Honolulu Lite
Christmas season is too
stressful for just 1 monthI was on my way to meet a friend for a "Christmas lunch" the other day and stopped at a red light on Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe when I looked in the rearview mirror. The driver of the van behind me was giving me the "one-finger salute." Actually, he was saluting with both hands, his face contorted in what I took to be a snarl. He continued saluting after the light turned to green and we began moving again. He was steering, saluting and mouthing apparently naughty words in my general direction in a display of dexterity you don't see every day.
I apparently had done something to set this guy off but had no idea what. I'm pretty sure I didn't cut him off, tailgate him or make fun of his "Live Aloha" bumper sticker. If he had to be mad at somebody, he should have been mad at the lady in the SUV with a "Child on Board" decal on her rear window who practically ran us both off the road before racing away, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi-ho Silver!"
I decided the irate van man was simply suffering from the stress of the season. There's a lot of that going around. But just in case he was merely insane, I floored it and soon passed the fleeing Lone Range Rover with her terrified child on board flattened against the safety seat like a test pilot in a centrifuge.
Mom took no notice of me flying by, being engaged in a serious telephone conversation at the time while lighting a cigarette, tapping out an e-mail message on her laptop, touching up her makeup and adding cream to her Starbucks coffee. (Nobody just drives a vehicle anymore. It's like everyone is in training for Cirque du Soleil. "I can juggle flaming torches AND drive the kids to soccer!")
DECEMBER IS THE most stressful time of year. You take what should be a perfectly normal month wherein you have to deal with the usual work, traffic, housecleaning, making meals and shuttling the kids all over creation, and throw on top of that having to shop in crowded malls, drink heavily at a succession of parties, decorate your house, wrap presents, mail greeting cards and attend a staggering number of Christmas concerts, skits and pageants where the average age of the perpetrators is 6 years old. And throughout it all, you are expected to remain pleasant.
Is it any wonder that people snap? That's too much pressure to dump into one month. Retail stores have done what they can to stretch the holidays out. It's not uncommon to see Santas appear in department stores on the 5th of July. But retailers aren't so much interested in relieving stress as in relieving you of the burden of all those dollars cluttering up your wallet or purse.
With only few days before Christmas and the New Year a week later, we all need to rev down a bit. Don't dwell on all the chores yet to be done. Don't let morons who give you the double "one-finger salute" ruin your mood. Appreciate the little things, like how when cutting gift-wrapping paper, the scissors sometimes just slide through the paper like a razor without you having to chop at it. That is so cool.
Or really watch the bubbles in a glass of champagne dance to the top of the glass. Take some time to sit quietly, close your eyes and reflect on the true meaning of the season. Preferably, not while driving.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com