12 Days of Christmas

I really wish I liked Christmas.

Like the Barenaked Ladies sing about salmon on their awesome children's album, I've tried it. I want to like it. But it's simply a taste thing.

I've been thinking a lot the past couple of weeks about how tough Christmas is for me and trying to pinpoint the exact moment in my life when all the childish joy I used to feel at the holidays just went flying out the window. Here's the thing: I can't just pinpoint one single moment. Christmas in the Cranky house has frequently been marked by tumoil and strife and battles over who's bringing the ham.

So I am doing something a little different with the blog over the next few weeks. It's going to be part therapy, part writing workshop. See, I've been feeling a little bored with myself lately. I haven't had too many blog-worthy events here lately. But I've been thinking more and more that I want to start writing something real. I've always said I wanted to write a book based on my life, my childhood in particular. I haven't been completely honest about my adolescence here; I've covered up a lot of the warts to protect the innocent and the guilty. But maybe it's time to get going on that book I've always wanted to write, which I've always envisioned could help kids like I was. Tell them they're not alone, and that plenty of people out there deal with dysfunction and come out mostly okay.

Mostly okay, just maybe not big fans of family-oriented holidays.

So I am going to write about some different Christmases I had as a kid (and some as an adult.) I am going to experiment a bit with point of view and such, and because I am writing about things that happened so many years ago, there will be some fictionalization as I fill in gaps in my memory. (Just thought I'd throw that out up front so I don't get accused of James Frey-like shenanigans.)

You can stick around, or not. No hard feelings. You may not at all be interested in my own navel-gazing. I just feel the need to shake things up a little and maybe get a feel for where I may want to go with an honest-to-goodness writing effort someday.  

And maybe work through my ghosts of Christmases past.