Jingle Bells

I went out the other afternoon, alone, to shop for gifts for Christmas. I got caught up in the rush, the anxiety, and the stress of the it's-not-enough-stuff-or-time-to-buy-it syndrome. In my mind's eye, I see how I want to celebrate the holidays. It's quieter than what it's been, it's resplendent with love and sharing and food and lacks the trappings of a so-called 'good Christmas' -- fewer gifts under the tree, more hot cocoa and shots of Bailey's (for the big 'kids'), fewer familial obligations and more juniper short bread cookies, fewer hurt feelings and more joy. When I see the absolute insanity that this time of year brings to America, I wonder what our forebears might think about it. How we've turned a ritual of introspection into the biggest tool for creating unsecured debt in the history of ever. While I was shopping the other day, my arms loaded with stuff that I knew in my heart would go unappreciated, and thus were unnecessary, the woman standing in front of me, her arms also loaded with crap, looked down at her phone and proclaimed, "Shit! I have to pick my kid up from school!" She sprinted out of the line, dumped her armful of useless junk into a sock display bin, and headed out of the door. It was then that my heart won. I slowly and methodically replaced everything I had picked up for purchase back where it had come from and left the store. All the way home, as I drove past tree lots and weaved through shopping traffic, I thought what an absolute waste of time and resources this holiday economy has wrought. I could have been at home, working in my studio, putting a half-made batch of Kyphi together, or sewing wee bags for wee soaps and incense pastilles, not flipping out over a pair of sparkly leggings my granddaughter may or may not like.