I’m struggling! I once celebrated Christmas with the wide-eyed expectations of a ten-year-old little boy…now I wish that it would just go away and leave me alone. Peter Pan grew up and became the Grinch.

Don’t get me wrong. I spent a wonderful Christmas Eve with family and my wide eyed five- and eight-year-old grandchildren and really hit a homerun with skates and helmets. My brother and his wife hit a homerun with a hover toy. I’m not sure my daughter’s puppy, Elanor, would agree with the hover toy.  She was terrorized and not by Christmas’ ghosts, past, present, and future.

I’m the one terrorized by Christmas’ ghosts, past, present, and future.

It is the preparations, even the anticipation of preparations. It is the pre-Christmas rush and press to get everything “just right” that turns into “just get done.” It is the anxiety of getting to the “blessed event” that has turned me sour.

Thank goodness for Amazon. Christmas joy has turned into Christmas joyless. “Our Dear Savior’s Birth” has become too commercialized although I really appreciate the new Fitbit and flashlight enabled stocking hat my daughter and son-in-law gave me. Does that come under hypocrisy?

Another “extended” family gathering today, Christmas Day. No gifts to worry about, just food and family fellowship. I’m not really family. My bride and I are only related by marriage. They are fine folk, but I am attempting to “self-medicate” with Jack Daniels and Coke just in case.

My forced smile will cause muscle aches all the way down my back before this day is over. Pa Humbug and Ma Humbug doing what is expected and not enjoying it one bit. How and why did I turn into such an Ebenezer Scrooge?

It is over and I survived…okay, I enjoyed myself. I didn’t have to force a smile and my back doesn’t ache any more than it normally does. Am I disappointed that I enjoyed myself?

Great food and a fresh audience to try out my story-telling skills. I won’t enjoy the outcomes tomorrow. What a great spread, I have no self-control when it comes to food. The banana puddin’ was outstanding, but my gastric system is already complaining.

So…what do you want to do Pa Humbug? I don’t know but visions of red and green lights strung on palm trees appeal to me. Or strung from the mast of a sailboat…even a tiny Sunfish. Ornaments in the shape of pink flamingoes make me smile. I could self-meditate with an umbrella drink just as well as a Jack and Coke.

I haven’t answered my own questions. Would celebrating Christmas in the Caribbean ala Jimmy Buffett really make a difference? Why did Peter Pan grow up? Why don’t I enjoy Christmas anymore? Is it my narcissism that Christmas is no longer about me? Me! Me! Me!

A New Years’ resolution is in order. Find your inner child and bring back a small part of what you have lost. Whatever it takes, find him before another Christmas goes down the tubes.  I know where to look. He is lost next to my sense of humor. You make your own joy, and it is certainly worth looking for. I know where to look for that too, it is inside and not outside.

Happy New Year!