I had a serious case of the Grinches this past week.
Christmas had boiled down to nothing more than an endless stream of stress and work and shopping and work and budgeting and more work and I was done with all of it.
My car was getting on my nerves. A low point during the week found me laying in a gutter, covered in snow and mud and bits of ice, clutching my windshield scraper and laughing like a crazy person thrown into the depths of hysteria because it was Christmas time and everything was going wrong.
I'd killed my car battery that day because I'd left the lights on, despite having attached a “turn your lights off” note in bright blue paper to the car door the night before. After the battery was boosted, I scurried off to Town council, only to have my windshield wipers refuse to turn off after the meeting was over.
Trying to scrape ice from your windshield while dodging wipers that you cannot convince to turn off is a bit tricky. Hitting a patch of ice while doing so and falling into the gutter is just a tragedy.
A group of seniors enjoying the relatively mild evening and staring in shock while you laugh yourself silly in said gutter is just salt in the wound, in my opinion.
So I was growly and exhausted and bitter and tired and mostly, I just wanted to sleep until February. Oh, wait. Valentine's Day. Correction: I wanted to sleep until March.
It only takes little things to turn that sort of mood around, to remember why the Christmas season is my favourite season.
The first little turn around happened in Glendon. I was there for the Christmas concert, one of about five I attended over the course of two days (which wasn't helping my Grinchy mood.) It was, of course, standing room only, so I prepared myself for another event of crawling around feeling awkward and in the way.
Imagine my surprise when it turned out the principal had saved me a spot, right up front near the soundboard. It was pretty sweet, and he even let me work the soundboard when he had to dash on stage to join other staff members in a musical number.
So my mood was already loosening up a little.
Still, I was beyond startled when one of the young performers, upon leaving the stage and seeing me sitting there, grinned brightly and said, “Hello! Merry Christmas!”
“Oh,” I thought. “Right. Christmas.”
I had forgotten that's what all the sombreros were about, all the reindeer antlers and Santa hats. I'd forgotten that's why I was stressed out about money and shopping and presents for my family.
The meaning of Christmas is not the extra workload, the strain on finances, the stress over figuring out what to buy that nephew who has everything and only likes video games.
The rest of my Christmas spirit got dusted off and shined up this past weekend, as I journeyed to Cold Lake in an attempt to start my Christmas shopping. I battled through the crowds in Walmart in search of a mythical board game that involved spatulas and bacon that my sister claimed my nephew would love.
I returned to Bonnyville, depressed and unsuccessful, only to find nearly everything I was looking for in local shops. I guess there is something to be said for shopping locally. Now if only local stores carried that bacon game.
So this Christmas will go down in history as one of the most stressful Christmases of my life, but at least I found my Christmas spirit before the end, and I didn't even need my heart to grow a bunch of sizes against my will or any visits from Christmas ghosts to accomplish the task.
It doesn't hurt that a few weeks ago, I received a massive box from my nephew and my sister, filled with a little Christmas tree and hundreds of tiny ornaments, one of which had a picture of my little nephew in it.
When you push the button, his voice rings out, shouting, “Merry Christmas, Auntie Lissa, I love you!”
I suppose I can have a merry Christmas after all, with wishes like that.
