Kids like Christmas. Then you grow up and it can wear on you a bit. There’s additional pressure put on you, and you’ve got plenty of that already.

I’ve succumbed to the temptation to become Scrooge in reverse, and I’m sorry for it. By Scrooge in reverse, I mean starting out my life filled with the good humor and wonder of the holiday, and ending up crabby, dyspeptic, and miserly about the whole business afterward.

There will be no Bah Humbug for me this year. I will not execrate my gifts and regale you with stories of dysfunctional family gatherings. I am not already planning on returning anything. If there’s anything bad about the holiday, we bring it along with us. You can always keep your perspective about the thing, ignore the voluminous minefields placed around it by those who do not understand it fully, and enjoy it for the good humor and generosity of spirit that’s in it. No one’s forcing you to be a jerk on Christmas.

“A Christmas Carol” begins: Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Kinda grim, huh? It ends with:

..and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

There, that’s better. I hereby promise to get it in the right order, just like Dickins, for all the days of my life.