Santa let me down once more.

I awoke to find this:



Was not sitting in my driveway



"Emac" did not show up last night to tuck me into bed with stories of overnight trading and hedge funds.



we still live in a world dominated by strife and fear...

Too many of my friends here still suffer.

Maybe I can be better next year...

PS: Liz, call me please:

I hope you guys all had a good Christmas...

just wish today would end all ready.

not enjoying it 1 lil bit

Back when I was in third or fourth grade I went back into the room with the Christmas tree where we had opened presents. It was a long time ago. I looked at the presents I had been given and I realized that I didn't actually want any of them. Then I looked around and realized that no one else's presents looked any better. (As an adult I might compare my reaction to having found used condoms on the floor.) I considered the tree and the presents. I considered the family and friends who were no longer in the room with me. It crossed my mind that even in years when I had gotten something I liked, that feeling only lasted an hour or two at best before life went on. I was feeling something and it was uncomfortable. Finally it hit me and I said it out loud. Not too loudly, but loud enough that my mom heard. "I'm disappointed." She was really angry. She wouldn't listen when I tried to explain. Looking back, I think she knew exactly how I felt because she felt the same way I had. All the time, effort, and money spent. Weeks of buildup. The effort of getting the family together and decorating and buying groceries and cooking. All of that, and it wasn't what she wanted either. Christmas hasn't been the same since then, but at least I knew why.

I still think it helps to know what you want, even if you can't have it. It is better than being stuck with a poor substitute and not understanding what the problem is.

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

lol at your 1st 2 disappointments.

Can you imagine if we all collectively put our love, efforts, and finances into something meaningful for the world, instead of dedicating those things to National Swap Gift Cards Day?

Altogether, I like how you dream Big!

Merry Christmas

"National Swap Gift Cards Day"

I love it!

LOL at myself. Tim, when you said "Liz please call me" I thought you wanted ME to call! DUH! You meant Emac.

Indeed. I saw a lady with a very serious look on her face on the news last night, advising us to have a few extra $20 gift cards on hand in case we've forgotten to buy a gift for anyone.

And the local news lead off with stories of Christmas bargains that shoppers were getting. Seriously? How do you go to journalism school, then "report" - with a straight face - on where to get the best deals while shopping? Walter Cronkite must be rolling over in his grave.

I got exactly what I wanted. Excited kids and a happy husband. Yes, it's all about the presents. The kids were super excited and happy with what we got them. My husband was thrilled because he got exactly what he had been wanting for a long time. And I had fun taking pictures.
Now we're sitting here eating cookies and watching "The Santa Clause".

And I must say, I would be quite angry too if one of my kids said "I'm disappointed". It's something incredibly ungrateful to say. We are teaching our children to be grateful when someone gives something to them, anything, or does something for them, anything. We don't want them to turn into spoiled brats.

When our kids are little, christmas is all about the kids. Seeing their excitement on christmas morning, watching them tear open the presents, watching their eyes light up. As parents we put a lot of effort into this holiday, because we know our children look forward to christmas all year long.

Of course we also teach our children what christmas really is, but that doesn't change the fact that there are presents, as many as we can afford. Even my dog got presents.

Christmas is what you make it. If you're disappointed you definitely had your expectations set too high.

Whenwillitend, I've had similar feelings to those of Inedible. The entire country goes nuts preparing for this season. Then there's a frenzy of gift opening and it's all over. Many a year I had a sense of blah after the frenzy. We are fed a non-stop message from October on that everything is going to be wonderful come Christmas Day. Then reality sets in along with disappointment. For me the disappointment was not about the presnets. It was having bought into the idea that Christmas was going to be like Norman Rockwell, when the reality was more like the Addams family. It's my belief that many folks experience a similar let down.

It doesn't have to be all over though. Like I said, christmas is what you make of it. It's far from over here. The kids are playing together with their new toys, my husband is messing with his new "toy", and the dog is sleeping on the couch, all tuckered out. It is incredibly peaceful in here. We won't have a fancy dinner, and we don't have family around, it's "just" us, but we are enjoying our day together. I have been working so much lately that today is a real treat. A day of relaxing and fun. Christmas is what you make it.

I am 38, and never, not once in my life, was I disappointed with anything on christmas. Even though my family was way less than perfect. It's a matter of apprecation.

Besides, having feelings of disappointment and saying so out loud in front of your mother when you're little, that's two different things. Feelings don't always need to be expressed, especially when it hurts someone else. That's a matter of consideration.

My parents hated Christmas. To my mom it was just more chores, and to my dad it was just more bills. My brother was lucky enough to have friends so he had somewhere to go to get away most of the time. My grandmother would catch a plane to come see us, but she spent most of the time taking naps. I wanted to help in the kitchen with preparing the Christmas meal, but I wasn't allowed to. My mom hated doing everything by herself, but it pissed her off even more if we tried to come into the kitchen. I had been looking forward to Christmas for several weeks. My parents told me that when I grew up I would look back on spending the holidays together as some of the happiest times of my life. I just wanted things to be okay for a while and they weren't. Again. I looked around and saw that I had some new clothes that I didn't care about and some toys I had already outgrown. I really didn't understand what I was feeling, and that was why I said it out loud - it came as a surprise to me once I realized what it was. It wasn't like I had known my mom was standing just around the corner. The last thing I wanted to do was make her more angry than she already was.

Who's Emac?

I got exactly what i expected to get for Christmas, no gifts, no company, but a great meal cooked by myself with plenty left for the rest of the week, so my gift this year was ...no cooking for the next few days.. yey!

Whenwillitend, I am happy for you and your family. It sounds like you are having a really nice day.

For some of us, what you describe as your day was what I/we wished for. At my house holidays meant the adults got drunk and mean. It was guaranteed there would be a fight before the day was over. If things got really bad the fight got physical. Before the day was out my father would find some way of letting my brother and me know we were worthless pieces of poo. Kind of hard to find appreciation when that kind of "stuff" is going on around you.

I'm so sorry lizardlady. What a terrible experience. I think my worst christmas experience was when my mom cancelled christmas because I refused to recite a poem for her. I was really little and scared. She sent both me and my brother straight to bed. She did let us open our presents the next day. But I will never forget how I felt that night. I will never ever do that to my kids. My husband likes to threaten things like that when the kids misbehave, but I made it clear that holidays will never be touched.

I don't think I expressed myself clearly, I'm sorry. Of course I totally understand when certain holidays are ruined permanently after experiences like that. What I meant is that it irks me when someone puts effort into gifts/gestures/favors of any kind and then the recipient reacts with something like "I'm disappointed", or no appreciation in general. I don't know if I explained that better now. People being ungrateful, rude, selfish, is what I don't like. If there's nothing to be grateful for, that of course is a totally different story.

I hope that's more understandable now. I'm just not good with words, and what I say comes across totally wrong a lot of the time.

Yes, we usually have very nice holidays now. It is our first priority to make sure the kids are happy. Sometimes we don't feel christmassy and would rather not put up the tree and all that. But we always do, because it is so important for the kids. This year is weird, it's the first year in a decade or so that I didn't make christmas cookies. I worked too much and didn't get around to it. Usually I make at least 4-5 different kinds of cookies.

I didn't have anything under the tree again this year, but I don't care, for me christmas is about the ones I love, and making sure they are happy and taken care of.

um... I think the post is tongue in cheek... since none of us really believe in Santa Claus... it's not that OP commited blashemy.

and it mentions no-world-peace-again and his friends in distress in the end. All the toys and material crap of the world pale in comparision.

Tbh, I hate xmas. Lost two family members around the time, and it's incredibly hard for me. I hate the commercialization and gluttony of the supposedly christian holiday.

As for presents, I don't need them. I got all I need, and many things I want. And you cannot gift wrap purpose and dream job.

When I was around 10 years old, I said it. I saw that Christmas had come and it hadn't been what it was supposed to be and I said "I'm disappointed." My mom overheard and she was furious, but she never stopped to consider that I had heard her say the same thing and more. Many times. Eventually I learned about gratitude and appreciation, but I had to learn about them as an adult. As far as I can tell, my parents still haven't learned about gratitude and appreciation. As for Christmas, it stopped being so tense once my parents realized that no one was happy about the way things were. We stopped going to church and started going to see a movie instead. We stopped having the big home cooked meal and started ordering pizza. The first year we did this, my mom confessed to her mom on the phone. She was afraid to tell her mom what we had done. She said so, and said that she didn't want to tell her mom about it. She was shocked when all her mom did was to ask if we had had a good time. Relief didn't last long and was quickly replaced with resentment. My mom hated and feared her mom right up until her mom was dying of cancer, and then she finally had the power in the relationship. At one point she said that my grandma had died two months before, and that it was too soon because she wasn't done making her mom pay. She also said that she hoped I wouldn't do the same thing to her in her old age.

Whenwillitend, thanks for what you said. I'm glad we continued to communicate until we understood each other.

Like you, I'm irked by people who don't appreciate what others tried to do. Every year I used to bust a gut trying to find the perfect present for my mother-in-law. No matter what we got her she found something wrong with it. I eventually stopped trying to fid the "perfect" gift and just got her something I thought she'd like.

Back in college I was dead broke so I baked for people for Christmas. I could not afford gifts. My then to be sister-in-law said I was "too cheap" to buy presents. Never baked the little B another cookie!

Thank you Venushalley, you nailed it. I know no one is dropping me off a Ferrari anytime soon nor is Elizabeth Macdonald calling me anytime soon. The last bit was meant as lament of things still wrong in the world that no mythic character can fix. The key line, I will be better next year is also packed with an extra meaning.

If anyone was offended by my thread, I do apologize, I did not mean harm to anyone.

Thanks for listening

T

"Emac" is the nickname that Elizabeth Macdonald's coworkers at Fox Business have given her. It is a bit of an allusion to Einstein's famous equation and a compliment paid to her high intellegence (which in a women I find incredibly sexy!)

I am now going to have to dine on some crow

After I started this thread and went over to my folk's house for Breakfast and gift exchange, my mom gave me a gift certificate for this:

http://www.exoticdriving.com/race-tr...world-speedway

Maybe you do really exist big guy.

WOOHOOOO Tim!

Want some gravy to go with the crow?

I think xmas would seem more meaningful and magical if people kept it more traditional (aka... advent starts four sundays before xmas eve... not in mid october).

I used to love xmas in the early 1990s and i don't think it's just because i was a kid... we were a post communist country and it was short bout of traditionality. And trips to Vienna for oh-pretty light and hot wine.
Then it went wrong somewhere... very commercial and disgusting. It led to anti-Santa protests (since Santa is not our tradition. Our xmas magic figure is based on baby Jesus and is... invisible. Nobody knows what he looks like. It worked... you hardly ever see Santa figures in Malls and such. Also, big cities issued decrees that only hand-made or at least Czech made, traditional stuff can be sold on the markets (not plastic made in China stuff).
I wish they banned the "get a loan for xmas presents" commercials too. Our economy has been tanking for several years in row... no need to go Greek for some things you mostly don't need.

sounds awesum!