I want to crawl into a corner and hide until Christmas passes. I used to love Christmas. When I lived in Australia. It was hot, festive, full of beer, beach and barbecues in the backyard with raucous dirty-minded family members who filled the holiday season with laughter. My mother, too, thrived in the environment - spitting out penis jokes using sausages as props. Everyone's free-spirits came out to play. Quite an unusual way to celebrate to the unaccustomed, but a celebration I will always hold close to my heart as the 'essence' of Christmas - pure uninhibited fun.
But now, I live in Greece. It's freaking FREEZING. I am a million miles away from family. My parents and Greek family live on an island eight hours travel from me, and to top it off, Christmas isn't even really celebrated. New Years Day is the day people exchange gifts here. And on New Years Day it is tradition to spend the entire day with family until midnight - a family who don't understand our 'sense of humour', and the whole event (if we even get together, that is) is all too civilised for my liking. I want to hold a bottle of beer in front of my groin, tip it over, and pretend I'm a bloke relieving his bladder, with a comic, almost orgasmic, sigh to boot. Ha! If I did that in front of my old frail Nona ... well, I wouldn't even try to do that.
Anyhoo, what's my point? My point is, Christmas just feels like a chore to me right now. I could totally just spend the entire time at my computer pretending it is just like any other day. But I won't. I'll plod through it. Try and do some fun stuff with S, and with my parents if they manage to get to Athens in this weather. I will try to smile - to be happy - and hope that maybe one day, when I have kids, my dirty mind will rub off on them too, and we can start the Aussie tradition all over again.
What was your childhood Christmas like? Is there anything that you miss about it?
PS: Congrats to Chris Phillips who won C.S. Lakin's Someone To Blame! In the end, she chose the winner with a random number generator because she thought all of the answers were great! Chris, the author will email you directly. Enjoy!
I can't quite imagine how it must feel to go from hot, barbecue Christmases (which must be awesome) to the cold, but I can sympathize with how awful and depressing the cold can be! I don't think there's been a Christmas this cold in England in ages, so it's absolutely brutal!
ReplyDeleteI love snow on Christmas, without it I feel like it isn't the same. I live in Houston now, where the weather is warm and some years you can swim.
ReplyDeleteChristmas in Iowa. Entirely different, freezing cold, snow falling, making forts, oh.the.fun (when you're a kid).
So very interesting that your Christmases were hot and mine were cold (without snow it wouldn't be the same)! But yeah, I'd feel strange if I couldn't hold a drink in my hand, celebrate, and just be me. *hugs*
ReplyDeleteChristmas has always been my favorite holiday and still is. I hope I continue to feel that way after all my kids are gone - that, I'm not looking forward to.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a lot of fun at Christmas! Hopefully you're able to enjoy this year. =)
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I really miss now is seeing my family. We live on opposite ends of the country and don't get to see each other too often. =(
hi miss jessica! im just real sorry christmas for you isnt so much fun as when you were a kid. mostly growing up could suck. ha ha. for us our christmas was real happy til mom died. now for 2 years we didnt do decorations or a tree. then miss sharon said it could be nice for us to start our own traditions stuff so we did some light on the front windows that we didnt do before and im doing a little animal tree. maybe you could get your own traditions started so you could have some fun.
ReplyDelete...big hugs from lenny
Sorry about the cold. We are having a warm Christmas so far (although there is snow in the forecast), but I've really enjoyed the warmth. Don't tell Santa. =)
ReplyDeleteI think the thing that makes Christmas just right for me is hanging out with people I love. It makes all the difference.
Thats a bummer. I didn't realize Greece was so cold this time of year. Of course it's not summer, so... Anyway, hope you make it through.
ReplyDeleteTraditions are such a part of why we like holidays! Take those away - esp. the family - and any holiday would be hard! Hope you manage and tell a couple dirty jokes to yourself in the bathroom. :)
ReplyDeleteSounds much more fun (and cheaper) than our American version.
ReplyDeleteOh, sigh. I hear you. I've been in London for 7 years and I've only made it home for Christmas twice. It's hard being away from home, especially when the hubs didn't grow up with Christmas and doesn't really get it.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I miss most is the excitement, when you're young.
I want an Australian Christmas TOO! Man, that sounds fun! I am across country from family, which makes me sad, but I can't imagine ALL DAY with them--they'd make me NUTS! (and most of them might even LIKE a good raunchy joke... but alas, the majority of them have ended up tea-totalers and my mom's sad 'tuts' when I get another beer are annoying.
ReplyDeleteFor Christmas, my sister and I would go to a movie, then grab dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and top it off with another movie. I miss that.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the other Jewish families started doing the same, and then some of the Christian ones followed suit. Oh yeah, and then I married into a Catholic family. And though I enjoy my new old-fashioned traditions involving presents and sausage and such, part of me misses the old days spent with new movies.
ah, our family is far too straight-laced for such carryings on... But my first husband's family was NOT. I do miss hanging with that rowdy bunch. His step-dad in particular.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm sorry you're down around Christmas. Maybe you could start an "after-Christmas" tradition, just S & you... and maybe some friends. I don't know. ((hug)) :o) <3
What fun~ My Nannie Nonnie was against liquor. My Dad dressed as Santa would arrive with some in a small bottle, tucked in his sock. I'll never the year it slid out n' broke! My Dad was a joker, fun guy...I miss the way, he made everything fun. I am trying to fill his shoes. I bought an Eviltron to let my Dad's wacked sense of humor, live on.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/http-ecx-images-amazon-com-images-31Mph-1gsiL-Eviltron/dp/B002X8ROD8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292292943&sr=8-1 We will still carry on our traditions, but there will be laughs, spirits and cheer~
Happy Holidays to you! I hope you can find a way to have a bit of your traditions!
this is one from good ol oz. Yes Christmas isn't the same because the whole family has spread it wings, and with it taken away the laughter and shit stirring that we all do so well to each other. The amazing food that would be cooked and eaten, the conversations with each person trying to talk over and louder than the next, the drinks consumed, but at the end of the day/night the bestest of times, jokes, confessions, ambitions, likes and dislikes were shared. The crazy dance moves that were invented, but most of all the laughter and the love that is handed out, and received is the best Christmas present anyone can hope for. So Jess, while I miss your quirky laughter and jokes, and sweat it out also feeling rather isolated and alone, here I will sit in the Tropics of Far North Qld, Cairns, in the humid and hot summer conditions, thinking of all us 'crazies' and should we ever reunite for a Christmas combined, it will blow the roof off the establishment I'm sure. In between time, I will sit in my pool with a 'coldie' or two while hubby cooks the BBQ feast. Merry Christmas luv u
ReplyDeleteChildhood Christmases were always fraught with family disputes and it's such a dark and chilly time of year in the UK, so I have no special fondness for it.
ReplyDeleteI spent Christmas in Australia in 2008 and loved it! I've also been in Goa and in Nazareth over Christmas - interesting to see different ways of celebrating. I think Lenny's right - you need to start some traditions of your own!
Blah... With a fiercely anti-clerical republican ("republican" in the french sense, not the US sense) mother and a mildly agnostic Buddhist/Shinto father, Christmas was never a big deal in my family... The main thing I recall is blazing arguments during the Xmas season. I don't miss those. : p
ReplyDeleteThey're much better now it's just the two of us. : j
I didn't have any childhood Christmases- celebrating the holidays was against the religion I was raised in.
ReplyDeleteI got my first Christmas tree in the year 2000, at the age of twenty-nine.
Maybe that's why it's such a sentimental thing for me- and why I'm sorry that my daughter has now chosen, in her teens, to stop celebrating them herself starting this year.
This year, I'll miss the littlest things the most- like reading an Opus holiday story on Christmas Eve.
Maybe she'll remember the holidays of her childhood later, fondly. I hope so. Maybe in the future, we'll get to have another Christmas Eve together.
~bru