I'm so over Christmas that I am planning for next year

Christmas has become so routine that I'm already planning to do something different next year.

The farthest I ever venture from home is about 45 miles away, so I'm going off somewhere. Somewhere cold rather than pushing 80 like it was today. Somewhere it is realistically possible to have a white Christmas. Somewhere it isn't as far fetched to be dreaming of a white Christmas as it is to win the lottery without buying a ticket. Somewhere I can roast chestnuts over an open fire rather than in the front window of my office during the afternoon sun. Where can you find sleigh rides in the snow?

Next Christmas I won't be buying or making anyone any presents. No worries about wasting my money on something that is going to be shoved in the corner of a shelf for at least 6 months where it got crammed when it was brought home. No more spending time making something with love and attention to only be put in a storage box somewhere never to be seen again. No more wrecking my brain trying to figure out what to buy someone I barely see or speak to during the rest of the year.

Oh, and when I go off to wherever it is I'm going, I'll get to schedule my time however I see fit. I won't give any care or attention to when someone has to be at their in-laws. Or when their kids are with their exes or their exes in-laws or their current's exes' in-laws blocking days of availability. I won't miss the annually scheduled meltdown that comes between the rushed lunch of sandwiches (because everyone else is so dog-gone picky that we can't have real holiday food) and the ripping into presents and promptly packing them up before it's time to go to the next place. There's no playing any reindeer games because there's no time. Oh wait, the meltdown usually comes on the way out the door in the blur of flurry. And I just realized, I can eat whatever I want at whatever place may be open.

Then I can skip the tension between are we or are we not going to make the out of town family get together where everyone gets on everyone's nerves in a tight confined space once a year. (Being or arbitrator or mediator would be an extremely stressful job for me.) And the ride home talking about how strange our relatives are. The same discussion year in and out.

And it won't come down to me keeping my parents entertained (and vice versa) for days if we aren't all able to get together on Christmas Eve or Day because the three of us have anything else to do. And I won't be answering my grandmother as to where my brother is because everyone was here for the family picture except for him. That picture where we are always facing the 80 degree sun and I always look disgruntled with the sun grins. Or sun frowns as it appears. We'll see if anyone asks where I am and what I could possibly be doing.

I'm one of those people who experiences the holiday blues every year, and it's really no wonder. The older I get the more beat down I get by all of it. Especially after a conversation today.

I'll just leave that at that.

Besides, I need to finish crocheting a project someone is sure to hate and stuff in a drawer because I finally decided to do that rather than buy something since I didn't know what to buy. Besides, it's too warm for it right now anyway. And I need to hurry up and do it because I have absolutely no clue when in the next 4-9 days I need to have it ready.

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