tepid. maybe even chilly.
November 23, 2011, 6:55 P.M.

I am thankful.
I am. There is a lot I'm thankful for.
But it is just very, very hard this year. Everything feels so grim and tight and uncertain and doomed, you know?

I thought I'd passively let myself out of the card exchange this year by missing the deadline, but then Weetabix extended it, so I have to decide after all. Honestly, I just feel like I'm not up to it, and I know I can't afford it. But I do feel like I've "let the team down" by wanting to opt out this year.

I know Spouse seemed very concerned when I said I thought it was going to be a "zero observance" year, but that's probably just anxiety about the cookie situation. He needn't worry--there will be SOME cookies. Probably not a lot, but some. And I guess I already passed the zero thing anyway, with the fruitcake and the Merry Mix CD for Auntie. Which he forced on me.

I really do dread Christmas so much. On the religious side, it's a celebration in a religion I don't belong to, of a god I don't believe in. And on the secular side, I feel like it's all other people's expectations, without the right to expect anything back. When I do manage to marshall my energy and focus, and pull off something approximating a traditional observance of the holiday, it is because I can get over the "not expecting anything back" part and make it all about others. I try to think of it like this: to �enjoy� something means to put joy into it, rather than to get joy out of it. But I just can't pull that off every single year. Maybe 1 out of 4 or 5. Christmas should be like elections and Olympics--every 4 years.

Is there a certain irony in the statement "All I want for Christmas is for there not to be one"?