My Bah-Hum-Bug Holiday list

     It's December! Not quite sure when that happened but here it is. I absolutely LOVE the holidays. I like the twinkling lights, the glitter, shiny ornaments, bright, big bows, the crackling of a fire place (I dont have a fire place, but I'll pretend I do), and especially that whole magic of Christmas feeling where everyone is more giving. Even that seems to be dwindling as the years go on though, or is that just me being a Debbie Downer?
     Agh, but I digress. The magic of the season isn't all that magical. In reality, I always get anxious around this time of the year. I hate the feeling of needing to fill the tree with lots of shiny wrapped gifts. I hate the holdiay's hustle and bustle in the stores where people are cranky and pushy and all ready to fight over a "deal". I know I'm coming off sounding a big Grinch'ish but I assure you I love the holidays. My husband and I always go all out decorating both inside and outside our home. It typically takes us 3 full days to get all of our outdoor lights set up and running in a manner in which we are cautiously optimistic that we wont blow all the fuses in our home to power them up. Still, there are things about the holiday season that I am just so not a fan of. So here's my grown up holiday bah-hum-bug list.

1. I'd consider myself to be fairly charitable and giving and I still do readily pull out change for the bell ringers, hand a $10 bill to a person in need, donate to charity and fundraisers for non-profit organizations. However, every year it seems like I'm digging deeper and deeper in my pocket for money I don't really have to give to others. It's like I'm being asked left and right for money. Example, just in the past two to three weeks I've been asked to give money to this or that at least 6 times. I'm not rich people! But then I feel terrible by saying no. I almost feel like I need to learn some stealth moves or at least some good excuses to get out of these monetary donation requesting situations. And this is the first year that I've actually felt annoyance towards the bell ringers outside of the stores. Do I need to feel guilty for buying hair bow ribbon at Hobby Lobby when I dont give any money to the Salvation Army? Because I do...and that aggravates me.
2. I'm gonna be honest here, I abhor wrapping presents! I'm terrible at it. It's probably my own fault because I'm not patient enough to really look at the package and figure out how much paper I need before I go about cutting the paper and find myself ending up 2 inches short and stuffing a make-shift wrapping paper patch over that spot. Packages are pretty and wrapped under the tree, but I hate the hours spent wrapping all of this nonsense.
3. Pet peeve...and this is an OCD pet-peeve (that was your warning): When people put a hodge podge of holiday lights up outside. If you're gonna do multi-colored lights then commit to that. I hate seeing a string of white lights here, and then a string of multi-colored flashing lights there, and then you have your snoopy dog house and a baby Jesus and a couple of strands of blue lights that are half burnt out on a bush. What is that?  Why go through all the trouble of putting lights up if you're just going for this hap-hazard craptastic look?!
4. "Tacky and irrelevant"-yep, that's a lyric from one of my old school favorites, Taking Back Sunday. And, it applies so aptly well to those ridiculous lawn decorations I've begun seeing over the past few years. What does a blow up carousel with little animals in the seats have to do with Christmas? Since when does Santa Claus fly in an air plane? Why the heck do you have Smurfs characters wearing scarfs on your lawn? In general, I'm not a fan of all those inflatable, overly obscene decorations but at least the ones that are like snow globes or a snowman make some sort of sense. I still think they are obnoxious but i'll give you points for at least avoiding the irrelevant aspect. This past Christmas I told my best friends and across the street neighbors that I got the shitty end of the stick. When I look out my window I see their multi-colored light reindeer and inflatable snowman (that looks drunk because the wind keeps blowing him sideways) while they get to look out their window and get to see the traditional and timeless beauty that is our holiday setup of white and red lights all perfectly lined up on the roof, along the drive, and the perimeter of our yard. You're welcome Beck family. 
5. Speaking of my best friends, (Robbie will be highly annoyed if she ever finds my blog and reads this-in which case, please know that I adore you Robbie and you go on being you and doing you, but I still had to post this.) Robin is one of "those" people. The people who like to put a big red ball on the front of their suv and reindeer antlers on each side. Oh good gracious! I don't mind a holiday bow attached to the front of the vehicles grill, but why are we dressing our vehicles up like elves and reindeer now? I'm not an advocate of car accidents but it would be a sight to see an elf vehicle having collided with a reindeer vehicle! This elf and reindeer car dress up habit is almost as obnoxiously tacky as those beyond ridiculous car eyelashes some people are cracked out enough to put on their vehicles!

     That said, to each their own. As Grinch'ish as I sound, I do love Christmas and the spirit of giving. I like cold nights where you can see your breath curl out in the air in front of you. I love dark skies and the twinkling lights, pajamas and hot cocoa. I love celebrating the birth of Jesus and sharing in the excitement each day brings as Christmas comes closer with my lil's. 

Merry Christmas All (even those of you on my tacky offenders list)!

Always,

Amy