario, and I’ve been pretty faithful to it every year.
But for the life of me, I can’t remember if I sent anything out last year (damn you, logistics), and this year, I had decided not to actually do it.
Until I got a note from my Grandma for my birthday — she sent it late November, and I got it a few days ago — and realized how meaningful things are when one actually takes the time.
Communication is cheap these days. A quick Happy Birthday on my Facebook wall, a few sentences sent by e-mail. None of it compared to seeing my Grandma’s squiggly handwriting, and knowing that for a few moments on a particular day in November, I was all that she thought about, and took the time for. That means something.
So, a year without sending out Christmas cards? Preposterous! What’s Christmas for if not to show the people we care about that we’re thinking of them? I’ve just written my Grandma a long letter that I hope will not bore her to tears, and now I’m off to see what I can score by way of Christmas cards (can’t be redundant, Christmas cards aren’t Catherine Middleton’s favourite coats, you know), and jumpstart the Christmas season.
I am very firmly going to buy cards that say MERRY CHRISTMAS, and not that silly, politically correct “Happy Holidays” malarkey. What am I, Starbucks?
It doesn’t have to be a Christmas card or an overlong letter, but I do hope you find a way to express how much you care for your loved ones this season, and that you have a very warm, very happy Christmas filled with all good things!
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Author’s Twitter: @nikkajow