Bahumbug.... Sort of

For once I write here not directing my unhappiness towards a very particular person. He and I are beyond happy. I am lucky in that regard.

I have a festive niggle I have to get off my chest.

It revolves around a tree, as most Yultide problems in my family do.

I'll go towards the tree itself. I live in the hostel and we usually put up a tree, most people being Christian oriented (though not practicing). This year, no one put up a tree. It was the 21st of December and no one had fetched a tree. No one had called, no one had gone up the hill. They had spent their nights drinking and drinking. I came back from Holiday back home in Canada, no tree, just a mess. I came back from holiday out East in Aberdeenshire, no tree.

So, there has been this scrawny little thing in the middle of the yard blinking at me for well over a year and a half. It was cramped in a small pot.

The little fur in the pot.

I brought it in and decorated the wee thing, excited and proud that we would have a little tree for Christmas. I suppose I was proud that I'd taken initiative. And after, I AM going to re plant it on the hill behind us.

The end result was a Charlie Brown job.

But everyone just kind of made fun of it. "Come on, its too scrawny. Too sad. Pathetic."

I was really hurt by this. I adamantly defended the tree, but on the 23rd of December, the Manager above me ordered a new one pointing out that it needed to be up to be paid for, yet at no point had he offered to cancel it when he said he'd ordered it a few days ago.

Perhaps i'm being bahumbugy, but I tend that way around this time of year. I'm far away from home and Christmas is a time for me when we think of others. Perhaps my staff had different expectations. Perhaps my staff are sad and lonely. Yet I feel like they were thoughtless comments and actions. It hurt, and I clearly said and expressed how I felt, and still the other tree was put up. It just kinda hurt.

Sometimes I think around Christmas People don't think either. They don't think to ask and I feel guilty for getting a thing I immediately know I will never touch again. They mean so well and yet I have no desire to keep this thing, to have it at all. I would have been happy with nothing at all because the few things I said I needed, I actually have to go shop for now. Perhaps its me being selfish.

Things. We focus way to much on things instead of being together, and it seems its very much engrained in me. C'est La Vie.

Thinking about it now though, I was fortunate enough to have two other Christmases and the thing I liked about both of them was the food and the sitting together and enjoying each others company. I should let it pass and think myself lucky. I have the best present this year. I have the love I've longed for above all things, safe arms to go to and no more fear.

Happy Holidays and I hope you are with people who love you.