Merry (melancholy) Christmas

I think recognizing that there are moments of melacholy or "blueness" at the alleged Happiest Time of the Year is important. If you're not happy and everyone else around you seems to be, it can be a very isolating thing.



I've always liked this song, but particularly this version of it. (Apparently there was an even bleaker version, but it got altered to this). There's a more-recent happied-up version (I blame Sinatra for it, though he may not have been the one who did it).

But yes. Sometimes we can't be together with everyone at Christmas. Or maybe it's "littler" than we might want, either because of financial or travel or time-limitation reasons. Or maybe we're just not up to the full thing.

(I remember Christmas 2016, where my mom fell on a patch of ice and injured herself - we learned much later she had probably fractured a rib. But she was in so much pain for most of that time that I wound up doing most of the things to "make Christmas" - I got a neighbor in to help me put up the tree, I did most of the decorating, I cooked Christmas dinner largely on my own. It was hard and I admit that was the first real intimation to me of "some day you will be having to figure out a way to "make Christmas" all for yourself, all alone," and that was a hard thing to think, especially on top of worrying about my mom and trying to do all the things.)

There are SO many expectations in our culture - one thing I've always kind of objected to are the automobile ads at Christmas that imply a car is  a perfectly-reasonable gift (and there are some this year claiming "you've been good all year so why not buy YOURSELF a car for Christmas" and I can't even with that when I'm thinking $200 is a HUGE indulgence to spend on a gift for myself - and I probably won't this year, not with the surprise plumbing bill two weeks ago). It would be nice to dial back, as a culture, on those things, I think. Granted, personally, we can, we can opt out of all the consumerist craziness. But for once I'd like to see the smaller Christmas I know, where there's not some blaze of parties and expensive gifts and women making out with a perfume bottle (another nutso Christmas ad I saw) and instead there's quietness and small cheer and food made at home and maybe some books.