running from the blues

i'm trying my best not to get depressed about the holidays. since my mil died a few years ago the holidays have been pretty hard on the hubs. he really tries to hide it and to not get down, but he does and that's ok.

i think that holidays are not only incredibly built up to be these incredible times of familial warmth and happiness but they are so fucking commercialized it makes me sick.

lots of my friends have dysfunctional families so i know the holidays are not like the waltons for everyone. and i am not saying that every single day of my childhood sucked balls and each and every holiday sucked. that isn't true. maybe that's what i should do, think of happy holiday memories. (ok, i'll do this quickly cos i just talked to the hubs--out of town again--and he said to get some rest---my arm has been hurting like a bitch today and i think i'm getting a cold)

ok, ahem....good holiday--let's be specific, christmas--memories.

i don't really know if this is a memory or something i recall because of a picture i've seen, but, the first time we were in germany (i started kindergarten there and my bro was born there) there is this picture of my dad and i building a snowman. my mom took it out of our third floor window. i remember the coat he was wearing, brown suede with lambs' wool trim. we had a lot of snow in germany; i love snow.

i remember one year--i think i was in middle school--we went home to wv for christmas. we all (it was just me, my bro, dad and mom) at that point, got matching red and white toboggans for some reason. anyway oddly enough that year i saved up my money to buy everyone a present. i'm talking aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc. granted the presents we like a plastic tea pitcher for my aunt/uncle, coffee mugs (you know the ones on the hanging tree thing?) for the grandparents, etc. i was pretty proud of myself for that : )

there aren't a lot of specific holiday memories. i mean not like i can say the year i was in fifth grade christmas was like this. i remember we weren't always home for christmas. many years it was just us kids and our parents. that was the norm. maybe that's another reason holidays are built up in my head. we were rarely around our grandparents/extended family so we built it up in our minds to be something much better than what we had. it was a treat to be home for christmas.

getting too deep in here.