I walked into meijers yesterday, to hear holiday songs blaring on the radio. It snowed today, a thin blanket of the white and fluffy, and instantly half my friends changed their facebook statuses to something regarding the upcoming holiday season. There are commercials on the TV for decorations, presents, etc. The neighbors put up lights.
It's not even thanksgiving yet, but I feel that christmas spirit in the air, the one I look forward to every year, I excitedly make lists of things to make for people and cards to send out, I decorate the house with reckless abandon....
... But not this year.
This year, I already have the feeling like I want to punch the next santa-suited individual I see walking around. I have an urge to yell loud enough to drown out stupid carols. I want to set the wrapping paper section at meijers on fire. I can't even find in myself enough holiday spirit to cut paper into visually pleasing shapes to mail to my loved ones eventually. Heaven forbid I think about christmas shopping, the idea repulses me.
At the same time, I have a strange yearning for thanksgiving- thanksgiving! The holiday I was usually nonchalant about, if not a little wary of. My mother, after cooking all day and chasing around my brother, would be a little emotional, my other little brother would usually pick that day to have a temper tantrum about something, my dad would either be distant and upsetting (emotional) mom by avoiding the family, or half setting the house on fire trying to use a turkey baster, and I'd be simultaniously avoiding everybody, and trying to help in the kitchen. Last year, I started bossing everybody around- assigning my tantruming brother to set the table, taking my autistic brother and making dad play with him, and helping mom cook. Thanksgiving is a lot of emotional work.
And yet,I'm pining for it. I'm pining for family arguments, garlic yams, autistic kids who won't stay put at the table, and eating leftovers for weeks until I might be sick if I look at another serving of stuffing. Perhaps it's because this will be the first year, in my megar existance on this planet, that I will not be with my family for it. My immediate family is in Sweden, and the rest are in Greece or California.
This is strange, this holiday season. It seems that the difficulties of living overseas from my immediate family (whom I used to talk to every day), the fears I have with transitioning out of undergrad and into - Goddess knows what - and my changing definitions of family and home are all interacting to make me an anti-Santa, pro-Turkey crazy person.
I still haven't decided what I'm doing for Thanksgiving. Staying at home and eating chinese food is looking more and more tempting, because I think I'm going to be depressed one way or another, and may as well not drag other people down with me..
