The Fat Man Cometh

For the first year in several, there is no Christmas knitting. I decided with everything going on that Christmas knitting would be the straw. Of course I didn’t anticipate the whole Christmas shopping thing.

I have determined that everyone in the family needs to love yarn as much as I do, because it would make the Christmas shopping more enjoyable and easier. I say this having not set foot in a mall because I am afraid of contracting rabies or zombiosis. Of course, I could always arm myself for either possibility, but my patience is thread thin and ready to snap. Couldn’t have a rank civilian getting caught between a mall zombie and the barrel of my gun, much less someone exhibiting symptoms of rabies, who was only drinking an extremely foamy latte and I just blasted them out of fear and disgust. But I digress.

I generally enjoy the holiday season from Thanksgiving to my birthday at the end of January. I love the festive lights, the seasonal candles, the beauty, the specialness of it all. Yet, what I discover around this time each year is that I am a misanthrope.

It’s true. I hate people. I hate people in their cars booger mining like there is no tomorrow, talking on their cell phone and weaving in and out of traffic because there will be no air left in the mall for them to breathe once they get there. I hate people who stop in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store, their cart at an angle so no one may pass without asking politely to be excused only to get the rolled eyes and snort, like they are the border guards protecting the green beans.

I especially hate people talking loudly on their cell phones going on and on while the rest of us wait for them to give their order to the barista. Of course, once they shut up they take another 20 years to order their coffee drink as the wrong choice would doom a third world country to death and destruction. I have news for you. That third world country is probably already doomed to death and destruction because so many of us buy lattes period instead of supporting efforts to eliminate world hunger and poverty, but I’ll deal with my guilt later because if I don’t have my latte someone local- as in the line in front of me talking on their cell phone - will have to die.

I used to not feel this way. I used to love waiting for the Fat Man, even as an adult. I loved thinking about the Christmas morning to come and all those that had gone before.

There was the Christmas that I nearly threw up in the car on the way to the grandparents’. My dad had never really made good on his threat to pull over when we were using the back seat as an enhanced interrogation technique device. Who knew that all it took was one retch aimed into a plastic bag for my dad to bend all the rules of physics. I believe he actually created a worm hole or stopped time to get the car on the shoulder as quickly as he did.

Another favorite was our first Christmas in Argentina. That year’s highs could even melt the Frosty of the imagination. We had this pathetic little tree in this breezeless apartment. We had just spent a day in airports and on planes. Still, we had Christmas dinner together, opened gifts and enjoyed ourselves. Santa even found us.

To be honest, I think the reason I am a bit more misanthropic this year has to do with the same reason Santa Claus is the Fat Man. Santa’s rotundity is a symbol of abundance. The holiday season, from Thanksgiving until at least the First of the New Year, is all about abundance.

This year I am not feeling so abundant. I lost the last two links to the holiday celebrations of my childhood. My grandmothers imprinted on my heart and in my memory the fundamentals of holiday joy. Now they are gone and it is up to us to create Christmas without them. While in some ways it is freeing to keep what we liked of the family traditions and throw out what we don’t, in other ways there is a finality to the thought that those Christmases are long past and will never be again.

Perhaps the true reason I become a misanthrope this time of year is that the Christmas of reality never quite measures up to the Christmas of nostalgia. There is a pain in the heart that refuses to be satisfied without paying homage to Christmas past.