To survive... Perhaps to enjoy...

Christmas! New Year! Almost there! Holidays! Travel! Shopping! Presents!

Well, let's face it, Roufa is not a Christmas person. It's too cold a period for him and he tends to spend it in denial. He does appreciate the lights, though. As far as he's concerned, all this fuss is useful as a distraction from the cold and the dark, a tasteless hallucination, and Spring simply cannot come fast enough.

But Mimi used to love Christmas! The carols, the snow even, and oh, the cookies, the cute decorations in red and green, the Santas, the glitter, the candy, the presents... She would blow all her money on Christmas presents!

Until, that is, she read The Corrections. That horrible, horrible book. And from then on, Christmas has become that monstrous thing that Enid Lambert lives for. A compulsive torture that Enid Lambert imposes on her unloved ones, year after year after year. The Advent calendars, the tasteless presents. The enormous ornament collection. The candles... are things that Enid Lambert lives for. There he is, a lovely wooden Santa with his cotton-white beard and his reindeer in knitted outfit, king of the store, the perfect Christmas charm for Mimi's living-room! Mimi cheers and rejoices, she enthuses like a child, she approaches,... and she chills as she realizes, this is something that Enid Lambert would enthuse about. She has been growing an Enid Lambert inside her all her life.

Damn.

And poor Enid, too! Is a little beauty and joy too much to ask?

If you have managed to escape that horrible book, well done, don't read it. Poor Mimi made the mistake. She hopes she will get over it by Christmas 2010, but for the moment she has to suffer it out. It seems like reading is not always good for you. If you are superficial enough, you may enjoy The Corrections as a soap (but then, why not just watch a soap). If you really feel you need to read about troubled families, you probably come from a troubled family yourself – real or imaginary, it doesn't matter. In that case, why perpetuate the misery?

Speaking of Christmas holidays and families, we suspect that for some of you -- like for the Lambert children -- the two make a dreadful combination. This must mean that you are not very happy, that your families treat you bad, or both. We are far from qualified to judge other people's miseries – we are just two lucky bastards, who managed to find each other, inside a brilliant diamond of space-time, many years and miles ago. We wish we could help you to take it easy, though. Let us try:

Survival Trick No. One: The Bubble Boy or Bubble Girl. If you find yourself surrounded by family members you are scared of and who make you feel bad with their behavior and remarks, imagine you are in a transparent, protective rubber bubble. Nothing can penetrate the bubble, but the nutritious vitamins and minerals of the turkey – and the sweetness of the cookies, of course. All poisonous darts (real or imaginary - most likely, complex - it really doesn't matter) that reach the surface of the bubble just bounce off. This trick works, as long as you don't shoot poisonous darts yourself. They will bounce off on the inside of the bubble and hurt you.

Survival Trick No. Two: The Talk-to-the-Hand -- or tape recorder. You need equipment for this: a small journalistic tape recorder, with a tape and batteries. You hide it on you and keep it on voice-activated mode. When poisonous darts fly around you (real or imaginary, it does NOT matter, what matters is your well being), you don't have to listen to them and follow them, because they are being recorded, so you can always play them back later (you won't, of course!). Another angle that may work better for you: while recording, you are secretly pleased that you finally have evidence of their malice/intrusiveness/mere existence, and that thought offsets the poisonous effect of the remarks. It's a psychological trick we've heard of.

Anyway, we do hope you don't need our tricks! Whatever your case, if your holidays involve cookies and warmth, you have every reason to enjoy them! Buy silly presents if you can, receive silly presents with a smile, have silly fun! It won't last long, anyway. And then the days will start to get longer again, which makes Roufa very, very happy already.

--

For further reading: Seems that our sweet friend birthing your dream has some insight and advice for you, see his Dec.21 post.