It’s officially ThankaHalloRemebristmus!
It’s jolly, it’s spooky, it’s twinkly! And walking through a store is like a really a festive, red-green-orange-and-black, horror-themed, yuletide, cinnamony, LSD-inspired extravaganza.
If I am being honest with you (which I usually am): I love it. THIS is the most wonderful time of the year - the weeks and months BEFORE the magic, with still so much to look forward to. We’re indulging in our inner horror-freaks while evading the infamous naughty list; donning our bloodiest makeup while penning heartfelt letters to jolly old Saint Nick.
There’s a slight chill in the air and an excuse to get cozy in the most marvelous stretch of pumpkin-spice addiction and perpetual confusion about which holiday we’re supposed to be decorating for.
And I am here for it.
I’m seeking out the chocolate Advent calendars and starting the Amazon shopping cart while gingerly placing corn husks outside my door all askew, like, “oh this ol’ thing? This was just lying here.” The witches are in the windows, Santa Claus is officially watching, and decorative gourds are once again proving that even useless, inedible, shellacked, squash-with-warts deserve to adorn every spare surface in your house. Yes, Marie Kondo, I’ve held each one of these ugly buggers, and they all bring me joy.
I need to be pumpkin-carving with Jack Skelington while sipping "all the things with cloves and nutmeg" in Santa's Sleigh with Bing Crosby.
I don't like to brag but… I have quite a few shelves and - this year only - all of the Elves are welcome on them.
This year, I’m gonna trick AND treat. Boom.
'That is so 2020' will likely be the expression used, henceforth, to describe anything from herpes to losing your car keys to waking up in a sewer with someone else’s gum in your hair. Which is why I am irrationally celebrating the guts out of the next four months. Because I am determined to be happy.
Elvis’ Christmas album is officially the soundtrack to my work commute. So even on the gloomiest of smelly-masked Mondays, I get eight to 10 minutes of childhood nostalgia; reminiscing about those tinsel-drenched, bedtime-bedamned, Purity Syrup-fuelled evenings of playing in the snow after dark and falling asleep with the Sears Wishbook. I can almost smell the gumdrop cake and wanton indoor smoking. And it’s glorious.
“That is so 2020” will likely be the expression used, henceforth, to describe anything from herpes to losing your car keys to waking up in a sewer with someone else’s gum in your hair. Which is why I am irrationally celebrating the guts out of the next four months. Because I am determined to be happy.
Happiness from 2020 is the proverbial blood from a stone. So I will harness every ounce of energy I have (conveniently reserved in these COVID fat-stores I’ve acquired), and I will squeeze that stone like it’s the panic thingy in the MRI machine that time I accidentally opened my eyes. And, oh yes, THERE WILL BE BLOOD! I mean happiness. I got lost in my metaphor there...
I am seeking joy and holding it tightly and never letting go. Like a baby snuggling a cat - whole-heartedly, with all my might (albeit without much consideration for the cat's bones and airway and whatnot).
I just Googled the Chinese Calendar for 2020 and, since Google is never wrong, I can confirm that 2020 is officially The Year of the Rat. I have never felt so sorry for rats (except the time my rat, Bean, who I was given for a psychology lab in undergrad, died suddenly and unexpectedly; my professor said in his 15 years of teaching the course that had never happened. R.I.P. Bean. Your mysterious and tragic demise was SO 2020).
Despite the sweaty and sleep-depriving anxiety that threatens to accompany the high-pressure parade of festivities ahead, this is a season of good intentions at its core. Unabashedly commercialized, debt-foreshadowing intentions, sure…but good intentions all the same.
‘Tis the season for joy and coziness. And in this, the third-quarter of the Year of the Rat, I’m craving a bit of both. So bring on the madness!
Heather Huybregts is a mother, physiotherapist, blogger, YouTuber and puffin whisperer from Corner Brook, N.L. Her column appears biweekly.
