winter is blue

"Street in the Evening, Prague" by Jakub Schikaneder 

i find myself wondering what led to my hatred for the holidays. perhaps it’s the cold, or the overtly cheerful music, or the way slush builds on the streets of toronto. i can’t quite decide which i despise the most. 

and no, i would not consider myself a rather hateful person. i enjoy many things — listening to music in the car, dancing with my friends, reading cheesy fanfiction from 2019 that puts the literary fiction novels collecting dust on my shelves to shame. there is certainly something beautiful about existence, but i simply cannot find it when november rolls around. 

my parents are big fans of the season — i was born on the 23rd of december, making me their self-proclaimed “christmas miracle.” however, their opinions never seemed to persuade my own. 

to me, the holidays represented a figment of joy, something fictitious and unauthentic, even. as a kid, i watched my mother, with her bright smile, wrap presents we both knew she couldn’t afford at the time. my father, absent as he was, would come around singing mariah carey, as if her angelic voice could drown out the eternal question of “why do you stay?” it was evident that they were miserable. 

the bills on the table would plague my mother, and as soon as december 25th passed, my father would, once again, disappear into his world of work. i could barely hold on to the infectious contentment that came with the season before reality settled in. the realization that this, just as all else, was fleeting. ephemeral. 

as i grew, i became more aware of the truth. christmas, and the holidays in general, were a mask you wore to disguise what mattered with something sparkling. something so grand that it managed to bring an entire nation together, for a single moment, in caroling and baking and skating and festivities. even when you were buried in debt or work. it was something that you could hold for just a second and lie about the fact that life was dragging you six feet under. 

i think my disdain was born from that realization. that, even when we lie, we cannot escape the tragedies of life.
people love, people hurt, people die, people live. the amalgamation of experiences are simply too heavy to hold — yet the holidays made them seem warmer. no matter what you experienced, you could push it aside for a month or two, in the name of something entirely false. something built from capitalist propaganda and religious infliction. something that persists, after all these years. 

i wonder if i will become like my parents. when the world gets tougher than it already is (for i’ve only just began my adult endeavours), will i too hold on to the mask of hope that the holidays bring? will i forget my philosophies in favour of a glimmer of satisfaction? that this, the life i live, is worth it, even when everything else makes it seem otherwise. 

for now, i shall stay wondering. for winter is blue, like the vashti bunyan song. how i hate the holidays.