Kimberly Emerson

It’s the most wonderful time of the year to give yourself a heart attack.

What makes us do this? Is it our competitive instincts to outdo the neighbors? Our desire to recreate childhood memories? Our quest to give the kids in our lives the Christmases we wish we’d had? In 21st century America, Christmas is more than a holiday. It’s an industry. It’s more of a utopian vision than anything in Walden. A strange never-never-land, where we spend December in a late-1800s English village, surrounded by symbols from northern European pagan celebrations, proclaiming in song our love for gifts, snow, and a Middle-Eastern kid who grew up to espouse non-materialism. Oh, and whose birthday we don’t actually know, except that it almost definitely wasn’t in winter, if that bit about shepherds outside with their flocks is to be believed.

Oops, almost forgot the bit about the portly guy in the red suit who, defying all logic, picked sliding down the chimney as his favorite form of breaking and entering.

Trying to get out of the cycle is tricky. I love Christmas. I try to keep in mind the wishes of the person who actually inspired the season. Somehow, though, my bank account still ends up taking a huge hit and I get bummed out about all the fabulous Christmasy things I didn’t get around to, kicking myself for not living up to the postcard.

In order to get a realistic standard of the holiday, though, I’m going to have to give up a lot of my traditional holiday favorites.

“Let It Snow” has to go. It sets up false expectations for someone who lives in Los Angeles. It doesn’t snow here. Not ever. If climate change keeps going and we start getting snow, we’ll probably be a little tickled and whole lot terrified. We live in our cars. We have no snow plows here. This has the potential for a disaster that would make Godzilla look like Barney experimenting with the idea of not loving everybody. Even in areas where they get snow, I wonder about the popularity of this number. In Portland, where the snow will disappear of its own accord in two days most of the time, it’s probably fine. (We won’t talk about the year it stuck around for two weeks and my brother’s family had to go without trash service. Scars and smells run deep.) In Chicago, where cars on the street will disappear until spring thaw, this song might be a cruel joke. You brought popcorn. Great. How about firewood and three months’ supply of canned food?

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” gets the axe next. The snappy patter makes it one of my favorite holiday tunes, but it’s the psychological equivalent of playing in traffic. Yes, when we have a great time without someone, we hate to see them go. It’s tempting to think that if you just ask enough times, the person will change his mind. In reality, if you ask twice and the person still says no, you need to play a fun game called Shut Your Mouth. Respect for your beloved dictates listening to what he or she says, and besides, desperation doesn’t sell well. A response of “Oh, FINE, I’ll stay if it’ll shut you up” is not a win for anyone. (For an interesting counterpoint on this dynamic, try listening to Stephen Sondheim’s “Barcelona” from Company. Same basic conversation with a very different ending. Moral of the story: it is possible to be too persuasive.) Also, much as I love the bouncy tune, it’s best not to listen to the lyrics too closely. The song was written by Frank Loesser in 1944, and lines like, “Say, what’s in this drink?” haven’t aged well. Mr. Loesser and his wife used to perform the duet in order to tell their guests it was time to hit the road. A song that says “Don’t leave” but means “Don’t let the doorhandle hit you in the butt on the way out”? Think about that. Really soak it in. Seducing you, or messing with your head?

The most pressing piece of holiday charm that I have to let go is It’s a Wonderful Life. (Note again, I like all these things. Imagine what I could do to stuff I genuinely hated.) Here, we have flashes into what would have happened had George Bailey never been born. The results for the males in George’s life seem logical. Harry dies because George wasn’t there to pull him out of the lake. Mr. Gower goes to prison because George wasn’t on hand to catch the mistake he made on a child’s prescription. Move on to the women, however, and the conclusions get murky. Mrs. Bailey, I can understand. She lost her only child, her husband died, and her brother’s an alcoholic. (I’d question the idea that Uncle Billy ended up in the gutter, but let’s face it, we don’t know that he’ll stay on the sidewalk in any trajectory. The man has issues.) Move on to Violet, however, and we find that somehow George saved her from a life of prostitution. Did I miss her moment of deliverance? I remember that he gave her some money once, but didn’t she give it back to him? And would it have been a defining moment in any case? “I don’t know what to do. I’m going to sell my body to the next person I can find – or wait, I’ll borrow money from George! He walks around with major coin. I can live off that boon for the rest of my days. Phew! No prostitution for me!” And then we move on to Mary. This is the big moment. What will grind George’s heart into dust? His brother’s death? His mother’s heartbreak? His uncle’s liquor-laden self-destruction? No. None of that is anywhere near as bad as the idea that his wife ended up single, childless and working in a library, wearing dowdy clothes and GLASSES. The horror – the way singlehood has eaten through her soul, taking away all the fashion sense she ever had and eventually crippling her vision. I’m single and I spend my days staring at a computer, which is not great for the eyes. At 45, much older than Mary is in that scene, I have worked my way up to .25 computer glasses. (Dad thinks the eye doctor is pulling a fast one and gave me clear glass. He may be right.) I realize that in the 1940s, when the movie was made, popular belief maintained that reading ruined your eyes. Apparently no one making this movie stopped to think that librarians don’t spend their working hours reading Jane Eyre. When my mom was librarian of my elementary school, she had to spend a lot of time putting books back on shelves after grubby little hands had misplaced them. That doesn’t require a lot of reading, but you sure make up for it bending and stretching to the awkward places books insist on living. Only one in six of those shelves is at a convenient height, no matter what height you are. As for the clothing, I’m not aware that my dress sense has changed noticeably as a result of my singleness. Some of my friends are fashion plates and some are not, but I find marital status has little to do with it. Besides, all of this is moot. Without George in the picture, Mary probably would’ve gotten together with Sam Wainwright and spent the rest of her life, if not ecstatically happy, at least dressed to the nines. I can see where “INTERIOR: Mary stares out the window of her penthouse, her face wreathed in mild ennui” makes for less dramatic tension. Still. If she decided Sam just didn’t do it for her and headed off to the library, she’d probably be reasonably happy, thinking, “Hey, it could be worse. At least I’m not spending my nights in bed with a guy who makes donkey noises.” Fear not, though. This whole waking nightmare will be avoided by a little Christmas spirit. Violet will be pure(ish), Mary will be spared the nightmare of self-sufficiency and spectacles, and Uncle Billy will be reasonably sober. Sing, George. Sing.

With things like these to fuel our holiday expectations, what chance do we have? To this day, I’m disappointed when counting my blessings does not actually result in great baskets of money coming to my door. Then, I remind myself that it’s my own fault. I didn’t string popcorn and hang it on a tree, I didn’t practice the same Christmas carol until good people lost their sanity, and I didn’t get married. Wait, I think my eyesight is failing.

I’d say this is something we women take the prize for, dreaming our sugar-plum dreams (don’t even get me started on the Nutcracker, we’ll be here all week) and smiting ourselves for failing to live up to them. I would, but one of my male friends apologized recently for putting up a Christmas card on Facebook, instead of mailing out individual ones. Clearly, Christmas perfectionism is an equal-opportunity acid trip.

This year, there is no snow in my yard. (Shocker.) The Christmas decorations I had planned to put out are still in the boxes. I’ve spent the last four days on the couch with a nasty cold, and I fly out to see my family tomorrow, so not much will change about that. But you know what? Just as it did in Whoville, Christmas will come anyway. I will see my family, I will hug my nephews, I will distribute presents. It will be enough. And my favorite moment will still be the end of the night, when the last dish is washed and we sit down to watch something sappy like White Christmas, and I wonder if I have room for some of that leftover pie. (Yes. The answer will be yes. My mom makes awesome pie.)

Hopefully this year, instead of kicking myself for not living up to the songs and the movie and the standard in my head, I will enjoy the pie and realize that I already have my own wonderful life.

Wishing everyone your own piece of holiday coziness, whatever else happens.

Kimberly finds it telling that The Grinch Who Stole Christmas looks realistic in comparison to other holiday fare.

Tags: carols, Christmas, fulfillment, holidays, materialism, movies, songs