I HATE DECEMBER. Literally. Ok, ok, I know HATE is a strong word; would you feel better if I said I DESPISE DECEMBER instead? Fine then, I despise December. I was born at 3:3- am on December 3, 1979. The last month of the seventies; I suppose I can be thankful that I was not born in the eighties. Anyhow, I've always wished I had been born in another month... any other month... but preferably the summer. December is full of Christmas, snow, cold; none of which I like. People always go on about Christmas and how happy it is with everyone exchanging greetings and cheer. That is not my experience. My experience is stress... excessive busyness... cold... obligations... Oh and getting older. See, no one likes getting older. Anyhow, you may wonder: If you despise December so, why is your blog named 'My December'? I have an answer. I feel like my life is like a December... maybe not bad, but not at all what you were promised or expected. Take that as you will. I have the perfect example: it is from the Christmas when I had just turned 5. We were getting Cabbage Patch Dolls for Christmas. It was when they had just come out and we knew we were getting them, we had picked out the ones we wanted at Toy Parade and had been there at the drawing when my parents bought them. Cabbage Patch Dolls came in a very distinctive box. Imagine how elated my sister and I were when my mom told us on the Sunday morning before Christmas that we could open ONE gift before church. we both chose the same gift... the one shaped like a Cabbage Patch Doll box. My mom was no dummy... We excitedly ripped open the wrapping and stared in shock and disbelief. CHRISTMAS DRESSES! Fluffy red and white Christmas dresses. My sneaky mother had taken the dolls out of their boxes and replaced them with Christmas dresses. Imagine, expecting a CPD and getting a dress instead. Dresses are not bad, they just aren't what you expect to find in a CPD box. Don't get me wrong, I am not blaming my mother or this traumatic gift experience for my December dislike. I went on to have many other great Christmas experiences.
Maybe a great percentage of my disillusion comes from Christmas songs; they promise so much... they raise the bar of expectations so high that... well, let's just say that they create a false sense of what is going to really happen. I know this may not be every ones experience. I'm not trying to kill the magic for other people. I am just telling you how I feel. People will not love each other more because it is Christmas. The fact that there is mistletoe has no power over the fact that there is no one to kiss even if perchance you were standing under it. People kill trees and put them in their house with lights and pretty fluffy stuff. There are secret Santa drawings everywhere... where you inevitably draw the name of the person you didn't want to draw. Seriously, if the ratio of people that you don't want to draw to people you wouldn't mind drawing is 1:26, you're gonna draw the person you didn't want. People make snowflake ornaments out of paper and hang them everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Scrooge. I want to like Christmas... maybe even December. I want it to be magical and full of warmth and fulfilled expectations... lacking disappointments... the perfect ending for the year. But, I'm too much of a realist to expect that.
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