Five, four, three, two, one …. Hooray!!!! The holidays are over!! Screw counting down the last minute; I’ve been counting down since Thanksgiving. There is nothing, NOTHING, in this world that makes you more aware of being single than the last month and a half of our calendar year. No, I take that back, weddings may be the worst at pointing out the fact that you are a party of one. At least those things only last one day and there is usually an open bar to help take your mind off things. As much as I would like to go on a thirty day bender during the “loveliest time of the year”, I don’t think my employer would find it as cathartic as I would. In fact, knowing him as long as I have, I could easily guarantee that the only thing he would be putting in my stocking would be a pink slip. I guess I’d rather be bitter during the holidays than unemployed in January.
Before I begin my tirade, let me assure you all that I do indeed enjoy the Christmas season. I am by no means a Grinch who is just using my relationship status as another reason to hate the holidays. Tree decorating, baking gingerbread houses, snow angels, caroling; there is nothing too cheesy or sappy for me to take part in. I play Christmas music starting right after Thanksgiving and only stop on New Year’s Day because my friends have threatened me with physical violence if I don’t. I decorate my house, I decorate my workplace, I even put those stupid antlers on my cats. I can’t get enough of this shit. Basically, just think of me as an extremely tall elf.
As much as I do love Christmas, I have to admit the season is a little sweeter when you have someone you love by your side. It’s nice to have someone to curl up with on the couch and watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” together. It’s nice to take a walk on the night of the first snowfall holding hands and marveling at the neighbors’ Christmas lights. Snowball fights, sledding, kissing under the mistletoe; this stuff all takes two people. Well, maybe sledding doesn’t, but what sane adult really goes sledding alone? That’s just weird.
Although I am perfectly fine with being single at this point in my life, I will be the first to admit that I do get a wistful sense of longing as soon as December rolls around. I’m only human after all. There is a limit on the amount of Hallmark commercials a person can watch before you start to seriously consider letting your grandmother set you up with her hairdresser’s daughter’s son. You know … the one who studied Geology in college and now collects old radios. She has said he’s quite the dish after all.
Speaking of family … I think they might be the number one reason why I dread the jingle of sleigh bells every year. Don’t get me wrong, my family is great. They are kind, funny, warm people who love me unconditionally and support whatever I choose to do with my life. They have welcomed in all of my past boyfriends graciously and worked hard to cheer me up when the same jerks walked out of my life. Hell, they have put up with me getting tattoos, dying my hair blue, and following the Grateful Dead around for a summer. They are good (and very patient) people.
Perhaps they are a bit too supportive though. This year I chose to count how many times I was told, “don’t worry – You’ll meet someone”. Would you care to guess what the final tally was? The grand total was 327 times. Now let’s not focus on why I decided to really record the amount of times I heard this sentence. That is not the point here. The point is that every five minutes another family member was bringing up the fact that the most significant relationship I have with a man these days is with the guy who delivers my pizzas. Sometimes it was a conversation between just me and my relative. Other times it was the topic of discussion over the family meal. Awesome. Let’s get everyone’s opinions on the subject – please. I’m just dying to know your thoughts on this oh-so-not-sensitive matter. Shall we discuss my latest Pap smear while we are at it? Let’s get everything on the table.
This year I tried something new. I decided to take a shot of vodka every time I heard that dreadful sentence. I kept a “water” bottle next to me anytime I knew I was going to come into contact with my family. In retrospect I’m not sure if it was the greatest idea. I was black-out drunk at 1:30 in the afternoon on Christmas day.
My family is pretty progressive. They vote mostly democratic, they are not prudes; they can deal with the idea of an independent woman living her life as she wants. But I know deep down inside they are keeping track of my age and how many years I have left before I am technically a spinster. For the record, in their minds that number is pretty low. Like, I’m going to go past my expiration date this upcoming March, kind of low. Glad to see there is no pressure on me or anything. I can’t blame them. They come from a different time period. When they were my age if a girl wasn’t married by twenty-five she was pretty well fucked.
My family doesn’t keep their opinions strictly to the dinner table; these opinions also bleed into the kinds of gifts I have been receiving over the past few years. I hate to cook. I think I’ve made this pretty much clear in all of my columns. You would never believe this fact by the amount of cook books I’ve received lately. Good Housekeeping, Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, that guy who says “Bam!” a lot. The whole gang is hanging out in my kitchen cabinet. Quite frankly, that is where they are going to stay for the foreseeable future too.
My family’s attempt at making me more domesticated doesn’t just stop there. I’ve been given every kitchen gadget imaginable. Some of the stuff is so foreign that I don’t know if it is modern art or a functioning tool. I’ve received a sewing machine, a vacuum, and a blender. Jesus Christ! What’s next? Kitten heels, a string of pearls, and a mop? A few years back my grandmother gave me an amazing set of china. The same exact set she gave my sister for her wedding. The tag said, “just in case …”, as in “just in case you never get married you old bitch”. Thanks gram. Next year I’m going to get her Depends adult protection. You know … just in case.
As awful as being single during Christmas may seem, there are a few brightly shining benefits to it. First and foremost, I do not have to go through the whole “Oh my GOD! What do I get him!!!” dilemma. I’ve seen this rather innocent question send the most grounded people over the edge. Unless you have been with someone for a good amount of time, the Christmas present problem can be quite the nightmare. We’ve been together three months. Do I get him a CD or an X-Box 360? If I buy him clothes will he think I’m trying to change him? Should I ask his friends? Should I ask his mother? Is he going to freak out because I talked to his mother? Of course these questions are always flying through the person’s mind while at the local mall a week before Christmas, on a weekend, with major blow-out sales going on. What a lovely, calm place to make decisions.
This problem doesn’t affect only women. I watched one of my close male friend’s hair slowly fall out as he tried to figure the perfect gift for his girlfriend of four months. Every time I talked to him it was a different idea. He covered everything from a weekend away to gift cards to board games to leather gloves. He secretly called her best friends to enlist their help. He talked to every woman he crossed paths with for an entire month. I think he even called into a local radio talk show that offers love advice. In the end, he picked out a fabulous gift. My friend bought his girlfriend a beautiful silver necklace and a gift certificate to her favorite day spa for a day of luxury and pampering. What did she get him? A twenty dollar iTunes gift card. You know, the ones you can buy at the local gas station. Last I knew they were taking a “small break” for a little bit.
Even if you can manage to navigate the gift giving maze from hell you still have someone else’s family to deal with. All families are weird in their own way. It’s a fact of life. Someone is an alcoholic or a shoplifter or needs to wear a helmet when they go in public. It’s easy for us to deal with our families because we’ve lived with it our entire lives. The small idiosyncrasies that each family member exhibits have become something we don’t even notice anymore. Other people’s families on the other hand … now there is a real eye-opener. Two minutes in the door of your new significant other’s parents’ house and you have already witnessed his parents fighting, grandpa sticking his fingers in the egg nog, and his fourteen year old cousin asking you if you “smoke the chronic”. Holy Christ! Where is the vodka? Did the fourteen year old take it? It’s all you can do to restrain yourself from ransacking the medicine cabinet in search of the Valium that his mom had a “small problem” with just last year.
At the end of the day, no matter whether you have someone beside you or not, the holidays are bound to make us a little batty. It’s a universal fact. Birds will always migrate with the seasons, Dick Clark will always do his New Year’s Eve Special, and there will always be a last minute present that we forgot to pick up until quarter of six on Christmas Eve. But if we can see past the chaos, the craziness, and the annoying family members; we can see the true meaning of Christmas. It is a time to honor and celebrate the relationships we do have in our lives, not worry about the ones that are missing. It’s a time to watch the current year come to a close and take comfort in all the blessings and lessons that it brought with it. It’s a time to get excited about the new year that is dawning and to revel in the hope and excitement that beginnings seem to always bring with them. It’s the time to return all those hideous sweaters that your aunts and uncles bought for you and get something you will really use.
I hope this holiday season has brought each and every one of you joy, love, and peace. May the New Year bless you with prosperity and good fortune. And if all that fails, may you always have enough vodka left over from the night before to make Bloody Marys the next morning!
