Just for fun, this weekend I'll be posting a few excerpts from A Year of Biblical Womanhood that relate to the holidays. I hope yours are joyous! NOTE: Don't read if you don't have a sense of humor. Wrote this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. :-)
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Okay, I’m just going to come right out and say it: A lot of women secretly hate Christmas.
Now, don’t get me wrong. We love that picturesque moment in which the tree is lit, the fire is crackling, and children outfitted in matching candy-cane pajamas dance around the living room to Tchaikovsky, showing off armfuls of new toys while a twenty-pound ham bakes in the oven; we just hate the anxiety disorder we developed while attempting to produce it.
There seems to be some kind of universal agreement that the advances achieved through women’s liberation need not apply during the holidays. It’s as though the first trumpet peals of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” sent blasting over the PA at Bed Bath & Beyond are designed to trigger an internal short that shocks us all into Stepford mode, donning aprons and strained smiles and sweaters that have no business surviving another decade.
From the baking aisle to the post office line to the wrapping paper bin in the attic, women populate every forgotten corner of Christmas.
Who got up at 4 a.m. to put the turkey in the oven?
A woman.
Who elbowed you out of the last reindeer Pillow Pet left on the shelf?
A woman.
Who sent the Christmas card describing her eighteen-year old son’s incarceration as “a short break before college”?
A woman.
Who remembered to include batteries at the bottom of each stocking?
A woman.
And who gets the credit for pulling it all off?
Santa.
That’s right. A man.
Oh, we would be a lot angrier about all of this if we weren’t so tired. But by the time the 25th rolls around, we’re all out of fight. Drained of our humanity, we have more important things to attend to—dishes, returns, disappointed in-laws, and a mild addiction to whatever holiday-themed Starbucks product we were pumping through our systems that year...
Read the rest in A Year of Biblical Womanhood.
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