it's over.
my least favourite holiday of them all. this year started extra egregiously, with the ridiculous idea that us secular folks are waging a war on christmas (make up your mind -- previously we were waging that war by commercializing christmas, now we're waging it by trying to be inclusive and wishing everyone a good holiday season). poor, persecuted fundamentalist christians -- i am so out of patience with those people. i was primed for major curmudgeonliness.
luckily their menacing lack of any true neighbourly spirit did not directly impinge on my life -- and this year i was overall doing much better ignoring things that grate on me without becoming churly (i slipped once yesterday, but i felt strongly provoked, and i am not sure it was wrong to slip -- but slipping probably hurt the person instead of making zir understand better, *sigh*). i managed to not reply "and happy hannukah to you" to each "merry christmas", but instead i just smiled and nodded, and tried to think good things about the speaker. i overall practiced being courteous to a greater extent than normally, and i think i'm gonna continue doing that. little things, like letting that extra car merge in, letting a harried person in front of me at the checkout, smiling at the worn-out cashier and saying thanks. when i started doing it some christmas seasons back, it was a bit out of spite, because this is the season when people are overall ruder and more obnoxious than at other times during the year (ironically, but yeah, i understand that the time is stressful for many who celebrate it), and part of me wanted to show them up, heathen that i am.
by now it's mostly genuine. as long as i am not being preached at, or forced to participate in a specific way, i am pretty sanguine about the whole christmas todo, and if i can contribute to a kinder season, sure thing. sometimes the gall of those people who support deeply anti-social actions (like the war on iraq, the sanctity of marriage for heteros only) while at the same time living in luxury and unctuously preaching about the season sticks in my craw, but as long as i quickly move away from such people i can maintain my equilibrium. and they are rare up here; i mostly see them online (and of course in the news) where they're more easily avoided. generally it helps my feelings about my fellow humans if i don't read a lot of world news. *sigh*. overall people here are helping me become more courteous because so many of them try to be kind themselves. it's a friendly place, and i am adapting to it. at first it was disconcerting to have a cashier comment on items i bought, and i got hedgehoggy about it, but they have worn my prickles down. :)
i didn't go to the neighbour's for christmas dinner because i wasn't feeling social (this is the core of my hermiting season), but i baked cookies for them, and am making a CD with pictures of their flowers turned into wallpaper. that'll be a new year's gift. or something. :) i am not hankering for another date to which to shift obligatory gift giving; i love gifts, love finding just the right thing for somebody, finding something that will make people smile or laugh out loud, finding something that will touch them, please them, give them good feelings. but obligation kills most of the spirit of that for me; i need to do it randomly as i am struck by thinking of things that would make great gifts. ergo, replacing "christmas gifts" with "winter gifts" would do nothing to make me like the season better, but being persistently random about it does. well, quasi-random, *snicker*. i do not give gifts on christmas itself, even if an idea has popped into my head just prior.
i'm looking forward to giving the gifts i've thought of. *bounce*. i'm doing research on one of them now, and i am all excited about it because i think it will be so very much the right thing, and it's one of those gifts that keeps on giving (in a good way).
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