Christmastime

American Thanksgiving Weekend has come and gone and so, officially the Christmas season is upon us.

This time of year is many things...a consumerist feeding frenzy which forms the tennant of the Western economy, a perversion of various pagan rituals in support of the Catholic church, an opportunity for kitty cats, everywhere, to eat and then vomit up brightly coloured tinsel. In brings about many a warm-fuzzy feeling inside...be it love, or anaphylactic shock brought on my nut-laden fruitcake.

But I like to see Christmas time as an opportunity to take stock of your life. The holiday season, for most of us, brings all the things we love and hate about ourselves and those closest to us into sharp focus, so it’s worth taking note - all the better to appreciate the good things, and revel against the bad.

If, for example, you are currently a student, and consequently brain-deep in a cesspool of papers and exams, then take note. You are an unhappy person. Your life, in general, resembles the sort of scum one finds at the bottom of a wind-swept marshland, and you’d probably rather be licking toilets for a living than writing one more properly formatted footnote. But that’s your life.

Or maybe you’re bogged down by December’s diverse obligatory social gatherings - including family gatherings, which have been known to render adults of otherwise sound mind and judgment into huddled masses of unravelling rage and despair. Unreasonable expectations abound, there’s not enough money or time to appease everyone you care about, and of course there’s that sickening feeling, deep within your gut, knowing that in two week’s time you’re going to come face to face with your much-loathed, commandeering, passive aggressive mother-in-law, Pam.

I don’t have a mother-in-law named Pam - I don’t have a mother-in-law at all. I do have a grandmother who once hit me with a soggy rolled up newspaper and then publicly announced she was disowning me (Christmas 2007), and a stepfather who beat another family over the head with a lead pipe...but no matter.

The point is, take stock. Recognize that certain circumstances are likely to make anyone miserable. And if, like me, you find yourself all by yourself this Christmas season, dropped out of university without even a basic bachelor’s degree, isolated and out of touch with many of your friends, and separated from your nearest relative by a staggering mountain range and about a thousand miles...rejoice.

My Christmas plans include sitting alone, in my apartment, obsessively crocheting tiny animals composed of yarn according to the Japanese art of amigurumi, and watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and yes, you can think that I’m sad, but honestly, I’ve never been happier.

In support of my argument...

It’s a seal...or baby walrus, or maybe a fish of some sort...and a turtle!