The most wonderful time of the year
Christmastime is when Mickey and I switch personalities. As December draws near, Grumpus’ eyes begin lighting up, his lips unfurl and begin curling upwards, and his cadences acquire a strange, almost musical lilt. A week into his birth month, he is positively radiating good cheer: Christmas CDs come off the shelves and into the CD player, Christmas TV adverts get hearty applause, and there’s humming and help from him as I trim the tree. He is impossible to annoy in December: “I love Christmas!” he sings. “Let’s buy lots and lots of presents for everybody!”
“By “we” of course, you mean me,” I snarl back. While my husband has metamorphosed into Mr. Sunshine, I’ve turned into a toal stresscase. And that’s the nub of this personality switch: he delegates, and I agonize. There seems to never be enough: time, money or thoughtfulness to buy your near and dear precisely the right present. I am constantly reminded of this as I trudge through shopping malls, troll scores of shopping websites, make lists and check them twice, etc. I keep waiting for that time when I transform into the masterful perfect-gift giver all my years of shopping have prepared me for. Instead I see my presents magically change from the wonderful, unique — but well-priced — thing it was in the store into a cheap looking, mass-produced, made in China tchotchke.
Then there is the added stress of schlepping the stuff back home. For the past 5 years, my Christmas ritual has been to load up my suitcase with one change of clothes and 50 pounds worth of presents and other pabilin. What can’t fit into the suitcase is creatively repackaged into a hand-carryable package that’s dragged around the airport and forced into the overhead bins. This year I wised up and mailed 10kg of gifts home. But I was still left with a bunch of fragile and unwieldy items I didn’t dare check in.
So there I was early yesterday afternoon, all checked-in at the Airport Express station, lugging my oversized shopping bag full of crap, looking for a place to get a decent sandwich since I wasn’t particularly looking forward to Cathay’s ham and cheese drek, and groaning at the lunch lines, pharmacy lines and crowds and crowds of people. To top it off I was sweating like a piglet from the exertion and too many layers of clothing. Merry Christmas indeed. Merry fucking Christmas.