It snuck up on me again.

I’m somewhat hard-pressed to say what “it” is that snuck up on me again this year. Guilt?  Exasperation?  An elusive and loosely defined sentimentality based more on habit and cultural influence more than anything else? Once again, like so many others, I have found myself frustrated and resentful at the commercial inundation to Buy!  Buy!  Buy!  for the “Holiday Season”.

Now, before I go sounding like a Grinch or a Scrooge, let me point out that I absolutely am in favor of celebrating  – even if for celebration’s sake alone – especially this time of year, when it’s cold and claustrophobic, and our part of the world is settling down for something of a hibernation. In fact, this instinct to hibernate is exactly why we should gather together, celebrating life and family and togetherness, thinking about the best of the year gone past and making plans for the one to come.  We need one another, whether we live alone and have only our neighbors to nod to in the morning as we trudge through the snow to catch the bus for work, or if we’re busily heaving piles of the white stuff from the minivan as we’re loading four wriggling, squealing children in for a trip to the tobogganing hill or the outdoor skating rink.

I’ve been re-inventing how I “do” the “Holiday Season” since my separation and divorce – but truth be told, there was never any real structure to how we did Christmas even when we were a family of four.  At the time, we counted on the church that we attended and the cues from our group of friends to show us how to behave and maybe even to feel at this time of year.  Once I left the church, I felt simultaneously relieved and frightened.  Where was the meaning going to come from?  Who was I going to get all warm and fuzzy with?

Now that my family has been reworked – with my children living with me full-time now, as well as with my fiance, in this new city for my second Christmas – I have been reworking my view of this time of year as well.   This may make some uncomfortable, but I have to be honest: I simply don’t know what I think or how I feel about Christmas, or the Holiday Season.  In fact, I don’t know what I ever really thought of it. Actually, I’ve even wanted to completely dispense with it, to be honest.  Why should I spend money that I simply don’t have right now in order to live up to the status quo?  Really!  Is that so cynical?  Some would say so. But I don’t want to be afraid to ask that uncomfortable question.

But what about the children? some would argue.  Yes, what about them?  We did indeed purchase some gifts for them so as not to totally seem neglectful – and truth be told, the kids’ expectations have been pretty low regarding Christmases past – but I want them to shake off the indoctrination of Consumer Culture and take the time to think about what it is that we are actually doing, and what it is exactly that we’re celebrating.  I suppose that while I’m reworking all of that in my own mind, it’s tough to make it clear for those around me – if they are looking to me to define that, that is.

At any rate, I will be spending today making a mountain of food, decorating the house with some color and candlelight, wrap the few gifts that I have, and play the Christmas CD that Melissa sent to me a few years ago.  We’ll share dinner and drinks and munchies and some potentially serious xbox time with my fiance and kids and my sister and her fiancee.  and somewhere inside of all that, I’ll reflect on what the days between Winter Solstice and New Year’s Day mean to me.

That doesn’t seem bad at all.  A perfectly reasonable approach to this demanding time of year.