Awash in Humbuggery

I am usually in an Elfin state of Holiday Glee about now. Trimming my tree would have been a fond memory and I would be sitting back enjoying the Enchanted Village that would have become my humble abode likely the day after Thanksgiving.

I would have already begun navigating the many sales and writing lists upon lists, having my holiday cards already signed sealed and delivered well on their merry way across the globe waiting to be anxiously opened and displayed with the rest.

SO what about this year has me awash in Humbuggery?

Last year I had not much to celebrate. My son had been through the most traumatic thing a child can experience and essentially lost his father right before the holidays, I had been laid off fro my job the day before Thanksgiving and had no income to get me through the holidays, and yet I was all for it. I went for broke, no pun intended.

And now, back a member of the working force, life seemingly normal and relatively uneventful, I find myself lacking any motivation to get into the holiday spirit.

Is it due to the fact that up until yesterday it has been 60 degrees in Boston, making the season seem like mere make believe? Like a joke by Mother Nature conjured up to bring on only talk of Global Warming and nothing of those White Christmases?

Is it due to the fact that for some strange reason high school drama seems to rear its ugly head in matters that never cease to amaze me and I have seemingly lost my two best friends to it?

Is it the fact that last year was in a relationship and now I am not? (or the fact that I just found out that same person is now engaged to someone else?)

Is it again due to the realization that nothing and no holiday is ever the same without my father?

I can't exactly pinpoint the cause of this anti-holiday funk. I have started to shop willy-nilly, but not with the fervor and pinash that I usually do. I have started to subtly put out a decoration or two, even light a tree smelling candle in the hopes it will trigger something deep within my psyche, snap me out of whatever walking coma I seem to be in.

I get oogats. My father's favorite Italian word for nothing. Zilch. Nien. Niet. Not a single warm fuzzy running through my veins giving me any sense that today, Christmas is a mere 18 days away.

Maybe its time I get run over by a reindeer.