not even a mouse

somehow i always get insomnia on christmas eve. it's always happened, although i think my reasons for it were different when i was younger. but ever since i discovered staying up late was cool, christmas eve is when it hits me. silly, since one wants to be awake and alert on christmas day. it's like the get out of jail free card day. it's the only day where you can be like, "but it's christmas!" and your mom is like, "...yeah it is!" and you want to be there for that. and your family gives you sweet gifts, i mean nobody knows you better than they do, right? and you don't want to be yawning. because there is no way you are going to take a nap on christmas. because every relative you have is wanting to ask the same three questions (how's school/your boyfriend/your job? when are you getting a better education/boyfriend/job? whatever happened to your old education/boyfriend/job? we liked that one so much.) and every seven year old cousin you have is going to be bouncing on your bed (look what i got/will you play this with me/what did you get/want to watch me fart with my knees?) and your mom is going to keep coming in and saying things like "it's such a beautiful day/why don't you play with your cousin/when are you getting a better boyfriend/job/education?"

i have digressed. the point is, christmas is crazy, at least in this household, and i need all the rest i can get. so why do i deprive myself of it every year? especially when now i sort of feel like i'm going through the motions. no one in our family kids themselves about santa. so why make such a big deal of it? tradition.......i guess tradition is important to me, really. i do derive quite a bit of pleasure from all the christmas decorations my family gets out every year and the big tree and christmas tablecloths and glasses and candles and advent calendar and thousands of cookies and gingerbread houses and plum pudding and prime rib....it's just sometimes i wonder why we go to all the trouble. i quickly find the answer in the smile on my grandmother's face when we sit around the fire after dinner reading christmas stories.

a burns tradition for years, every christmas we haul out the christmas stories. my mother reads The Polar Express (yes it was a book first), my grandmother reads the Bible (the birth of jesus and the visitation of gabriel), my cousin reads "A Visit From St. Nicholas" ('Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house...) and I read O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. it's always pretty dorky and we all know that, but it is unbelievably comforting to hear my mother read the same story to me when i'm almost 22 as she read when i was 2. and it's the only bible story i find really magical. and i LOVE the gift of the magi. i mean i looove it. one of the best short stories ever. so funny. and so good. and so redeeming and life-affirming. you should read it immediately.

i don't know what i'm talking about anymore. oh yeah, insomnia. i can never sleep because there is so much weight put on the next day. not just your typical weight. it's like, christmas comes once a year. it's sort of the beginning of a six-day period that's really a limbo--between years. once you hit christmas, you're pretty much done. that's it. no turning back, no regrets allowed, the year has happened, happened, for better or worse, and you just have to accept it. and being home for the holidays (not that i haven't been at home for five months already) is stagnant. nothing to do but think. about the coming year, the past year, what you've left behind, what lies ahead. what paths have you altered/destroyed/ignored/leapt to? what paths will cross again? all these and more are the heavy, heavy questions that weigh on my mind. *yawn* i'm actually getting sleepy while typing this. maybe all i needed was to BLOG on christmas eve, yeah, that's what i've been missing!!

what are your christmas traditions? mine is go to bed by 3 am the morning of.

have a good one.