Christmas is only a few days away, and for me it still doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I've been stuck in one of those 20-something ruts where I just bum around wondering what the fuck I'm going to do with my life. It doesn't feel anything like candy canes, and especially not the fruity candy canes my grandmother would let me pluck off the tree and eat on Christmas morning. I haven't so much as touched a thread of tinsel in years, because there's some sort of consensus that our family is too good for messy things like tinsel. Even when I tried to get in the spirit by helping with the decorating, it was all so formulaic that I couldn't do much but stand there and be an extra hand to my mother. I can't even bake Christmas cookies without having to report on what kind, when, and how many.

When I was little I'd run my Fisher Price record player into the ground playing my Barbie Christmas record over and over. I loved that record to the end -- that end being it breaking, along with my record player. Having a little bit of money left over after buying presents, I decided to go on eBay and purchase a new copy. It arrived today, just as beautiful as I'd remembered it. I dug out the portable turntable we purchased a couple years ago, plugged it in, turned it on, and picked up the lever. The turn table didn't start spinning. I tried again and again, pulling the lever up, listening to it click, and still it didn't budge. The light was on, there was obviously juice in the thing, but it wouldn't play my album. Eventually I admitted defeat, packed the thing back up, put it away, went back to my room and bawled my eyes out.

I guess it seems strange to cry over some stupid little thing like the Barbie Christmas album. But that's just what Christmas is to me -- a lot of stupid little things. Stupid little things like completely mismatched ornaments looking as though they all belong together. Stupid little things like tiny tinsel trees that are now replaced with expensive designer snowman statues. Stupid little things like Christmas Muppet Baby plushies and hearing Santa tell Fred tis the season to be sharing his Fruity Pebbles! I can't have seen the Hershey's Kisses chiming to We Wish You a Merry Christmas more than 5 times, but I've seen the Heidi Klum Santa Baby commercial every 5 minutes! Where's Santa telling me to call his 900 number? Shouldn't he be at least telling me where I can text message my Christmas list?

To top it all off, we're not even getting snow for Christmas, just rain. Miserable, drenching, gray, stormy rain. I don't know why we're even bothering to visit relatives on Christmas day, because most of them won't be there. I'd rather just stay home with my family, a huge pan of lasagna, and my 16 presents of DVDs, DS games, and all the other things I already know I'm getting.