Christmas Spirit

I envy people who are enjoying their holiday this year. For me, it's all about family. (Note that while I don't believe in the sentiment behind Christmas, most of my family and friends do) I don't have my family here, which makes this holiday - any of them, really - especially difficult.

His family try and make up for that, which I sincerely do appreciate, but it just isn't the same. I don't get to wake up early and make coffee, and watch Mum stumble out of her bedroom in her pretty pink satin nightgown, hair askew, sleepy-eyed. I don't get to watch my brothers follow suit, yawning and grumbling and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I don't get to watch my sister jump up and down in excitement or anticipation of opening her presents (even though she's the type who absolutely has to know what she's getting beforehand).

As a kid, I absolutely loved Christmas (of course) only for the presents. It was so fascinating to me that some fat guy in a red suit would pop down people's chimneys, fill their stockings full to overflowing, and then deposit variously sized and brightly wrapped boxes under a fir tree. We didn't have a chimney growing up - too hot, living on the Gold Coast of Australia - so Mum always said Santa came in through the front door. When questioned how he got in without a key, she would reply, "Well he has to have a key, doesn't he? How else would he get inside?"

It made perfect sense. And then, with typical kid-glee, we gazed upon all the presents for all of a split second before diving toward the [plastic] fir tree and grabbing all our specially marked presents.

As I grew older, I began to look forward to Christmas less and less. I guess it was largely in part because I was starting to Grow Up, and began to realize just how expensive and commercial this holiday really was (religious differences aside). I began to get more and more appalled the commercials that stated you just had to buy this or that to make your family so damned happy. The whole Spirit of Christmas really dwindled for me through my early teens, and had dissipated altogether by my midteens. At least for me.

I still loved watching my family get excited over it. And I loved the hell out of trying like a madwoman, to buy the perfect gift for Mum that would make her cry. (Somehow it always becomes all about making your poor mother burst into tears) And every year, my brothers and I succeeded.

I began to appreciate this holiday for the fact that we were all there together, laughing and talking, joking and just having a great time. After the present thing was over and done with, we'd sit down and have breakfast (because we weren't allowed to eat the coloured popcorn in those giant bags, or the candycanes or chocolate!) and talk and giggle excitedly about what we got. That brought me alot of happiness - just being there with them.

And then I moved away from them. I moved thousands of miles, to the opposite side of the world, and I honestly didn't think I'd miss the whole Christmas thing. It turns out I was wrong.

Now, Christmas means nothing to me. He doesn't find much use for it, other than having a day off from work, and I think I have adopted that mentality. I tried to change that outlook one year, but he questioned it so much that I became embarrassed, and reverted to my former hum-bug self.

Lately I find myself looking at the cost of gifts, and seeing nothing but more bills. Bills I don't need or want, thankyouverymuch.

So, I really am envious of all these people who have such great holidays. Somewhere buried deep down, I know I want to be one of them, again. Not for the presents - I get what I want regardless of the time of year - but for that whole Christmas Spirit thing I used to embrace so lovingly as a child. I want that back. I wish it had never gone away - I wish I had never become so jaded.

And maybe, hopefully, one day when I have my own kids, and I can see their bright smiles and sparkly eyes all lit up at the wonderment of presents under a [real!] fir tree, and watch as they unwrap their gifts with utmost delight, that all those former feelings will come flooding back to me, and I will once again lovingly embrace the long-lost-and-forgotten Christmas Spirit.