Hello,
everyone! I hope that everyone had a
wonderful Christmas yesterday! Aside
from the lack of snow, my Christmas was absolutely near perfection! I certainly hope yours was just as magical.
For
those of you who wrapped up Hanukkah festivities earlier in the week, I hope
your eight days were absolutely fantastic, and may the next year bring you even
more.
And
for those of you who are celebrating Kwanzaa...have a fantastic one!
So,
yesterday marked off the end of Christmas songs on the radio, Christmas
specials on television, and THE POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR. And, you know, all that good stuff ending
makes me sort of feel a little down.
Don't
get me wrong. I have absolutely no
reason why I should feel down on the day after Christmas. After all, I do have today off from work
(the first time in seven years, might I add), and I did have a wonderful
Christmas celebration with my family yesterday. I even managed to pick up a gift or two along the way which I
absolutely love.
I
don't quite know how else to explain it, so I will just come out with it. I seem to have developed a case of the Boxing
Day Blues.
And
in order to try and squash those blues, I decided to write about it. Funny how that always seems to be the way I
seem to solve most of my problems, isn't it?
Oh well, let's just go with it.
I
suppose that one of the reasons why I get the blues immediately after the
holidays end is because of the whole attitude of "oh, well, we had our one
day together, so let's go back to normal as if nothing ever happened" that
a lot of people seem to have.
In
some cases, that's fine. I understand
that some people run businesses and that they need to open them back up on
December 26th to keep the money flowing in, and some people want to get their
Christmas decorations boxed up as soon as possible to free up more living space
in their homes. But in the cases of
some people I know, the end of Christmas Day marks the end of the charade that
they have managed to put on during the holiday season.
And
after receiving their award nomination for "best fake sincere personality
during the holiday season", they go right back to being the Scrooges that
they were before the calendar page flipped over to December. It is really sad to see, and I actually know
(or, should I say knew) a couple of people who did exactly that.
To
me, it really is a letdown knowing that a few people out there in this world
put on a big act for the holidays, concealing an uglier personality which they
save until after the holidays.
And
where is one of the perfect places where you can see this sort of thing in
action?
If
you guessed a shopping mall, you guessed right!
I'll
tell you something right off the bat. I
have worked plenty of Christmas Eve shifts.
I have also worked plenty of Boxing Day shifts. If I had the choice between which day I
would rather work, I would absolutely choose Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, you have very few people
in a bad mood as everyone is looking forward to spending time with their
families, and picking up stocking stuffers (or starting their Christmas
shopping, but that is beside the point), and things run very smoothly despite
how busy the store is.
Contrast
that with Boxing Day - (also known as Black Friday Lite) - where people are
trampling over each other for deals on discounted merchandise, clearance
Christmas decorations, and other deals within stores. And it has been my experience that people can be a lot meaner on
the day after Christmas than they are the day before. With people treating stores as if they were their own personal
bartering market and complaining that they are paying more than they should for
items which will more than likely break after six months anyway - well, let me
just say that Advil should be kept at the customer service desk for courtesy
purposes. If you had to work the
returns desk on Boxing Day, you would want an entire truckload of it.
Maybe
I am just being a little bit naive about the world in general. Maybe I am an eternal optimist, trying to
find the good in everyone and everything.
Or, maybe I'm just nuts and I have just been denying it until now. I just feel as though we should not let the
Christmas spirit end once the 26th arrives.
There is absolutely no reason why we can't make it last the whole year
long.
In
fact, that is what one of my 2015 objectives will be...carrying on the
Christmas spirit all year long.
(Well,
the most heart-warming things, anyway.
I would go broke if I bought everyone a gift 365 days of the year.)
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