{"id":908513,"date":"2020-11-30T19:28:54","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T16:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=908513"},"modified":"2020-11-30T19:28:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T16:28:54","slug":"in-praise-of-becoming-a-deranged-holiday-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=908513","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of Becoming a Deranged Holiday Person"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Opinion<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In Praise of Becoming a Deranged Holiday Person<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Emma Specter<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Photo: Alamy Stock Photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s November 30\u2014not even the official month of all things holly and jolly\u2014and yet I\u2019ve already purchased every Christmas present on my list. Two friends and I are driving to New Jersey in a few weeks to see Elf<\/em> in an empty movie theater (yes, you can rent a whole theater out for not much more than it costs to buy a ticket and popcorn in New York City), and I fully intend to haul a tree into my fourth-floor walk-up apartment ASAP. This isn\u2019t my normal mode of engagement with the holidays, but then again, why should any part of this bizarre year be normal?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like I\u2019ve been a total Christmas agnostic in the past; I grew up Jewish (emphasis on the \u201cish\u201d), but the time from Christmas to New Year\u2019s was always spent with my vaguely Christian family in western Massachusetts, decorating gingerbread cookies and watching my cousins unwrap Lego sets and video-game consoles in a dizzying snowfall of wrapping paper and bows. Winter has long bummed me out, and for the last few years, I\u2019ve been building my own blended holiday rituals to compensate, blasting the Vince Guaraldi Trio while I deep-fry Chanukah latkes.<\/p>\n

This year, though, I won\u2019t see my extended family on December 25, and something about the loss of that tradition is making me go, uh…way too big. I spend approximately half of my time scouting potential gifts on eBay, not because I\u2019m preternaturally generous, but because crossing names off my list makes me feel like Santa, which is apparently now something I welcome. My room is awash in Christmas lights, my Spotify playlist of carols has been blasting since midnight on Thanksgiving, I have an extra-large pink glitter wreath arriving on Wednesday, and I\u2019m starting to question my sanity.<\/p>\n

If repeated viewings of the movie A Bad Moms Christmas<\/em> have taught me anything (and I like to think they have), it should be that making a competitive sport out of Christmas is in direct opposition to the purpose of the holiday. We\u2019re supposed to come together over ham on Christmas Eve and think about the abundant blessings in our lives, but seeing as the \u201ccoming together\u201d part isn\u2019t an option this year, can you really blame me for leaning super-hard on the craven, hyper-commercial aspect of the holiday? If you\u2019re finding yourself a bit lost this holiday season, sluggish from Thanksgiving leftovers yet adrift on a sea of Christmas mania that feels entirely overwhelming, may I suggest taking a deep breath and just diving in?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Most years, I make fun of people who get way into the holidays, and there are still limits to my tolerance for celebration (for example, I\u2019d rather haul a whole forest of 250-pound Christmas trees up the stairs to my apartment than attend any iteration of Santacon. No, I\u2019m not sorry it was canceled this year). 2020 Christmas, though, is receiving me fresh from months of isolation and confusion; drinking rum-spiked hot chocolate and figuring out how to pull off those cranberry-and-popcorn strings that happy families always make in Christmas movies is one small thing I can count on, and right now, that feels like enough to get me by. Is it merely the illusion of security that I\u2019m clinging to? Most likely, but that\u2019s late capitalism, baby!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not necessarily arguing that my new habit of comparison-shopping for vintage Soviet Christmas ornaments online is the healthiest one, but there\u2019s something kind of freeing about suspending your own sense of yourself as a person who\u2019s \u201ctoo cool\u201d to care about the holidays. This year, I can\u2019t channel my Christmas excitement into office holiday parties or \u201cironic\u201d tree-trimming gatherings; I just have to sit with it, feeling mildly insane every time I catch myself Googling \u201cNutcracker costume for medium-sized dog.\u201d (No, I don\u2019t have a dog, medium-size or otherwise.)<\/p>\n

If my memories of childhood Christmases hold true, I know that the actual event of Christmas morning will inevitably come as a disappointment, and\u2014hear me out\u2014that\u2019s okay. When you put 100% of your energy into a holiday, it\u2019s guaranteed not to live up to the hype, but this year, I\u2019m determined to derive as much pleasure as I can from the buildup. Does that mean I\u2019ll find myself at the grocery store at 4 a.m. on December 24, desperately sifting through spices to find the cloves to go in the hot toddies I spent four hours browsing recipes for? Maybe, but hey, it\u2019s only once a year, right?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/www.vogue.com\/article\/in-praise-of-holiday-celebration<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinion In Praise of Becoming a Deranged Holiday Person By Emma Specter November 30, 2020 Photo: Alamy Stock Photo It\u2019s November 30\u2014not even the official month of all things holly and jolly\u2014and yet I\u2019ve already purchased every Christmas present on my list. Two friends and I are driving to New Jersey in a few weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":908514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-908513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=908513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/908514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=908513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=908513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=908513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}