21st Century Scrooge

How last-minute Christmas shopping acquainted me with an uncomfortable truth.

Something interesting happened to me the other day—something that I was kind of embarrassed about afterwards, but that turned out to be a pivotal moment for me.

John and I were doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, and we decided to go to Crate & Barrel to cash in some store credit we’ve been harboring since our wedding. Our ploy for ‘free Christmas presents’ resulted in us still spending a decent chunk of our own money, and buying so much crap that an employee had to roll all of our stuff out of the store on a huge three-tiered cart.

John went to get the car as I finished paying, and then, on my way out, I was face-to-face with my nightmare: making small-talk with the girl who was assigned as my personal bellboy.

There were several uncomfortable aspects of this. The first was that a stranger was dragging my stuff that I bought from this fancy store, and despite the fact that I had come here with the intention of spending a gift card and having it be a ‘budget’ option, I felt like the worst type of lazy aristocrat. So, despite this really being a one-person job and despite the fact that I was probably getting in her way, I grabbed the other side of the cart to feign ‘helpfulness.’

It was a long journey—one which required a ride in a cramped employees-only elevator that me, the girl, and the giant cart stacked with boxes just barely fit into. The thirty seconds felt like an eternity. Neither of us were sure whether to look at one another or to look away. I racked my brain for anything to break the silence and finally, she said, “Are you excited for Christmas?”

Small talk! This is when you’re supposed to smile and say “yeah,” maybe say who you’re spending the day with and who the six tons of gifts you just bought were for and ask the person what their plans were for the holiday.

My mouth moved faster than my brain, though, and I blurted out, “Actually, no.”

How’s that for brutal honesty?

First of all, although I harbor some Scrooge-like tendencies, over the past couple of years I’d finally managed to make peace with the holidays. John loves Christmas, and I’d like to think that I absorbed some of his positivity. Plus, it’s our first Christmas married, a fact which has been commemorated on so many tree ornaments that it must be a big deal. We have a Christmas tree, a Christmas village, and not one, but two nativity sets. What’s more, I genuinely like looking at the stuff. I like the memories attached to all our ornaments and decorations and hand-me-downs. It all brightens the house, makes me feel like a kid again. In other words, I could’ve just said, “Yeah, I love this time of year” and idly endured the rest of my awkward elevator ride, allowing me and my bell-girl to both fade out of one another’s memory.

Instead I’m standing there, my cheeks redder than Santa’s after six shots of whiskey, wishing desperately to take back my statement while simultaneously wondering where it had come from.

To my surprise, she responds, “Yeah, me either. It’s not the same when you get older.”

“Right?” I say. “You just have so much to do, and the month of December goes by so fast now.”

“Maybe it gets better again when you have kids.” She shrugs, and the elevator door opens, and I go back to awkwardly pretending to manipulate the cart while she does all the work anyway, and I turn the wrong way because I don’t know where the door is, and all the while I’m kicking myself for not just walking while pretending to answer a really important message on my phone like I’m sure almost anyone else would have done in this situation.

I ignored the whole thing, chalked it up to my strange, off-putting habit of defaulting to complaining when stuck in awkward conversation. In hindsight, though, I think that it was actually one of those rare moments of complete authenticity. Neither of us knew each other, or wanted anything to do with one another, or would ever see one another again. Honesty is not expected in this situation. Hell, brain function is not expected in this situation. Producing idle words is just something you do, like when you pass a co-worker in a hallway and one of you asks, “hey, how are you?” and the other replies, “how are you?”

Sometimes strangers are the only people that we can be truly honest with. We don’t want to burden our family and friends with negativiy. We put on happy faces for one another because, at the end of the day, it actually does make everyone happier.

In other words, it’s complicated. Something and its opposite can be true at the same time. We can like Christmas while still kind of dread the Christmas Eve/Christmas Day errands and obligations. We can spend the entire day anxious and overwhelmed but still look back on it fondly. Everyone is reckoning with uncomfortable feelings at the same time, and the pressure for everything to be nice can be the greatest buzz-kill of all.

If anything, we can at least be happy that it’s over.

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