Sorry to all those who find Christmas to be a joyous occasion and anticipate it throughout the year. But that's how I feel. The Effinex used to say that... "bah-humfuck." I always found it to be a deliciously shocking statement that summed things up pretty nicely for me.
I used to like Christmas -- back in the late 80s, before I'd married The Effinex and was still enamoured with the whole idea of domesticity and do-it-yourselfedness. I was working at Chatelaine magazine at the time, and the production department was right across the hall from the test kitchen. Sometime around August the most delicious aromas used to start coming out of the test kitchen, making all our tummies rumble during the day while we were trying to concentrate on our work. Well, there were yummy smells coming out of the test kitchen all year, but especially in August when they were planning the recipe lineup for the Christmas issue.
Somehow, starting to plan for Christmas in August made it fun and got us all looking forward to it. But it also meant that by the time the real Christmas came along, we were "all Christmassed out." Still, I enjoyed it then because I had become part of a big, close family with all kinds of great Christmas traditions. Their Mum even gave me one of her hand-made traditional family Christmas stockings, which I still have, and get out every year to hang on my office door at work (it's my one concession to the Christmas spirit because it has such fond memories associated with it).
The best part about working at Chatelaine was all the goodies we got. Their published recipes were known for being "triple-tested," so you can imagine there was a lot of cooking going on. Not as much stuff came out for us to share in as you'd think though, for all the recipes they tested. I never did find out what happened to most of the food they made. They never shared meal-type stuff with us...just things that were easily picked up and carried off in our hands. I suspected the kitchen staff took most of the rest of it home, but I heard that some of it found its way to a soup kitchen now and then. I hope so, at least.
But the goodies were great. Several times a week (all year long, but especially at Christmas testing time in late summer), we'd come out of the production department to find a tray of cookies, or bars, or pieces of cake or tasty hors d'euvres of one kind or another. All kinds of great stuff found its way out to the big counter in the well-travelled hallway between the kitchen and the production department that everyone thought of as the give-away counter. It was so much assumed that anything on that counter was up for grabs that now and then one editor or another would have to go running around the office searching for items they'd laid down there without thinking, because it was such a convenient spot to put things to grab on the way out to a photo shoot or something. One time the fashion editor left a whole wardrobe for a fashion shoot on the counter, including shoes, and some of the items disappeared. I think she got them all back though.
That counter was also a repository for giveaway books, cosmetics, hosiery and all kinds of fun things that companies would send to Chatelaine hoping we'd write about them in the magazine. I amassed a very impressive collection of recipe books while working there. Mostly review copies that didn't have their real covers yet or hadn't even made their way completely through the editing process. Alas, all of them are gone now, victims of several moves, including two across the country, in which they just took up too much space and weight.
Anyway...that was then, and this is now. After working in the weekly newspaper business for the last 18 years, I've come to loathe the whole Christmas season. Sometime in early-to-mid November, you start to hear those dreaded words... "make it look Christmassy." Or maybe it would be "could you put a holly border on it, or ...oh! this would be nice...a Santa Claus graphic!"
Oh kill me now and get it over with.
So...that's why I hate Christmas. It has nothing to do with commercialization, or the dilution of the "true" meaning of Christmas. It's not because my family is Jewish and we celebrate Hannukah instead, or because I personally am an atheist and don't believe in all the Christmas stuff in the first place. I like turkey and stuffing. I like looking at Christmas lights, and being the blingy kinda gal I am, I love all the decorations and glitter and sparkly things that people haul out at this time of year. I've even considered getting myself a small Christmas tree to decorate at home. But I just can't do it. I'm all Christmassed out by the first week of December and all I can do is grit my teeth and hope it'll be over soon.
3 comments:
hear ya sista !
I remember SO well that famous white counter outside the art department at Chatelaine. The happy sound of a small or large "thunk" meaning the beginning of a counter full of books or food or even better, one of beauty editor Charmaine's clean-out-her-office-of-samples Beauty Bonanza. A counter full of lotions and potions and lipsticks that normally would cost your spending money (lunches and transit) for the week ... all free! free! free! I know I strong armed many a Chatelaine co-worker "out of my way beeyatch!"
have you read Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials ? I'm listening to Book 1 The Golden Compass and I'm loving it ! S.
LOL...that must account for the bruises on my ribs I went home with now and then! ;-) Those were the days though, eh? Do you ever hear from any of our former workmates there? Email me if you have.
As for Pullman's books, no I haven't read them yet, but you can be sure I've been hearing a LOT about them, as I follow many atheist blogs and they're all abuzz about the controversy. I almost picked up the first one earlier this week, but decided against it as I have several other books waiting to be read already. Hoping to see the movie Christmas week though!
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