Holiday Rituals

Written by Anika Henrikson

It's easy to get swept up in the romance of the holidays. All that cheer! The merriment! Decking the halls, caroling, and what have you. So many holiday-themed events are coming up, including Ronald McDonald Houses' Enchanted Forest and BARC's Magical Forest, and Bakersfield seems to be straddling the cusp of Autumn evenings and Winter nights. I can smell Christmas in the air. Or at least I think it's Christmas...it's hard to tell with the piña colada-scented air freshener in my car.

In the '80s and early '90s, I used to love to listen to my parents' Percy Faith Holiday LP over and over in the months preceding Christmas. You heard me right...months. That record was 45 minutes of pure holiday magic. I would beg my dad to dig out all the “holiday vinyl” the day after Halloween. “Holiday Vinyl” was my parents' term for the ghastly Christmas records they tried to pretend didn't exist most of the year. I suppose their term had a softer connotation than Disney's Christmas All Time Favorites or, as I referred to it: “Micky's Christmas Record!” After all, isn't it better to pretend you don't own a version of “The First Noel” sung by Molly Ringwald? And imagine the pain of having to listen to Goofy sing various carols for over half an hour, every day, for more than a month. As an adult, I can attest to the fact that if you're not 6 years old, the entire record feels like some sort of auditory assault.

Still, I couldn't wait to start celebrating. It started with the music and moved to food. I'd request Christmas cookies while my mom was still basting the Thanksgiving turkey and then I'd demand turkey gravy with every meal until New Year's. The 25 days leading up to Christmas became “Anika's 50 days of Christmas.”

There was something so ethereal about Christmas for me. The snow, the twinkling lights, the laughter. Everything just seemed so grand and wonderful. Crackling fires, bountiful bowls of homemade fudge, and did I mention presents? Admittedly, at this point in my life, my parents and I were living in Southern Idaho, and every Christmas was a white Christmas. That definitely gives a kid a certain unrivaled buzz.

Nowadays, the holidays mean something different, but an element of that romance is still there for me. I still decorate my house, bake Christmas cookies, sing along with Christmas music in my car, and demand turkey gravy with every meal (kidding...sort of). But I have been forced, or forced myself rather, to curb my holiday cheer a bit. Part of that comes with age and responsibility. And sadly, part of that comes with being jaded.

After 25 Christmases, the urgency lessens. You don't feel like you have to put your tree up right after Thanksgiving dinner (as was tradition at my grandma's house); you can wait until December 12 before you start baking Christmas cookies. Call it burnout. After I don't know how many years of starting my Christmas cheer right after Halloween, when I was stuffed to the gills with sugar, I began restraining myself. I just couldn't rationalize my promotion of Christmas for months beforehand. It was silly. It was wasteful.

My solution? I'd harness my Christmas spirit, keep it locked up and growing like a little Christmas baby inside me, and I wouldn't release it until Thanksgiving dinner was done, and the pie had been eaten. And so for the last few years, I've done just that. Christmas doesn't officially start for me until that last piece of pumpkin pie has been swallowed and at least partially digested. After that, I go nuts!

However, one thing hasn't changed out of all my seemingly-fickle Christmas rituals. And that is the viewing of The Muppet Christmas Carol to herald in the Official Christmas Season. A showing takes place, without fail, no matter whose house I'm at, without fear of retribution, every fourth Thursday in November.

It's not your typical Dickensian re-telling. Gonzo plays a furry Mr. Dickens who, with his pal Rizzo, narrates our story. There's also an abundance of Muppet-performed ditties (not to mention a few performed by Michael Caine, our Scrooge) including “One More Sleep 'Til Christmas,” and a delightful Christmas scat by Kermit, as Bob Cratchit, and a little frog Muppet, as Tiny Tim. Enchanting.

I guess the point of all this is to encourage anyone who has lost their Christmas spirit to find it again and celebrate this super-awesome season the way you want to. If that means taking your family to a great holiday event, so be it (and keep your eyes peeled for A-List ticket giveaways). If that means eating an entire tin of fudge and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation until you pass out in your papasan chair, feel free to relish in that glory. Christmas only happens once a year.

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