It's a holly-holly-day, right?

Halloween approaches once again. Or so I hear, can read from your various blogs, and even see from the ubiquitous orange (the only color I truly and utterly abhor. Just a tidbit of info should any of you feel the pressing need to send me flowers. Or T-shirts and bellbottoms. Or tigers) and black.

I have only one thing to say about Halloween and holidays in general.

I don't do holidays.

But of course I'll need to elaborate. Since I'm not a hater, just an avoider.

I'm not quite sure how or when this aversion started, or how it has reached this momentous stage of complete denial of and resistance to any and all kinds of celebrations imposed on me from above. By which I must mean the calendar, because otherwise I would have to go the route of the church (or more accurately churches), Coca Cola, tradition, Disney, history, Hallmark, the advertising industry, and Hollywood. And that would just make me seem like I'm opposing everything and I'm not prepared to be portrayed in that light. By me.

So I'll just simplify the equation and say imposed on my life by the calendar. M'kay.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for the Hubby not having to go to work, because on a certain day a bazillion (or somewhere between 2013 and 2020) years ago someone was born into this world, because a reborn nation wants to unite through meat, because one big kahuna took a restful nap and thus allows me and the Hubs to golf like two crazies every Sunday, because the dead return for one day to have some tequila and eat some corn, because a very young nation came through a grueling civil war, because a guy named Christian from a long line of various guys named Christian decided to collate a bunch of different religious holidays into one and just call it the big prayer day, or because an imaginary harvest is over (Where? In the silicon valley?).

(Turns out that when one Googles 'backgrounds to different holidays', one hits on a veritable gold mine of free clip art and web images and not too much of actual information - I guess I'm not the only one not in touch with what our holidays are all about, or then I'm the only one who isn't and has to Google it. Still, I bet option A.)

It is just that, since I stopped believing in that guy who gave me a pink convertible that my Barbie would only fit into if I took her legs off (she didn't care, she'd lost her spark when I cut her hair and marker-colored it blue and red), holidays have never really said that much to me. At best they've whispered "You can pop that bottle of wine now [but only after I turned 18 Mom!] because you can sleep until 1pm tomorrow should you wish to do so," or "Tonight seems like a perfect night for an all-night Northern Exposure/ Men Behaving Badly/ Black Adder marathon complete with some kind of soft cheese and blueberries in cream. And wine, should you feel so inclined (not ever)." For me holidays are just time with the Hubs and the occasional golf ball.

In the greater scheme of things, many holidays, especially the most popular ones, seem to have evolved into "celebrations" of things, money, people you don't want to see too often but have to because you are somehow related to them, the children of these people who you sometimes in a hushed whisper (or if you're already in the car in a very loud voice) refer to as spawns of darkness or if you're feeling a little more sunny sticky pygmies, and pure, unadulterated marketing.

But that's just how it seems to me. And to be honest, it is not like I wish for a return to a simpler time when Christmas was about a birth, when Sundays were about something other than those elusive 18 holes, or when the Finnish eve of 1st of May was about something else besides a whole country being so intoxicated that even planes have a hard time landing. Or midsummer eve was about something other than an imitation of the previous, just with sauna and people drowning while peeing out of boats while standing up.

See, we don't do materialism to a sickening degree, we do intoxication instead.  

I'm just trying to figure out, publicly it seems, why I would rather have awesome sushi off a conveyor belt in Taiwan than receive a present wrapped in silver-colored paper, or why I would rather hike a volcano in Guatemala than kiss the Hubs when the clock strikes 12, or why I would rather hang out with my bloggy buddies in Denmark than celebrate the longest day of the year appropriately. But I remain a complex holiday-avoiding mystery. Even to myself.

All I know is that you should never try to send me a tiger because it's orange and not because it would have me for dinner, or anything wrapped in silvery paper that says happy holidays. I might turn all Hulk on you. Or something else green. But not the Irish leprechaun though, that would just be contradicting what I've just written here.

Don't send me a tiger. But do tell me what you think of this holiday-hooplah.

 Believe it or not: Morelia, Mexico, Mothers' day celebrations. 

Warning: I may post this crap de nuevo come Christmas, and bum you all out again. Unless I come up with something better designed for being the grouch who stole it all. I do love green after all.