The Holiday Problem

I'm not sure if it's depression or the simple fact that I work in retail, but I have noticed a distinct shift in how I feel about holidays.  I don't actually feel anything about holidays lately.  I can remember back on how I felt on holidays previously, but this year it's been distinctly not magical and not special and I felt rather numb throughout the entire holiday season.  Much like I was going through the motions.  Don't get me wrong, on Halloween, I did feel rather happy with all of the children coming up and loving the display we put together.  However, this year at Thanksgiving I felt rather empty since we didn't have family up but for my mom.  And then come Christmas I was excited to go to Michigan to see snow...no snow.  It didn't feel like the holiday at all.

In fact, as I was getting excited to give my mom a Chromebook so we could finally start conversing with her via email and chats... she put off opening presents until we had a half hour left to go to my Aunt's dinner and we had only about enough time to show her how to turn the thing on and play a game of solitaire before having to pack up everything to leave.

I only got presents for a handful of people and I thought maybe I'd feel happier by giving away those presents, but they didn't seem to enjoy them all that much.  Then I turn around and don't really care if I got anything myself.  It felt strange not to be excited about it.

The Christmas dinner was more about the routine then actually seeing people.  We ate our dinner, watched our cousins yell at their children for not eating food or running around or not being obedient while we were praying... then we ate and opened presents and the little ones whined and cried because they only got one gift each, but last year I was told not to get them anything so I didn't get them anything at all either.  

Then someone burned a plastic container on the stove and things just sort of degraded and I realized that I didn't feel at home there anymore.  I just felt sort of on the outside watching it all happen.  I didn't take photos and didn't really get involved in any of the conversations happening.  I just wanted to eat and leave.

Maybe working retail has made it hard for me to enjoy consumerism.  And no, I don't just believe that's what the holiday is about, but when we bow our heads to say a quick prayer over supper and the children fidget and giggle and their parents haven't taught them to respect it, and they cry over not getting presents - well, didn't that just turn the holiday over to little consumers?  

I think I would have had a better holiday had I stayed home with my cats and just enjoyed being in the comfort of my own company and I didn't need any presents or anything special to have enjoyed a good holiday.

It's hard to describe this to people, so I'm just basically throwing this out there as I want to still get excited about the new year.  I want to be able to celebrate the ball drop, so who knows?  I did enjoy seeing an old friend while I was up in Michigan that I hadn't seen in years.  It was nice to touch base with people again after so long.  Maybe seeing my friends at New Year's will make things nice too.

Well...I hope.  I don't want to be writing another bummed out blog again any time soon!