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Oh jolly. The holidays are upon us again. It’s time for family, food, kugel and guilt. Gift giving, drinking and yelling.

I hate the holidays.

I don’t mean that facetiously. I really hate them. I hate them so much that this year it made me sick with a bad flu to the point where I’m not going to our first (yes, we have multiple) holiday parties. Don’t get me wrong though, I do love seeing the family, and to some extent I like gift giving. The problem with the holidays that I have is that it seems so forced and fake, like everything is done out of obligation and not because of any feeling.

We had a holiday party once that was all of my family and Amy’s family. All the gifts were piled in the living room at Amy’s parent’s house, and we all went to town grabbing our own. It wasn’t a gift giving type of thing, it was shopping. I didn’t like it. The holidays used to be surprises. It used to be cold weather and hot chocolate, with our Hannukah Bush in the living room, lighting candles every night. Now it has become this thing that is between end of year crunch and beginning of year crunch. It snuck up on me so rapidly this year that I haven’t even finished my shopping yet.

I wish for the holidays to return to what they used to be for me. Something to look forward to, and not something I have to suffer through year after year, and look forward to the end of. I don’t know exactly what that entails, but I need to find ut because I absolutely can not do another year like this one.

For next year I have some ideas for what I’m going to do:

1) Go on vacation. Amy and I really need one, and its the perfect time of year to do it. I was thinking Aruba for Christmas/New Years. Europe is too cold in most places.
2) Devote one day to family and that’s it. None of this two party business.
3) Find a more creative gift for everyone. Donations? Subscriptions? One year I asked for everyone to donate to the Murmurs hosting fund, which ended up raising money for about four months of hosting. That alleviated bills to where I could buy what I wanted for myeslf.
4) Boycott the whole fucking thing and stay home.