Bah Humbug.

There I said it. (And I will undoubtedly say this a lot before this post is over.)

No, not feeling so namaste today.  

Why?

Simple, I am wondering what is ailing people this Christmas season?

People are driving like maniacs and fighting over parking spaces.  It’s run over people season with a shopping cart inside stores. Truly, the back of my legs/ankles are I swear getting dents. Bah Humbug.

Today waiting to pull out of a parking space, I had to wait fifteen minutes to pull out of a space because this woman in a giant SUV just literally pulled up perpendicular to my parking space and two others and threw it into park and just sat there. For fifteen minutes.  Completely oblivious to me or anyone else.  I watched her in my rearview mirror…she was on her phone. Bah Humbug.

Today I stopped at Aldi in Exton.  The store was like land of the zombies.  It was a marvel watching a bunch of people completely divorced from their surroundings navigate the store with those giant carts Aldi has.  All on their phones.  Not looking at anyone or where they are going.  Staring at their phones, then  staring straight ahead in some cases with vacant stares…like true zombies of the apocalypse. Bah Humbug, zombie edition.

And don’t get me started on how you have to wait for someone to return a cart because it’s just a few days before Christmas and Aldi has all of their carts locked up!  Yes, you have to rent a cart for a quarter.  I wonder does Aldi know about the cart hack work around on the Internet? Bah Humbug, Aldi.

And then there is social media. Oy vey there should be a pill for this. But if there was a pill for social media welcome to bizarreville posts Donald Trump wouldn’t be on Twitter 24/7 would he?  Think he needs a squatty potty for Christmas or something? I mean there has to be some explanation short of aliens invading his body to explain some of the more remarkable Scroogesque tweets, right?

But seriously, holidays and social media is not for the faint of heart. Take a recent personal experience as an example. I saw this wonderful recipe someone had shared on their cooking page on Facebook.  As in an open page where they share tips, techniques, and recipes.

So I shared a post.  As in the originating post and page showed clearly.  I did not say it was my idea, but that it was a great idea.  Others concurred that it was a great post.

Should be the end of it, right? Nope.  Along flies a comment that tags me and says that they hoped I did not share their private post without permission. HUH????  Private? It was on a public page so how is that private?  In an effort to understand what was going on because I clearly did not understand, I messaged the person to clarify that I only shared from their open page and provided attribution.  The response came back “I don’t want you on my page.”

Oh OK Bah Feaking Humbug.

Alrighty then.  Block.  I don’t need that.  I also did not do anything to deserve it.  Did I also mention I had been a good customer of their former business? I guess it was o.k. to take my money at the time, right? I know they liked it when I sent customers their way. Sad, but not terminal to me.

Also filed under Bah Humbug, I recently had the woman who felt the need to vomit cray cray comments on Christmas party photos.  Now she was not the only one who did that, sadly.  There was also the woman I liberated myself from quite a while back who likes to be somewhat questionable with the comments having to do with me to anyone who will listen. Double Bah Humbug with a side of cray cray.  I don’t pretend to be perfect or lead a perfect life, but they were Christmas party photos.  Not the lampshade-wearing-swinging -from- the- chandelier- swigging -from -a -bottle -of -Captain- Morgan type photo but a lovely gathering of close friends and family.

Then there is the Bah Humbug you file under no good deed goes unpunished. Or also known as what happens when you make the difficult decision to tell a friend how you feel about something and they truly do not wish to hear it.  Umm yeah, you kind of sort of asked me my opinion and well I had to think about it, I thought about it and now I am sorry.  As in I am sorry I said anything.  Sometimes you just need to not say anything.  That is a lesson I need to learn personally.  But if I didn’t care, I also wouldn’t bother.  Sort of a double-edged sword.

It’s like December has a giant holiday full moon all month long. People struggle during the holidays, yes I know but seriously, do they know real loss this time of year?  I know people who have experienced soul breaking losses this time of year and you don’t see them behaving like this.

I read this interesting piece on Bustle from 2015:

3 Weird Things That Happen To Your Brain During The Holidays By Marissa Higgins

There’s a lot to think about during the holiday season: Visiting family, making time for friends, and (hopefully) eating lots of home cooking. But if you’ve ever stopped to wonder what happens to your brain during the holiday season, you’re not alone! Researchers are fascinated with this very subject….Some researchers believe that not only do our brains actually change over the holidays, but they know what culprit is: Nostalgia. Essentially, nostalgia is a bitter-sweet love for what is gone, and a longing to return the past. And when you go home for the holidays, this isn’t the typical nostalgia you feel when you listen to ’90s boy bands on your way to work or watch Nick at Nite before passing out. In fact, therapists say you should basically “expect to regress” during the holiday season. 

And then this from Psychology Today in 2011:

Why Our Minds Make Us Crazy During the Holidays
“Surviving” the holidays may be more pressing than we realize. By Shawn T. Smith Psy.D

The first job of our minds is to keep us safe. The world is a dangerous place, and we were blessed with an abundance of neurons devoted to keeping us upright and breathing….There is plenty to be anxious or depressed about this time of year, but relationships seem to be the most common concern….There was a time in our history when being ostracized was as good as a death sentence. Perhaps because of that, our brains are wired to pay close attention to our social world and to sound the alarm whenever relationships seem unsteady.

…During the holidays, when society focuses on family and community, we can become acutely aware of ruptured or damaged relationships. Our minds can give us all kinds of pain in response to that heightened awareness.

Second, our minds routinely compare us to others. Staying in the good graces of the clan means imitating normal behavior…..

Christmas and the holidays can be hard.  It is a gloriously beautiful time of year, unless it just isn’t.  It’s the end of the year, so pressures mount. We’re supposed to relax and enjoy being with each other, but emotional and even financial pressures can exasperate people during the holiday season.

Then there are the people with memeories that only surface at the holidays.  Some good, some bad, some unbearable. We can’t climb inside their heads and make it better, sadly. We all have our own holiday baggage of one sort or the other and if we say we don’t at a minimum, we are lying to ourselves.

I love Christmas.  I have always loved Christmas.  But as someone who married later rather than earlier, I like it even more now. Why? My sense of place. I belong and I am loved. And I know it. My sweet man is the guy you can bake cookies with and who will watch Christmas movie after Christmas movie with me because he knows I like them.  Christmas is indeed being with the ones you love. (Which is why I need to exercise my Bah humbugs so they fly free and away from me.)

That is Christmas.  The together thing.  The family thing.  Christmas and the holidays are wonderful if you allow yourself to enjoy them.  Some people can’t.  I think part of what makes the holidays hard for people are the seemingly perfect lives they see flashing before their screens and mobile devices on social media.

And if these people are more alone than others for whatever reason, I am guessing the holidays can be horrible. I am sorry. Truly. But it’s not all bad.  Find the magic in the season.  It’s there. Some years you have to look harder, but it’s there.

News flash: the holidays will never be perfect.  And I suffer from this at times because I want the holidays to be perfect because I love Christmas.  It’s the vicious Bah Humbug cycle. We all want it to be perfect.  It’s not. It never will be.

Chill people.  We’re in the home stretch.  Bake some cookies. Watch a Hallmark Christmas movie.  Find your Christmas spirit.

Until then, Bah Humbug.