Some narrowing thoughts

I knew it would happen...I was warned, and I ignored it. Because I was happy...

I have completely gotten sick of Christmas music. Yes. I have. Hello, my name is Dara, and I am a Scrooge.
I am ready to start the New Year, and I still have over a month to go. That is what happens when you start listening to Christmas music in July. And this happens every year.

I have the inclination to pull down my Christmas tree and get a tiny one like Mom and Dad have, and put it up on my piano and then rearrange my living room to a more Zen-like arrangement. I don't know why I feel like Christmas has become a dead-weight around my neck. Perhaps it's the feeling that I HAVE to get presents for my family...or that I HAVE to make cookies and eat them all...or that I HAVE to be happy because it is, after all, Christmas, and I should be happy, DANG IT! So, I can't be pensive and moody, and then write some really deep poetry if I feel like it because this is a "jolly time, with holly...and other things ending in...olly." I don't know why I feel stunted. Perhaps it's because the New Year is when you restart your diets, and make your goals, and resolve to be better. It seems to me that you should do that in December and then check up on yourself in January to see how you are doing.

Perhaps I am too OCD. I have this drive to start things at the beginning of the year, when it is new and fresh, not at the end of an old, worn out year that I just want to chuck out the window. In theory, I could just start my New Year in December, but that would get a little discouraging because I would be the only one doing it. It would be the Dara New Year, which would sort of throw people off like the Chinese New Year does to me. "What??? Don't we all start the new year at the same time?"


I feel like Charlie Brown. "Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about??"


I think I have forgotten what it is all about. Sure, I intellectually know what it is about, but I have been bogged down with the world's modern interpretation of what the Christmas celebration should be. Perhaps I feel more like the little tree Charlie Brown got, with my needles falling off, and I can't handle the weight of one more thing before I fall over.
It is like I am Bob Cratchet and Ebenezer Scrooge. Essentially good, but I have enslaved myself to something I don't like, and yet I keep at it year after year, trying to do the right thing, but being miserly and grouchy at the same time. Quite a dichotomy, wouldn't you say?
Therefore, I gladly take on the title of Scrooge. So, don't be surprised if I don't make cookies this year...Or don't send you snowman poop. Bah....humbug.
There is, I know, another way of celebrating Christ's birth. And I mean to figure it out.