A Very Grownup Christmas: Things that Happen When You Feel Like a Kid, but Have to Be a Grownup

Friends, an interesting thing has happened to me in the past couple of years. It feels like I've acquired some kind of terminal illness where I'm supposed to give money to the government, pretend I like giving rather than receiving happily give gifts to my friends and family, and un-ironically say things like "back in my day..." This disease is called adulthood, and I would very much like to find a cure for it immediately.

I may have mastered the whole wearing hats that aren't animal faces thing (that happened like yesterday, I don't want to talk about it), and I can do that bit where I go "I'm Kira, and I do impressive things; please hire me!" But the one time I struggle to be a grownup is every single day Christmas.

The thing about Christmas, is that my family made it a month-long shindig. This, friends, is one of the perks of coming from a divorced family. My parents were all "oh, we can't be together as one big happy family? Let me give you all the material goods in the world!"

If love can't come from a giant collection of obscenely priced American Girl dolls, I don't know what can. 

Since then, our Christmases have leveled out a little bit, but my feelings towards Christmas seem to have not received the memo.

For instance, everyone knows that the best way to start hating Christmas is to enter a grocery store any time between December 1st-24th. Having worked at Wegmans for 3 years, I should hate anything and everything involving the holiday season. But somehow, when a customer says "what do you mean you don't have sturgeon caviar?? Everything is horrible, and you've ruined my Christmas!" I cannot muster the strength to give the typical "glare-and-say-passive-aggressive-things" response. Instead, I smile and go, "but it's Christmas!" as though that should solve every bad mood in the world.

The only good thing about this disheartening realization about the holidays is that I can drown my sorrows in alcohol drink responsibly, which everyone knows is the true meaning of Christmas.

However, the other thing that happens to me on Christmas is an abuse of online shopping. This can go two ways. I'll spend an hour looking for one nice, thoughtful gift for my friends and family. My friend group, apparently, has not heard of secret santa, so all us broke college students decide to spend exorbitant amounts of money (that none of us have) on gifts. But the thing is, I'll start off with one cute tee-shirt for my friend. Then I'll find a million other things that would be absolutely perfect for her, and all of a sudden my hand is directing me to click on "purchase" until my credit card limit explodes.

Even sadder to admit is that I do this for myself. It's like I know that it's ridiculous to buy myself $100 flat irons, but wrapping it up in overpriced paper and slapping a sticker that reads "to Kira from Santa" makes it okay. That's still another $100 that I don't have, but hey, Christmas is all about giving, right? Including giving to yourself, said no one ever.

It's not greedy if it's from Santa

At least I've mastered the art of sleeping in on Christmas. That's adult-ish, right?

Merry Christmas!