Ennui
I've having one of those days/weeks where I feel off somehow. I can't really put my finger on it but it feels like I'm just floating through day-to-day, not really engaging in what I'm doing, just kind of drifting. It's even affected my knitting: for the last week I've been working non-stop on the Kersti log cabin, which is absolutely brain-dead knitting. I've made some serious progress, too, I'm now over half done with it and it's bigger than a baby blanket . . . but watching myself knit away at it with no feeling of excitement at the project itself is just strange. And perfect proof of this "feeling."
I'm partly blaming it on the Christmas season. Most of you will probably be insulted by this, but I kinda hate Christmas. I hate the mass hysteria that drives people to go into debt to buy (often useless) presents for everyone they know. I absolutely hate Christmas music and the way it gets stuck in your head. I don't like decorations and I really don't like when people light their houses up so bright it looks like their paint's going to melt off (one big plus of living in the city is I don't have to see those houses anymore!). I don't even like Christmas trees, unless they're interesting, quirky, non-perfect ones. In my family my sister is the Christmas freak and always insisted on decorating the tree herself, which led to many picture-perfect coordinated trees.
But at the same time I kind of wish I did like all this stuff and could get into it and be excited by it, like everyone else seems to be. I used to know a family that made a huge deal out of ornaments, they had special ones handed down through the family and added new ones every year to celebrate whatever happened that year. When I helped decorate for Christmas once (yes I did that, I'm not actually Scrooge), they carefully took their ornaments out and told the story of each one as they put it on the tree, which turned out to be a perfect quirky tree with grossly mis-matched ornaments (and an awful tree skirt, but that's neither here nor there).
The last couple of days I've been thinking of maybe getting a small tree and finding a few unusual ornaments to decorate it with. And the fact that I keep thinking about it is just adding a whole new level of strangeness to my already confused mind . . .
Posts might be scarce(r) 'till I sort this out. Or get over myself.
3 Responses
Gina
I am with you on this. The family dramas, the over-hype, the bullshit. I can’t stand it either. The idea of quietly opening a few presents near a fire and a small tree is perfect. I think working retail at Christmas can suck the life out of you. Feel better. Go fondle some Koigu Cashmere.
Ruth
I like Christmas best when I don’t have to have it in my face in stores and malls, or listen to it in elevators. I grew up with one of those quirky trees where decorating was a happy process of storytelling and remembering – I never “got” the concept of the colour coordinated decorater tree.
I hope you feel better soon, this is a hard season for many.
gleek
December 07, 2006
i don’t like all the consumerism of christmas but it always gives me warm fuzzies because it’s a time when my family can get together. i look forward to the holiday if only for that reason alone.