Holiday Truth

December always brings about a great deal of ambivalence for me. Actually, it starts in November but December is the real count down to Christmas. I hate it, I love it, I hate it, I love it, I resent it, I don’t want to give anyone a damn thing, I want to give every soul I meet on the street a present, I am totally ambivalent. I like that word: it means to feel two opposite feelings at the same time. Not somewhere in the middle, but OPPOSITES at the SAME TIME. I resent Christmas because a lot of people get sketchy around this time of the year. Down right WIERD. Super controlling, strangely cheerful, and totally anti-anti-Holiday spirit.  It’s not ok to be a scrooge. It’s not ok to dis Santa.  The cultural code of conduct is strong around this time of the year. And if you don’t know anything about me by now, it’s I HATE THAT KIND OF SHIT.

I’ve been having attacks of guilt about lying to my Lula about the existence of Santa. Like I do EVERY TIME this time of the year rolls around.  When she realizes that we’ve LIED all these years, will she resent us and will everything we’ve ever told her seem like a LIE? Will she doubt everything we say after this big revelation? I’ve heard that for some people, the finding out about the lie of Santa is a HUGE shattering of trust of their parents…like, what else did Mom and Dad lie about….waitasecond…there’s the tooth fairy, there’s that bunny that lays eggs, there’s the virgin mother, there’s how raisins used to be grapes, WHAT ELSE IS A LIE????   But then I compare the Santa Fairy lies to years of crushing disappointment that I experienced when I would come racing down the stairs to look in a very lame burgundy stocking I made for myself only to find it empty, I just don’t know what is right.  Even though I was never fed the lie of Santa, I wanted to believe. Clearly, I’m ambivalent and well, maybe this is all just the time of the year where I get to really grapple with my human nature as a CONTRADICTORY AND LYING COW OF A BEING.  Maybe that truth-about-Santa- moment is the beginning of the life lesson that some lying sons of bitches are  a.) actually somewhat still loveable and b.) our parents.

It’s never more apparent than in this season, that LYING is ok. Like going to all those damn Christmas parties, because you want to see all these people you never hang out with normally and that you’d never ever call in a million years.  All to make small talk where you pretend to care about the fucking turkey and to stuff down your feelings with a disgusting remnant of mince meat pie.  Hey, I admit it, I am not immune to the bullshit. I do it. We all do it. So embrace the bullshitter in you this season. Unless you live far far away on a tropical island that does not celebrate the winter season because you don’t have one, then, it’s time to HUG YOUR INNER LIAR.  Maybe even have fun with it.  Tell a made up story and watch people react to it, just for fun….oh, hey! waitanuthersecond, we do that to our children!!  We are totally screwed up.  (This is the real Holiday message, yah?)

Yet the truth is also that I STILL want a full stocking when I wake up.  I want to see the DELIGHT on my children’s faces when they see a bunch of  Christmas lights that some wackos spent crazy amounts of time and energy putting up.  I want to eat that fucking turkey with stuffing and gravy and cranberry sauce and pumpin pie.  I want to drink eggnog and mulled wine.  And I want to be surrounded by people whom I consider my kindred family.   The people I can let my hair down around, the people whom I have the most fun with, basically the people who are comfortable enough with themselves to be comfortable around me, because I’m a different sort of wacko.