Holiday rant Mark II

Once again it's that time of year. That time that my poor little addled brain starts to take a depressive dive. I have so many mixed feelings about the standard christian holidays. Having been brought up as a J.W.,  I am flooded with residual guilt. Even though I haven't been a practicing witness in close to thirty years, those feelings still linger.  It was bad enough growing up a J.W. when you actually believed what I was taught, but then you find out it was all a big lie, you want to hate everybody and every thing. No matter what, I will always feel conflicted. On one hand I have my wife that was brought up in a fairly straight forward Methodist family. They celebrated the holiday's  just about like ninety percent of the country. To me the the whole affair was like visiting foreign country not knowing the language or the customs.

I've always liked for my kids to have a a good Christmas and get their fair share of goodies. But sometimes I feel I have failed to give them the complete holiday experience, I just can't "get the Christmas spirit". If I were by myself  I would probably not celebrate  any holiday.  It is just about impossible for me to get enthused. I can't even offer or return a merry Christmas greeting without nudging myself a little further down the depression chute. I sometimes wish that could spend Christmas in some Jewish or Muslim country or maybe hibernate fromThanksgiving till New Years. (There are no agnostic or atheist countries as far as 

I know.)

People will go out of their way to personally wish me Merry Christmas, and to this day that gives me the creeps. Oh I know that  at its worst it's probably benign. Sometimes I want to start in on these people and point out all the things they've got wrong about the holiday and the whole christian thing. But what would be the point? For some people that silly holiday is they have. And if it makes them happy, well I guess in the grand scheme of things(if there is such a thing) it really doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference. Like they say in France: "Whatever keeps the dog off the furniture. "

To make matters worse I have spent quite a few years in retail and seen first hand the Christmas insanity. People with that glazed over thousand yard stare. It is down right scary. I just don't think a lot of people are getting the supposed "reason for the season. I also have a feeling that a lot of those Christmas drones out there might actually like to come over to my side and avoid the hassle altogether. So many of them have that "please put me out my misery" air about them. 

Millions of people are right this minute are streaming toward home, or at least making their plans for Christmas. A sort of pilgrimage toward that feeling of connectedness that they in many cases have deluded themselves into thinking they once had but never really had. (Am I or am I not the master of the run on sentence?) I have never really felt connected until I had a family of my own. I have always felt like an outsider, even with my parents and sisters. Maybe it was from the big age gap between myself and my sisters or the whole religion thing. Throw in my bizarre mental hang ups, and it's amazing that I am even close to sane. (Yeah I know, you call that sane? har har!) 

As we get closer to the holiday my feelings of foreboding will intensify and hopefully 

I'll get through the holiday with out a melt down. So in any case have a nice safe holiday and please leave me the hell alone!

Next: Back to the story!