Not opening till Christmas.
The tree is in its stand, not yet fully decorated, but the perfect shape and size. (This is more amazing than it may seem to a non-downtown New Yorker. Although Battery Park City is a residential neighborhood, the tree guys only swoop down for a few hours on a couple of pre-xmas days–you have to be alert.)
Lights are up.
My messy closet is even messier than usual, a small stash of bags and boxes thrust to its side.
Cookies are planned. Sugar has been purchased. (Organic!)
The office party has been enjoyed, and with a commendably modest level of tipsiness. (I have only rarely forgotten the teachings of my very first office holiday event, held at the Copacabana on the same wintry day that Bar Exam results were announced. One of my fellow first year associates was so pleased by passing that he ended up pissing against one of the club’s deep red walls, thus calling a close to his legal career on the same day that it officially began.)
We are, in other words, deep into December.
What makes it so hard to feel cheery?
Of course, there’s always the issue of personal chemistry.
And age. (On the one hand, I can’t remember many of the details of last year’s Christmas. On the other, the stuffing of annual tip envelopes for the huge building staff feels like yesterday.)
Not doing the caroling and Christmas concerts and other events that go with raising younger children–mine are grown–is part of the problem.
Just as I am about to slip into a seasonal morass of self-castigation and pity–hey! I suddenly shake off societal expectations: what’s so terrible about not feeling Christmasy for weeks in advance?
Why can’t I wait until about 5:00 pm on December 24th, when I hope to squeeze into the pew of the really lovely church we always go to (at least on religious holidays) as organ chords of Bethlehem and babes reverberate in my bones. I have a pretty strong feeling that when I begin singing along then, I will, in fact, be singing along.
What’s so terrible about that?
Nothing.
ManicDDaily 
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