Bah Humbug!
How I exorcized my inner Grinch
by Adrienne "The Scrooge" Crezo

    I’ll be honest, and maybe you can relate; I don’t necessarily love Christmas… or at least I didn’t. While recent years have proven more enjoyable and less depressing, I have to admit that the holiday season has never been my favorite time of year. If I have a Ghost of Christmas Past, he’s a sad kind of guy.

Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, I was at work on a Friday, ready to leave and rushing to beat the crowd to the door. It was cold, overcast, and wet and sort of brownish (as winters tend to be), and I was ready to go home, lie down, and just give up on trying to clean the house or take care of business.

I trudged home through the slow-moving traffic, past the brown fields and muddy ditches, annoyed and melancholy. I wanted a nap… a month-long nap where there was no brown snow, no bell-ringing Santa at Wal-Mart, no swarm of histrionic children in the grocery store, no one trying to sell me $20 tins of chocolate raisins; I wanted a nap that would carry me through the whole season and leave me unscathed (and perhaps thinner?) on the other side.

Eventually I pulled into my driveway, only to step out of my car and straight into a mound of icy gray slosh. With my shoe soaked and pants wet to the shin, I hoofed it down my drive to check the mail, which I tossed unceremoniously into my purse before hiking back to my house. Once inside, I wasted no time changing into pajamas and snuggling up on the couch with the remote.

Sometime later, I remembered the mail in my purse. I rifled through the stack, separating the junk from the bills and a few Christmas cards. Feeling particularly grumpy, I laid the cards aside and checked all the bills, started dinner, and made a phone call.

hile on the phone, I sat down at my table and absently opened and read each card. The third or fourth envelope was not postmarked and there was no address on it. Someone had simply dropped it in our mailbox. Thinking it odd since our neighbors seemed unlikely candidates for anonymous Hallmark deliveries, I tore the envelope open and yanked out the contents. A stack of money spilled out over my table and into my lap, and I immediately hung up the phone.

The gift was not from a mysterious stranger, and though I tried, our not-so-secret Santa refused to take it back. Let me reiterate—I really, really tried, I promise. After I realized there was no budging, we used the extra cash to get gifts or gift cards for people who needed a little lift; I never expected it to elevate my attitude about the holidays, but it did. Is it selfish to give if it makes you feel better? I don’t know, and I’m hoping not, but regardless of my motives, everyone wins.

That particular Christmas changed my previously dismal outlook on the holiday season. Showing my daughter the best parts of the season—the small things that really matter—has helped all of us enjoy things that used to seem tedious.

Baking Christmas cookies has a new level of adventure, now that a three-year-old armed with cookie cutters is involved. Decorating the tree is an exercise in self-control and physical strength, especially since climbing has become the cool new activity of choice. Wrapping gifts has never been a chore for me, but now even that seems like more fun than before, which I thought was impossible. Better still, driving around looking at lights is fun again; after we took Malia the first time, she cried to see ‘trissmas lights’ any time we were outside after dark. And Santa—with a bell or not, outside collecting donations, indoors posing for pictures, or immortalized in a Claymation holiday special—is awesome in a way I can only hope to become.

Here’s to being more like Santa and less like Scrooge. Happy holidays!

Author Adrienne Crezo is a freelance writer, busy wife and mother, has a full-time job, and is a part-time student at Cameron University.