How to Survive the Holidays as a Grinch
Avoid the Christmas section at Walmart at all costs. Better yet, avoid all holiday shopping hot spots. If you need something from the pet section and a can of spray paint, walk the long way around the entire store. It also has an added benefit of burning off the calories of the Christmas treats you’ve been stress eating.
Find the things that you do like. Scented pine cones are the only Christmas decoration that I like. I still don’t understand how pine cones became a decoration to begin with (or why you would want to bring dead trees/plants into a perfectly clean house, but I digress), but when my wife inevitably brings home a bag or two of those pine cones every year, I get a 5 second moment of glee when I can pull the bag to my face and get a big whiff of cinnamon.
Don’t fake it. It is ok to not love Christmas time. Not only do the holidays bring on huge amounts of stress, but they can also bring with them painful memories or feelings of grief or loss. Don’t add the stress and energy drain by putting on a happy face for everyone else. I promise you are not the only person struggling this time of year, and by being honest about your own struggles you might empower someone else to confront their own obstacles.
Embrace your inner Grinch. I have a secret desire to dress up as the Grinch every year we do Breakfast with Santa. I could go around squashing Christmas cheer just by doing Grinchy things and it would actually be fun for me and the kids. Throw one strand of lights on the roof with a cutout of a Grinch stealing them, PERFECT. Play wiffle ball with Christmas ornaments, wrap horrible gifts poorly, find the perfect Grinch meme to respond to all Christmas texts and emails. Find your own way to have fun.
Remember the reason for the season. I hate that phrase and that it’s usage has become cliche, but I’m going to use it anyway in the grinchiest way possible. Jesus wasn’t really born on Christmas Day. We celebrate Christmas because early Christians appropriated pagan celebrations of the winter solstice like Saturnalia and made it about Jesus. Now we celebrate Christmas with trees, garlands, and other greeneries, we spend exorbitant amounts of money on gifts that we don’t really need, and try to squeeze in a candlelit service if it works with our schedule. As weird as it sounds, maybe it’s time we re-appropriate Christmas. Just like early Christians took a pagan holiday and made it about Jesus, maybe it’s time we work on the redemptive aspects of our secularized Christmas and make it truly about Jesus again.