I’m the rare person who doesn’t particularly like Christmas. I think I started disliking the holiday when I was married to my first husband. He had children from a previous relationship and loved Christmas. But he didn’t love doing the work related to Christmas – the decorating, the shopping, the wrapping of presents. And then the very worst part – the un-decorating, the packing away of decorations, the un-Christmasing. Most of this fell to me and I started to dislike Christmas and become resentful. (Yes, I realize this hints at larger issues in my relationship but he is my ex-husband and hindsight is 20/20 so I’m aware of this and don’t need to dwell on this or hash through all that again. I already did it in therapy.) He and I separated in September, just weeks after returning from a vacation in Paris (which is a whole other story that will not be told right now). That year, alone in our big house, I didn’t have the energy – physical or emotional – to put up a tree. The next summer I moved to the DC area and into a house with a small living room that didn’t have space for a tree. Thus began the tradition I still continue today with not putting up a tree.

This year my husband and I moved into our new house. It boasts 20′ ceilings in the living room, a fireplace, and wooden banisters throughout. Some friends were over for dinner recently and she commented, “Your house will look great at Christmas!” I then broke her heart by telling her I don’t decorate for Christmas…at all… No tree, no lights, no garland, no stockings hung by the chimney with care. Nothing.

I told another friend of my dislike of the holiday and he looked at me as if I’d just punched a kitten. I tried to explain, “It’s just stressful. And work. And overrated. And commercialized. And the goddamn Starbucks was playing Christmas music at 5am and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!” I may have frightened him a bit…

By now my dislike of Christmas has grown to epic proportions. My sister teases me about it, I jokingly say “Ba humbug!” to people, and even my husband is confused by my dislike of the holiday. But it’s just not my thing. And when I walked into the office earlier this week I stumbled upon a display that promptly made me take pictures.

I do not approve of this decidedly sad, deflated penguin…

I am not a goddamn candy cane maker…

I approve of this.

But then while sitting with some of my MFA writing friends recently, working on this month’s critiques, I grabbed my notebook and pen and started writing…a Christmas poem…

And after writing it I had to send it to a friend:

While I still don’t love Christmas maybe my friend is right, maybe this cold, shriveled Grinch heart is growing.