I may vomit.
Anyway, the tree is up and finished. It looks like crap. Well, it looks like crap during the day. All trees look wonderful when the lights are on and all trees look like crap when they're off. Christmas trees. I'm not talking about the Liquid Amber on your parkway.
Not only do I suddenly find this just way too much work anymore, I find Christmas to be singularly unrewarding. There was always something kind of wonderful about getting the tree up around the first week-end of December, putting the outside light up over Thanksgiving week-end, unpacking the candles and tsotchkes that lined the mantel and I actually enjoyed the shopping...the crowds, the cold, the general festiveness. Entire evenings were planned around "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer."
I used to have our Christmas on Christmas Eve. People have so many places to go and this was ideal. We went to the Children's Mass at 5pm then came home. I loved the roast beef and yorkshire pudding for dinner, the gooey desserts, the flurry of paper in the living room as everyone took childish delight in being able to open gifts a mite "early". We saved our own gifts for Christmas morning, because the hubster hates opening gifts on Christmas Eve, I've no idea why.
Christmas morning were our personal gifts, a breakfast casserole and, as no more guests were coming we were off to Disneyland.
Disneyland was magical on Christmas. Crowded, yes. But wonderful. Dicken's carolers strolled up and down Main Street. Stores were open and there were wonderful things to buy, all on sale. The boys headed for Pirates and Space Mountain, the hubster would stroll the front of the park, listen to the band, the songs, ride the trolley and savor the sights and smells of a world we had, actually, never lived in.
Now? It's impossible to get any help, we have no place to store the tree, we FINALLY got the damn thing up yesterday and it took six hours from unpacking to the final star. No matter how carefully I wrapped the ornaments there were broken ones all over. Unfortunately there were ornaments I liked, all that Disney crap remains intact. I used to LOVE that Victorian Mickey and Minnie thing they did. My tree skirt looks like this:
Except it's not red...it's all cream. It was expensive even when I finally snagged it at half price and I loved it. I have some ornaments like that too. I wish those had broken. I wish the cat had peed on the tree skirt.
I think Disney sucks. I really do. Over the years, Disney has become one of the most corporate, money grubbing pieces of American arrogance in existence. In a time when the country is dying, financially and emotionally, Disney continues to wave happy times at your children while raising prices twice a year. The special trip everyone dreams of, the one Disney peppers your television with so your kids won't miss it, gets more and more expensive. do you have ANY idea how much it COSTS to go to freaking DISNEYLAND? $101 for a one day ticket. Of course it's cheaper for kids...provided they're under TEN. Because at 10 you pay full fare, buddy. A family of FOUR, looking for a splurge, a treat, something, anything to take them away from the crushing worries of this life we're living in America for ONE DAMN DAY will end up paying up to FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS to get in the fucking GATE!
This, I assume, is why Disneyland and all their accompanying fan clubs, is now filled with nothing but DINKS and arrogant, conservative, Fox "News" fans who look down their collective noses at the rest of the country and flash their $500 a year annual passes at the parking attendant as they cruise by in their gas guzzling SUVs and Mini Vans and talk about how wonderful it is that the lower classes can no longer afford such pleasures and if they just stopped spending carelessly on things like food, rent and new shoes for the kids they, too, would be enjoying the delights of the upper class.
Yes, I've known people on these boards, and I blame them in large part for ruining all things Disney for me. I know someone who claims to be a former teacher and a good mother. In the first place, I've never known a good mother who announced that fact. If you have to keep telling people something, you're probably making up for your severe deficiencies. Not only that, I know this person to have been deliberately and hatefully cruel to the children of friends...because she can't distinguish between an adults failure to kiss her ass and the fact that she courted the adults kids and then treated them like crap emotionally, dumping them, ignoring them, refusing all kindnesses sent by the kids of those she no longer considered her equals. This is NOT someone I want to hang out with and this is NOT someone I want to share anything with. If THIS is what hangs out at Disney parks now I want no part of them.
One of these days, I'm going to blast her unkindness to kids everywhere I can post. But for now, I'm really too busy for that kind of shit. She and her fat friends from the great, conservative, chest thumping "America, love it of leave it" counties of the state can keep strolling through the formerly family friendly streets of the Happiest Place on Earth, keeping themselves occupied by spewing hatred and disdain in their path.
I will continue to encourage the cat to play with all the Disney ornaments I have place within a paws reach of the ground, while making sure the ornaments from places I really and truly enjoy, like the Schulz Museum, remain snug and tight and out of reach of batting kitty paws. I will take great joy in thinking of those holier than thous strolling the streets of artificial snow and knowing that they're getting fleeced by the corporation that now stands for Disney.
Walt Disney once said "We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money."
Walt must be spinning like a lathe.
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