I find that I always have a reason to dread the holidays.
When I was a kid, I dreaded the holidays because it was a family gathering, an extended family gathering. For my little chubby self then, it meant dealing with a lot of teasing about my weight, the color of my skin (being the darkest kid), and my gap-tooth/thick lips. They were probably "just jokes" from my family members. But as a little girl they made me feel different, not a good kind of different. An ugly kind of different.
So along with contempt for my looks, I grew a contempt for the family gatherings which were as a result of the festive season.
Fast forward to about ten, twelve years later and I still have a not so cheerful outlook towards the festive season. Albeit for a different reason than when I was a kid.
I can't seem to place a finger on when it started, but somewhere between my late teens and early twenties, my family began doing too much for the festivities.
What is too much?
In my household we start preparing for Christmas precisely a week before the actual Christmas day. And no, it is not that large a family. My family stopped the tradition of travelling to the village for Christmas so it no longer is an extended family gathering but a household of no more than eight people.
The idea was that if we started a week early, then there won't be so much to do on Christmas eve and on Christmas day. We were bamboozled.
All the baked goods are prepared a week before Christmas. And the days leading up to Christmas are filled with one prepping activity or the other. So shopping; running family errands, which often include day trips to the village since it is barely two hours away from the city we reside in; and other activities that my folks can find to keep us busy.
All the activities leading up to Christmas day have not stopped us from being up past 12 midnight on Christmas morning preparing for all the meals that would be cooked later. Not in any recent year I can remember anyway. So despite filling the days leading up to this 'glorious occasion' with activities that are supposed to lessen our burden, we still somehow manage to end up doing a lot on Christmas eve and plenty more on Christmas day.
We often manage to make it to bed by 1:00 a.m. and get up latest by 7:00 a.m. From then on it's an endless day filled with one chore/errand or the other. Throw in at least 3 hours of church; preparation of no less than three meals; attending to guest who roll in and out of the house; serving food to neighbors who must be fed even though they are capable of feeding themselves, and then you might be close to understanding why I am not a big fan of the holidays.
The problem here is a lot of these activities are done under compulsion, and thus whatever joy I have coming into this season is sucked out by the fact that I have to spend hours working and working and working for something I don't even believe in.
I know my blessings in the midst all these, and I acknowledge them. But I find that continually come back to a place where I can't seem to see the point of all the frantic activities. Perhaps because I am somewhat of a minimalist, I like simple things. Or maybe I am just a lazy person who does not like to leave her bed on cold harmattan mornings. Or maybe I'm not just as crazy about the birth of an ethnically Jewish revolutionary who lived many years ago, just like you don't see me sweating over the birth of Muhammad, or Buddha, or all the other wise teachers who are too numerous to name
Whatever the case, while many people around me seem to be lost in the activities of this season, and what I consider a "false/forced cheer" (because I dare you to be as cheerful all year!), I find that I am constantly hoping that it all quickly passes so I can get back to the normal pace of things.
Merry Christmas. Or whatever.
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