Melancholy Holly Days

Christmas makes me melancholy.

It doesn’t have anything to do with presents or memories or stress.

I’ve ran the gamut of Christmas experiences - ones where I killed myself making everything perfect and ones where I kind of threw my hands up and said, “Eh…it will be what it will be” and it doesn’t really seem to have much bearing on the melancholy meter.

I’m old and crochety enough now that I pretty much do what I want.  For years I’ve made handmade Christmas cards with a ridiculously clever, self-deprecating, ironic newsletter (well, it is to me) but last year I just thought, “Nah…don’t feel like it” and the world didn’t stop spinning on its axis.

I love to make Christmas cut out sugar cookies, almond roca, and pecan tea tassies, so I will.   

Why yes, the Gingerbread man DOES have an icing diaper...cause we're creative like that.

 

 

I don’t especially like decorating the tree, but I’ve still got an 11-year old at home, so that has to happen, and of course, I enjoy it once it’s up (and I’ve cajoled, pleaded and pummeled someone else into putting all the storage containers away).

I’m wondering if maybe it’s the Christmas music that I love to listen to.  I can’t tolerate the peppy, cheery stuff like the aneurism inducing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” or “Jingle Bell Rock.”  I tend to listen to more obscure stuff like Robert Downey Jr’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s  “River” and Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Christmas Carol" from her "Come Darkness, Come Light" Christmas CD.  It speaks to my soul...and apparently my soul is one gloomy chick.

I load up my Christmas mix while I'm in the car, or let it play while I work in my office, and slowly but surely I just start to feel….”yearny” even though I don’t really know what I’m yearning for.  

I do miss the days when my kids were little and there was more anticipation and excitement, but I don’t think that’s it entirely.  I do know I’m happiest if I’m with my extended family – I miss being close enough to my brothers and sister that  we can all gather together at someone’s house where it’s loud and noisy, and we eat good food and laugh until our sides hurt.  

It seems I stay in a perpetual state of wanting to just curl up on the couch with a quilt and a cup of cocoa, and wistfully dream about some perfect holiday that I can’t quite put my finger on.  

Do you have a mental Christmas scenario that never quite manifests?  What do you yearn for?