I'm single this Christmas, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Going back to the year 2000, my family began going to a movie on Christmas day. It was our little secret, the theatre was never really busy.
More recently, it's a goddamn nightmare--every theatre is utterly packed, and if you don't arrive quite early, you're SOL. Regardless, it's a tradition I've come to enjoy: sometime there's as many as ten of us present, sometimes as few as two. This year it's looking more like two people. It's really the only thing I'm looking forward to this year.
There's too much pressure when it comes to gifts. I actually enjoy finding gifts for people a great deal more than receiving them. I don't need anything. I don't want anybody to go out on the 23rd of December and scramble to find me a gift just because that's what you do. That's not what Christmas is about for me anymore. This year, however, my brother and his wife wanted to implement these ridiculous gift giving rules to mix things up: second hand, homemade, or a gift under $20. They're really handcuffing me and I'm thinking I'll bow out of gifts this year.
However, I'll do gifts with my mom, as I know she'll have a truckload of 'stuff' she's found throughout the year. We try to go to an event. She's a widow, I think she misses doing couple-things, so I try and mimic that: we go to a play or concert. This year I'm thinking tickets to a Billy Elliot musical coming to town . . .
And I like making fruit cake. And chocolates. And this is the only time of year I do it.
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