Wake me up, when December ends

The older I get, the more stressful December becomes. It seems like the pressure of upcoming travel, cooking, and gift shopping, as well as the financial strain that all of this puts on everyone, just makes people mad. I mean that in the British sense and in the American English one.

In past posts, I've talked about how much I hate the cold. Winter in New England is brutal. Mind you, I've been to both Iceland and Canada in the winter, and they are both colder... and we do get more hours of sunlight here. Yet, the dark, cold isolation of winter, coupled with the insanity of what seems like everyone around me gets to be a bit much.

A few years ago, I spent Christmas break in New Orleans, which was more my speed...except I was five months pregnant and I would walk so much, my legs would swell twice their size. I did enjoy napping with the floor to ceiling windows open and, god knows, I had a good excuse to taste all of the amazing food!

I also spent a few Christmas breaks in Key West and San Francisco, which were also quite nice. Well, except for the rain in San Francisco, but that, I can deal with. If all I need is a light weight sweater at night, I'm golden. Funny, considering my genetic make up is mostly European countries with cold winters (Irish, English, German...French Canadian, which is not Europe...and Southern Italian, which is warm). The other extreme, Mexico in July, was just intolerable for me, though, so I guess I'm being too tough on the cold.

Getting back on point, this time of year seems to bring out the worst in people. First, you have Thanksgiving, which is now really just an extension of Black Friday, when people would rather stab each other in the face and then pee on the wound to get a slightly less expensive piece of crap flat screen tv, than actually have to sit down and eat with their extended family, whom they probably don't talk to more than twice a year. (Wholly run-on sentence, Batman!) Next comes Christmas, which actually lasts for something like 6 weeks. The rudeness quotient goes up by, at least, 150%. I remember when the holidays made people nicer. Not anymore.

The only thing I really look forward to is the week off between Christmas and New Years. Things seem quiet, for the most part. But, then, January 2nd rolls around and the hangover wears off and it's back to business as usual.

You may have guessed that I like summer the best. Everyone seems happy and relaxed, even at their worst. Since New England is just one big winter with a couple of months of summer thrown in, people tend to be at their best when the ground thaws and the beaches start beckoning. I am guessing it is because the great outdoors allows us to actually have some breathing space from one another. We are not trapped in our homes, cars, offices, shopping malls... Such close closed quarters could drive anyone mad. Like the douchy woman that would rather block a whole line of people from checking out than move one inch to the right; or the jerk who blew the yield sign to the highway off-ramp, during an icy snow storm, and almost slammed right into me, flipping me off as he did it. I hate everyone.

I'm thinking my best plan of recourse is to just buy a private island in Tahiti and stay there during the month of December. I'll stock it up with everything I need to get me through. Maybe I'll start a Fundly or some online spare change crap that should really be used for people who need money to help them with Cancer treatments and not some jerk who wants to go out and buy an extra XBOX, while he is out of work. Did I mention I hate people? Good, because I do.