the holiday season

Halloween has come and gone and, instead of dressing as my favorite slain Tejano sensation, Selena Quintanilla, as I have been meaning to for a good many years, I went to Suburbia, USA to witness the pissing contest known as trick or treating with the fam. Thanksgiving was spent just as I had intended, in my finest sweats, watching bad television and throwing calorie caution to the wind while consuming an entire pizza on my couch. Alone. I cannot express how thankful I was for a day to eat without guilt in a fantasy world of reruns and infomercials. With Christmas upon us, the weather is changing, as is the spirit. With no real regard or respect for the other arbitrary annual holidays, I have been and will forever be a big fan of Christmas.

This could be perhaps because Christmas has never resulted in my being some sort of Jane Fonda protege, dressing as a last minute aerobic instructor with divorcing parents doing their best to recreate the Drew Barrymore classic, "Irreconcilable Difference: The Halloween Edition." Nor has this magical celebration ever been a day of missed connections and limited leg room encountered when traveling on the busiest day of the year, meaning jacked up flight costs and overbooked voyages a plenty.

Instead, for me, Christmas has resulted in crooked trees, unidentifiable Jell-O molds, and hours of wrapping presents I could never really afford to purchase in the first place. Disastrously beautiful. Christmas is the smell of pine, the warmth of a fire, and the sweetness of your mother's homemade fudge. Christmas is chaotic and stressful and expensive and ... home.

December 2010