Humbug!

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.
--Bill Vaughn

Except for kids still intoxicated by their first drinks and their first kisses, everyone agrees that New Year's Eve is our most overrated holiday. For a while, I was afraid it was just me -- that everyone except, pathetically, myself was having an hilarious time. But I finally looked around and realized that the only folks having an hilarious time were the sorts who also had hilarious times on Arbor Day and John Quincy Adams's Birthday.

But this year, for maybe the first time, I've also wondered if the entire week between Christmas and New Year's is also overrated. Looking around at happy people on the street, however, this time I'm sure it really is just me.

As a kid, the week following Christmas was a riotous exercise in the joys of consumption -- playing with every toy, building with every building set, challenging friends and siblings to play every game -- riding new bikes, blowing myself up with new chemistry sets, causing catastrophic collisions with new electric train sets¹ -- all in the dreamy illusion that vacation from school would last forever. Finally, I'd wake up dazed on New Year's Day, put on the funny hats my folks brought home from a dance or party, gaze around at the demolished remnants of my Christmas presents -- and face the cold reality that school began in the next day or so.

But while it lasted, Christmas week was the veritable Mardi Gras of childhood.

As the years passed, the orgiastic aspects of the week were left behind, but there remained the satisfaction of hanging out with relatives I didn't see the rest of the year, lots of good things to eat, Christmas decorations to enjoy, and general good humor all around.

This year, I had a very enjoyable Christmas with relatives in Sonoma, but unaccountably had made reservations to return to Seattle the night of December 27. I returned home to a quiet, chilly, undecorated house -- a dark and austerely Cromwellian outpost in a dazzling world still celebrating the feasts and festivals of Merry Olde England -- greeted only by my two loving but somewhat prim feline companions.

Where did Christmas disappear to so suddenly? Surely, even Cromwell must have had his moments of doubt, moments when he felt he'd gone too far? That he'd thrown the baby out with the bath?

Anyway, Christmas week ends Friday, after which the festive Yule coach turns back into stale pumpkin pie for everyone, and we can all join together in putting our noses to the workaday grindstone.

At least, before it's over, there'll still be some hella good bowl games to re-warm my icy heart.

But next Christmas, I'm going to plan things out better!

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¹When I got bored creating devastating railway accidents, I found I could amuse myself by connecting my transformer's power pole to the ground pole with a piece of wiring. Observation: (1) Sparks fly; (2) the wire vibrates frantically, making a satisfying buzzing noise; (3) the wire begins to smoke; and (4) the insulation melts and burns off the wire. The short circuit fortunately could not draw enough power through the transformer to blow a fuse out in the garage (which would have resulted in my father's blowing his own fuse).