Kid Christmas vs "Grown Up" Christmas

When I was a child (roughly encompassing ages 3-12), Christmas was a fucking miracle, and not for the traditional reason of Christ’s birth that some people think it’s about.  Christmas was better than Chuck E Cheese, Disneyland, and the Puzzle Place theme song put together, and I’m sorry, but no way something as trivial as Jesus being born could hold a candle to that analogy.  No, Christmas was pure awesome.  As soon as I was able to change the “11” to “12” in the date at the top of my first grade addition and subtraction worksheets, I could feel the tingle of anticipation start to flow through my six year old limbs.  It’s almost Christmas. 

The next few weeks would be a magical whirlwind endeavor of preparation, from diligently sticking red and green tissue paper on ornaments with way too much Tacky Glue in class to rocking a homemade reindeer sweater for a picture with Santa at the Brea Mall and describing precisely the kind of Mulan doll I expected to receive from him in a few days (the girly one, not the soldier - as a seven year old, pretty princess outfits were still a larger priority than the notion of gender equality).  Every aspect of life screamed FESTIVITY and the anticipation culminated on the night of December 24th, when I clearly remember lying in my bed, adrenaline pumping, as I strained to hear what would certainly be Santa’s sleigh bells at any moment. 

Christmas when you’re a grown up isn’t the same experience as Christmas when you’re a kid.  This is a fact that I hate to admit and one I’ve actively tried to deny through the fervent continuation of traditions including blasting holiday music, re-watching “Elf”, and making gingerbread houses from the $10 kit at Michael’s.  But even though the traditions remain the same, to my older self they just don’t feel as exciting as they used to.  And that’s okay.

Because I’m finding that instead, I’m starting to get excited about things I never thought I would as a kid at Christmas time.  Things like:

1.  Money instead of Presents

I used to shake my head in disappointment at the thoughtless and out-of-touch relatives who chose to give me cash instead of toys at Christmas.  One, it’s extremely anticlimactic to unwrap, and two, how the hell am I supposed to play with two twenty dollar bills while my cousins are zooming around the house with their new Barbie convertibles?  Now, I salivate at the idea of getting money for Christmas.  When I see that $40 my brain thinks “YES, groceries! So I won’t starve this week after all!” and it’s a wonderful thing to be able to celebrate your prolonged survival.

2.  Holiday Parties

Attending holiday parties used to be one of the only boring parts of Christmas as a kid.  While my mom and dad were busy in important catch-up conversation with old friends, I would awkwardly sit on the floor with those friends’ kids in silence until thank god, one of the adults figured they’d save us by plugging in the N64 and we’d whittle away those long hours in Super Smash fights.  Now that I’m a grown up, I have the amazing ability to attend holiday parties of my own!  These involve sparkly dresses, spiced cider, and great people - what’s not to love?  Although sometimes I secretly think a little N64 could totally bring these gatherings to the next level of greatness. 

3.  Drinking at Family Functions

When I was little, I never really understood why my mom/aunts became so loud and sing-y and giggly and dance-y at Christmas dinner.  I guess I always assumed they were just really happy to see each other.  Now that I’m of drinking age, I realize why they act like this because I do the same under the influence of four glasses of wine.  Drinking with your friends is great, but doing it with your relatives is like an out-of-body experience. 

4.  Disneyland with a Boy

Of course I loved going to Disneyland at Christmas as a kid, but it was a very me-focused experience.  The parents/siblings/friends who came with me were irrelevant; all that mattered was going on Star Tours as many times as humanly possible and waving to the princesses in the Holiday parade.  Now that I’m a grown up, Disneyland at Christmas is about sharing a special experience with people I love.  And going to Disneyland with a boy is almost as magical as going as a little kid, except you do things like take cute pictures in front of the castle and make out in Haunted Mansion instead.     …And now I wish I had a boy to take to Disneyland this year, damn.  *cough*butgoingdrunkwithfriendswillbejustasgood*cough*

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So in conclusion, we might be a little nostalgic for the days of unadulterated joy that Santa’s visits brought us as kids, but being a grown up doesn’t mean Christmas can’t be magical anymore.  So today, have a great time with your family, possibly get drunk with them, give some gifts and receive some more (remember, money = prolonged survival), and GO SEE LES MISERABLES!  That last part is important. 

Happy Holidays <3

Seven Things That Will Happen to You Post-Graduation

1.  The sun will become a rare and precious commodity. 

If you live in California, you get a lot of sun, right?  You feel its warming rays routinely while walking to class, dodging the flyerers on BruinWalk, eating lunch outside, etc etc sun is nice and it’s always there during the day and you don’t think much about it. 

When you graduate and get a 9-5 job, your entire attitude towards sunlight will change.  You are inside an office building all day; you never see the sun on the weekdays.  It’s basically like when you have a boyfriend you’re used to hanging out with constantly and then he moves a few hours away so now you only see him on the weekends.  You get anxious then semi-depressed because of it and find excuses to go on ten minute walks where you just stand on the sidewalk with your eyes closed and your head tilted back in ecstasy, savoring every second the sunlight warms your face and for ten minutes you feel like a real person again.  I guess the boyfriend analogy equivalent of this is a ten minute Skype call or something, but sadly, I will never know what that feels like because I developed a severe fear of webcams my first year of college when my eco-terrorist people-hating roommate had her creepy boyfriend on Skype literally at all hours of the day and night and he would watch me sleep and he was therefore essentially Big Brother, only a vegan version.

2.  All of a sudden, you will have more free time on your hands than you know what to do with.  

You know all those 7 PM meetings and 8-10 rehearsals you had to go to and studying you had to do?  Those are all gone now.  After the clocks strikes 5, you are out of work and completely free!  To do….what?  What is life exactly without USAC meetings and a cappella rehearsals?  People handle this sudden freedom differently.  Some flourish and dedicate this time to the pursuit of new hobbies and working out.  Some panic and delve into the deep corners of the Internet and Netflix specifically.  So now you know why so many recent college graduates have been “liking” all your statuses lately.  We have so much goddamn time on our hands!

3.  Fun won’t just fall into your lap anymore; you must actively pursue it.

If you don’t want to spend all of your days on your Facebook newsfeed, you gotta be aggressive in finding new things to do with all this new free time.  I’ve been trying everything from playing basketball in the park with twelve year olds (they won….I bought them slurpies) and drawing chalk murals on the sidewalk with traveling artists (we got free pizza! the homeless have hella hookups) to hitting on then going out with my restaurant server (while on a failed online date) and becoming famous at the local dive bar’s weekly Karaoke night (this is as famous as I will ever get, but I have come to terms with that).  You have to be bolder than you’ve ever been before and this will be scary at first.  But the possibilities are limitless if you smile at people, start conversations, and generally carpe the fuck out of your diem.

4.  You can still drink every night- you just have to get started a lot earlier in order to successfully wake up for work the next day.  

I figured out the hard way that you can’t really just drink yourself into oblivion until three AM and wake up fully functional for work at 7.  Instead, this will happen.  Thankfully, God invented this brilliant thing called the Happy Hour, and you can be tossing back a Corona as early as 5:15 now (for a discounted price, too!).  Thank you for your generosity God, for now post-grads everywhere can still cling on to this one familiar part of our college years.  You just have to shift the drinkage up four hours or so so you can be tucked in bed by midnight (a good theory, anyway).  You’ll feel weird at first being hammered before sunset but you’ll quickly get over this.  

5.  Your circle of friends will shrink by at least 80%.  

In college, you have access to thousands of kids your age all within a mile radius of you.  Friendship, and mass friendship at that, is very easy.  When you graduate and move away, this ends.  A seven minute walk from De Neve Commons to Hedrick Summit (a trek we only made when we were feeling super active and generous) turns into a 30 minute BART train ride to SF- and that’s if you’re lucky.  Therefore, you quickly learn who the people in your life are that matter.  You’ll let go of 80% of your college “friends”, but that’s okay, because quality is better than quantity, and all those college friends will still like your Facebook statuses (the one instance where quantity matters, let’s be real). 

6.  You’ll struggle with your identity as an alumni of your respective college organizations.  

You love your old college groups and you want to stay connected to them, but you also don’t want to EVER be the creepy alumni who still hangs out on campus and is awkwardly present at all the rehearsals and in the most extreme cases, is fucking co-chair of one of the student government political parties (he doesn’t even go here!!).  It’s a complicated situation.  I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time wondering where exactly the line is between “supportive” and “creepy”.  I think going back to visit your orgs maybe once a quarter is okay.  Twice if you bring wine.

You’ll also have a HUGE urge to tell them all the things they are doing wrong and how you would have done it better, but you no longer are allowed to have a say in how the organization is run.  Instead, you must settle for occasionally posting passive aggressive remarks on Facebook with sassy hashtags (why is this the third time I’ve mentioned Facebook statuses in one post? Unhealthy). 

7.  You’ll discover there is a work life equivalent of high school prom and college sorority date nights- it is the company holiday party. 

One of the reasons I was sad to leave college was saying goodbye to eagerly-anticipated events like end of the year banquets, culture nights, annual club events, and date nights (okay I never went to a date night but maybe somewhere a sorority girl is reading this).  Maybe the working world doesn’t have those things, but there is one event that is the biggest deal ever:  the company holiday party.  Yeah, I used a picture of the Harry Potter Yule Ball to represent it because it’s THAT BIG OF A DEAL.  The company holiday party is glamorous.  There is speculation for weeks as to where it will be held.  There are free drinks and amazing three course meals.  There are presents that sometimes involve iPads.  AND YOU CAN BRING A DATE JUST LIKE THE YULE BALL.  Okay, granted I didn’t bring a date to mine but I still got sufficiently hammered, and that’s the important part.

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So in conclusion, post-grad life is definitely different, takes time to adjust to, but offers its own unique experiences for you to discover and a lot of these are good.  Yay!