Monsters of the Morning

Sweet, sweet 5:30 am. You might say this is when the true side of somebody comes out.. but I'm pretty sure that's just not true. What comes out isn't your true self but something more straight out of Where the Wild Things Are: a childish, grumpy, grumbly hairy creature. Such is the case for me and my family right now. Add in a touch of neurotic, just to spice it up: dad tells us all to get in the car about 50 times before anyone actually does, mom frantically makes us get out our licenses just to double check we have a photo ID, then dad gets in the car and unknowingly makes us nuts by asking us to do this yet again... the ride to the airport filled with constant "did you remember to pack this," even though it's too late to go back anyway so it doesn't really make a difference if you packed it or not. Everyone is significantly more snippy and on edge than usual and showing sides of themselves you don't often get to see. This reminds me of a very early flight back from a trip to Miami I took with my friends and brand new roommates a couple of years ago, when the roommate we'd really just met not long before a bit frighteningly declared, "Do not talk to me until I have my coffee," and boy, she really meant it.. and she didn't get a chance to have said coffee until we were all checked in. Later this became something we all joked about, but lack of sleep and caffeine don't always bring out the best in people. So why on earth am I writing this right now, you ask? I'm certainly groggy and grumpy just like the rest of em, but if there's one thing college has prepared me for, it's being up writing things while severely sleep deprived.
Colorado here we come...


- Posted from my iPhone

Ho Ho Ho, and a bottle of Grey Goose

Do you remember when you stopped believing?

I remember that I tried to hold on for as long as I possibly could, and that I still tried to believe long after I really didn’t quite anymore.  Even after I started picking up on hints from TV sitcom and cartoon parents who said things about not wanting the kids to find out Santa isn’t real (come on TV writers, why must you spoil it for your younger audiences?), even after my cousins and I started catching on that the guy in the Santa suit at our Christmas Eve parties bore a striking resemblance to our Uncle Scott, who always happened to be conveniently in the other room washing dishes when Santa visited (though one year they had our grandmom wear the suit instead just to throw us off!), even after Jacqueline & her sister from our swim team told my brother & me one summer about how they had spied on their parents wrapping presents and putting them under the tree the previous Christmas Eve (this was pretty hard evidence to refute) - I refused to stop believing.  I had such a faith in this magic that just had to exist in the world that I did not want to let go.

But some time around the age of 9 I guess I let the building evidence get to me.  The last straw was, funny enough, my presents on Christmas morning -- brand name presents.  I remember thinking, “Why would Santa bring me colored pencils that say The Gap on them instead of making them himself in his workshop?”  And then a few packages later I received a cassette tape with a price tag LEFT RIGHT ON IT from The Wall -- why would Santa outsource to The Wall?  Apparently “Santa” was a little overtired and got a little sloppy that year.  It never occurred to me that I had picked out many of my gifts every year in catalogues and commercials before I received them, and that they were obviously brands too - Mattel, Barbie, Fisher Price.... But this year, somehow even more than the price tag, those Gap colored pencils (of all things) did it to me, and my last stitches of faith didn’t immediately drop and smash like a rock but sort of feather-glided away from me in the air.  

Still, even after my true belief was gone, I kept it up anyway.  I didn’t admit my not believing to my parents until a couple years later.  And I continued to play my favorite December game, where I pretended to be a toy-making elf named Sterra (I am sharing some pretty private details here) with my friends, my brother, or by myself.  And even after I was a little too old to keep that up, I held onto my Christmas spirit.  Whenever that time of year rolled around, a big part of me turned into an excited little kid again.. even when the religious aspects of Christmas didn’t mean as much to me anymore... and I couldn’t wait to experience all of our adorably lame family traditions like singing Christmas carols while Aunt Jeanne plays piano (and almost no one can carry a tune).

So where did it go?  I mean my real, true Christmas spirit somehow just hasn’t been there the past few years like it was for so many years before.  And it has something to do with my comfortability with my family.. My spirit took a low blow that first year the Crane cousins decided that instead of being all excited about singing carols, it would be more fun to play drinking games - even though every other day of the year drinking games would have sounded great to me, something about adding this to our Christmas Eve party felt wrong somehow.. And then as I started having to hide my personal life from my extended family (on both sides), I started sort of dreading the family events I’d once been impatient waiting for.. instead I was anxious awaiting the inevitable “So, what boys are you dating?” and the “Good for you, you’re single!” talk that followed, as I sadly watched my cousins with their boyfriends & girlfriends and missed my own.  So I dropped a little more cheer and picked up a little more martini.  And grew up a little more, finally, after fighting it all these years.

And this year, everything will be different.