11 December 2005

missing christmas

you know one of the things i hate about college: you miss christmas. you spend the three or so weeks between thanksgiving and christmas break rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off, going to rehearsals, performances, writing papers, freezing in the snow, dreading finals, studying for finals, beating your head against the wall because of finals, taking finals, and contemplating the sadistic tendencies your professors seem to possess as manifested in the finals. then you finally get home, crash, wake up 36 hours later, blink a few times and realize it's christmas eve, then BOOM! the whole thing is over and you're in the car driving home from your grandmother's house wondering why your life is going by so fast.

it's not that you don't know it's the christmas season. the college has thrown up a few wreaths, silent night is the closing hymn at church, and the pop-up ads on the internet have red and green packages and christmas ornaments on them. somewhere in the recesses of your mind, behind the cafeteria lines, finals schedule, and economic development of southeast asian states, you are vaugely aware of the yuletide season. but you don't have time to enjoy it, or even dwell on it for more than about 4.2 seconds.

it makes me miss being a kid and looking forward to christmas for weeks ahead of time. decorating the tree, buying presents, making cookies, watching various assorted holiday movies on tv (because, as we all know, christmas isn't christmas until you've seen the griswolds blow up the christmas tree). this was driven home to me a few days ago when my mom left a message on our answering machine (causing yet another roommate to cackle in amusement at my mom's accent - seriously, people, you need to spend some time in the blue ridge mountains if you think she's bad). she wanted to know if i wanted to put my ornaments on the tree, or if they could go ahead and finish it. and we're not one of those tree-goes-up-the-day-after-thanksgiving-and-the-presents-are-under-it-by-sunday families. no, we're more of the, "oh yeah...maybe we should get a tree" type. so her question definitely meant that christmas was basically going to be over by the time i got home, and this made me sad. so...at least one benefit of graduation and being forced to become an adult will be that, once again, i will get to experience christmas.

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