It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Oh, Christmas....I find you so very complicated.
For the past several years, I have not enjoyed Christmas (or most holidays, for that matter). In fact, I kind of dread it. Here's why: Most people are naturally excited and happy when it comes to Christmas. They go in for all the decoration, the snow, the lights, the food, the music, the people, everything. The Christmas spirit is just THERE, instinctively. I don't have any of that. The decorations make me sad, the snow makes me frustrated (though this is nothing new), the lights seem dim, the music is misleading, and while the food is pretty great, the rest of it is a facsimile of what it used to be.

Don't get me wrong: I am ALL about the core of Christmas. Jesus is my Savior. Christmas is the anniversary of his birth. It's a celebration of my Savior's birthday.

The problem is that society has made Christmas into a month-long happyfest; partially because we focus on things other than Jesus' birthday, partially because we feel the need to out-do ourselves every single year, and partially because we have the tendency to get caught up in things that ultimately don't matter. I wish it was okay for me to celebrate my birthday for an entire month. And if anyone deserves a month-long birthday celebration, it's Jesus. But by the time I get to Christmas Day, I am wiped out.

It is EXHAUSTING to pretend to be happy for twenty-five straight days. And yeah, I have to pretend I'm not depressed almost every day. But there's a difference - on those days, I just have to make it to neutral. During the month of Christmas, I have to push past neutral and pretend to be actively happy. If you've never had to do this before, I'll walk you through it: Think of all the people that you see during the month of Christmas (we really should just change 'December' to Christmasember). Now, chances are good that you see a good percentage of these people every year at Christmas. They are expecting you to be happy and joyful and full of Christmas spirit, just like every other year. This year, you find that that happiness/Christmas spirit just isn't there automatically. Shoot, son! Whatcha gonna do? You gotta convince all these people that nothing's changed...

Christmasember brings out happiness in most people, but it brings out sadness in me. Christmas brings so many reasons to be happy: family, friends, presents, vacation, parties, church, Jesus...but all of these things only serve to remind me of how I'm not intrinsically happy. And then I start to feel guilty - it's like, Why are you so unhappy? You should be happy! It's Christmas! Everyone else is happy, why aren't you? Be happy! BE HAPPY, YOU STUPID UNGRATEFUL GIRL!!

Thankfully, I gain a bit of wisdom with every year that passes. First of all, I am not the only person that this happens to. Just because everyone else SEEMS happy doesn't mean they are. A lot of people are carrying around baggage that they're working pretty hard to hide. They're not happy, but they're pretending to be because they don't know what else to do.
Second, it's okay to not be happy. No one can be happy all the time, especially during Christmasember. It's okay to admit that it's hard to be happy. I'm not a robot that can be programmed to Happy Mode, and maybe you aren't either.
Thirdly, knowing all of this, it's easier to understand and relate to other people that struggle with Christmasember. I've got a friend whose aunt died around Christmastime several years ago. She's reminded of it every year, and she doesn't like Christmas anymore. We kind of make a joke about it every year, but to me, it's one of the cornerstones of our friendship.

Maybe it's not so important how happy we are during the holidays. I think the more important thing is focusing on the birthday. Being thankful for Jesus' birth and remembering it and celebrating it on Christmas Day. We've pretty much buried the birthday in this day and age, but in the end, that's what it's all about. Birthday.

So yeah, I'm not happy all the time. And more and more, I'm becoming okay with it. But it was my Savior's birthday yesterday, and that will NEVER make me unhappy.