If Wishes Were Chalets...

There are a lot of things to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Day was 70 degrees, beautiful and sunny, so I took Tess for her annual Thanksgiving romp. California Guy and Surina came too. And as I watched my dog frolic in the river, and sniff around for all her news, I thought about how grateful I am to have her.

I also realized there won't be many more Thanksgivings with her. She'll be eleven in March.

And the Holiday Spirit for me quickly took a dark turn.

There might be a lot of things to be thankful for, but I have fallen headfirst into the Holiday Blahs.

I call them the Holiday Blahs as opposed to the Blues because I just feel blah about everything.

Well, I guess I feel blue, too.

I just can't seem to get it together.

I have a ton of Christmas decorations I should put up, and part of me wants to. The other part of me just wants to run screaming from my life to go hide in a chalet in the Swiss Alps like in that movie, The Beautiful Beast, sans handsome mysterious American doctor, because I just can't deal with him right now. The movie was actually kind of cute, but I think I enjoyed it because it took place in Switzerland. The main characters were British and American, and the only Swiss person in the whole thing was badly caricatured and sounded Swedish. But it was still cute.

The appeal of that movie was the setting. The chalet was hidden in the woods of the Swiss Alps, surrounded by snow and bird houses, and the closest neighbor was thirty miles away. Plus, it just kept snowing, so without a snowmobile there was no getting out of there.

I think two weeks stuck in a cabin in the Swiss Alps with my dog would be great. I could skip the Holidays, I could hike in the snow with my dog everyday (and hopefully not get lost in the Swiss Alps), I could write, and maybe then I'd start feeling like myself again.

Perhaps the problem with the Holidays is the expectations. Everywhere you look, you are reminded to count your blessings, keep Christmas in your heart year around, don't be like Scrooge, be grateful, God bless us everyone. And if you don't, you're an ungrateful Grinch. Those of us that can't seem to get to that cheerful happy place end up feeling really bad about ourselves because we know we have a lot to be thankful for, we know we should love thy neighbor, we know we should bake that pumpkin loaf (or ten) and share it with everyone.

Not only do I feel blah around the holidays, I feel blah for feeling blah.

I want to curl up with my dog in that Swiss chalet and just forget about the world for the next three weeks, but there are gifts to buy, carols to sing, cookies to bake.

And I am lousy at chopping wood.

I do love doing all those things. At least I used to. I love picking out gifts for my nieces and nephews. I love singing carols (nobody else does, so I just listen to them on the radio). And I love baking Christmas cookies and making truffles. I even like to bake that pumpkin loaf.

Perhaps my problem is that I'm so far away from my family. I haven't spent Christmas with my family in years because traveling by plane around the Holidays is for the birds. The one year I did manage to make it home by plane, I ended up stranded in Denver because my flight from O'Hare was late and I missed my connection. It doesn't help that I live in the back of beyond in Wyoming, and my parents live in the back of beyond in Indiana, so there are a lot of connecting flights just to get close enough so they can drive to pick me up.

Then there's the fact that California Guy absolutely hates Christmas. He does not want to sing carols or watch silly Christmas movies (like a handsome, mysterious American doctor living in a chalet by himself in the Swiss Alps), or bake cookies. He'd rather just play video games under a blanket, watch Star Wars, and drink until it's all over. And I guess I can't blame him. The Holidays tend to be a circus. Most people I talk to feel the same way anyway, so it's really hard to feel all Christmassy and happy and blessed when everyone else is also snarling.

Every year it's harder and harder to capture that Christmas spirit. Christmas has become too commercialized with capitalism making you feel bad for not spending thousands of dollars to create the perfect Christmas (I love that mom in A Bad Moms Christmas, who believes exactly that). I used to love Christmas. It was my favorite holiday. I had fun shopping, I would jump into the Christmas Stroll every year (my town's annual Black Friday street fair), and I would bake up a storm to share with my friends and coworkers.

This year I kind of just want to skip it, and that makes me blue. I already bought all my gifts, and I did bake a few cookies (because I love cookies), but I might just skip putting up the tree and decorations. I have several strands of Christmas lights wrapped around the railing in my kitchen that need to be replaced because the cats pulled out several of the tiny bulbs. I actually caught Puckett in the act. She chewed and pulled and chewed and pulled until one of the bulbs popped out, and now the lights don't work anymore.

Apparently, she doesn't want to celebrate Christmas, either.

And I just don't have the energy to go to Walmart and buy the replacement strand because then I will have to unwrap all the burnt out lights and rewrap the new lights.

And also, I don't have the energy to go to Walmart.

And I'm fairly certain the cats will just ruin those as well. They are only $2.99 a strand, but still.

I didn't even feel much like wine this past weekend, and that is unusual for me. I lost interest in the wine after a glass on Saturday night, and didn't even bother on Friday. Friday, incidentally, being the night I was supposed to attend the Christmas Stroll, and would have had I given a damn.

I wish I had given a damn, but I didn't, so I stayed home.

And that's the kind of thing that makes me feel the most blah. All the things I used to love doing, I'm avoiding. There's a dance this coming weekend that I am going to with my friends, but I actually happen to be dreading it. Why? Well, you got me. It's a band I enjoy, I used to go to all their performances when they came to town. I want to see my friends (and bring them truffles), and there will be a lot of people there I haven't seen in a while.

And yet, that Swiss chalet keeps hovering in my fantasies.

Remember when Christmas fantasies were about hot Sam Worthington-lookalikes in nothing but a pair of jeans and a Santa hat? Now my fantasy is hiding under an extremely large, extremely plush fuzzy blanket with a mug of hot cocoa (no wine), ensconced in a Swiss chalet somewhere in the Alps where nobody can find me. That's my fantasy. Hiding away. From everything. From everyone.

I guess that's what I want for Christmas. A Swiss chalet. That shouldn't break the bank, should it?

I'll take this one.

This one will do, too.