It's Christmas, Y'all. Now lets move on.

Merry, Happy, Cheer!

The only great thing I got done for the holidays this year was that hubby and I got together with my photographer friend, Amybestfriendsince8thgrade, and we took each others' holiday card pictures. Hubby and I always do a silly card, and I really love this year's result. Like everything else involved with Christmas, it isn't what I envisioned in my head, but I love how it turned out.

See, hubby and I don't have children. And before you give me that sympathetic "awww" it was a conscious choice not to have any. (Yes, people, you can make a choice about procreation, it doesn't have to just happen to you.) Anyway, no one really wants to stick a photo card of two grown adults up, it's just wierd apparently. So, we decided several years ago to use crazy, funny photos for our holiday cards. Our only goal is for them to be fridge-worthy. I think we've succeeded this year.

One person definitely didn't like them, however. My mom. I warned her that we were faux smoking and drinking in them in order to capture that 50's vibe. She is a religious person and despite the fact that she did indeed once smoke and drink, is very anti either one of those things. So she looked at the card. I told her I didn't mail it because I was sure she wouldn't want to display it and I was happy for her to keep this one if she did want it. She didn't get the humor in it and handed it back to me. I went home and had a martini and a cigarette. Just kidding. I don't smoke. And it was 2 martinis.

I think I have this year finally come to a realization that has been brewing for a long time. Christmas is a holiday that is meant to be celebrated by 2 groups of people. Christians, for obvious reasons. And children and those with children. I fit in neither group, so honestly, why do I bother?

Despite the fact that I grew up in a religious, Christian household, I never really got the relationship between what I call commercial Christmas and the religious holiday. Even as a child, I looked at them as two distinctly separate things, and the religious holiday rarely played into our Christmas celebrations. It was minor compared to the gift giving, fudge making, carol singing, and tree trimming. We only went to church on Christmas if it fell on a Sunday. or Wednesday. I honestly wouldn't know how you combine the two appropriately. When you think of it they couldn't be more at odds with each other. Some religions do integrate Christmas much more into the social aspect of Christmas, it just happens that the church I grew up in didn't. However, calling myself a secularist, I don't celebrate or concern myself with the religious holiday anymore.

The commercial aspect has taken over our society to the Nth degree. Gift giving, buying, borrowing and spending have become the touchstones for the holiday in modern society. Kids expect so much more than even when I was little. My friend's 4 year old granddaughter asked her for an iPhone the other day. What??

Every year I kill myself with expectations and dreams of the wonderful holidays of my childhood. But I have to admit, watching the nephs (4 and 5 y/o) open gifts last night was enough to melt even my cold, frozen, grumpy, grinchy heart. This year, we had the family over. I pulled the tree together at the last minute with items I had in storage containers. Hubs set us up with a great Christmas song mix on the stereo. We enjoyed not a traditional dinner, but sausage balls, chicken dip, ham biscuits, chicken tenders and such. Along with coffee and a ton of desserts like sugar cookies and pineapple cake, and yes, cheesecake. I used festive paper plates rather than fancy dishes for the first time, probably ever, so the cleanup would be easier. I looked outside halfway through the evening and the ground was covered with that magical, wet, white stuff that had seemingly come from nowhere. It was pouring down snow. What a wonderful Christmas Eve!

Maybe there's hope for me after all.