Some people are born with the holiday gene. They own St. Patrick’s Day dishes, Easter yard flags and Valentine’s Day cake molds.
Their closets contain Fourth of July T-shirts. Their homes smell like cinnamon and pumpkin spice. They successfully recreate holiday recipes from magazines.
People in possession of the holiday gene put their Christmas trees up as soon as the Thanksgiving dinner dishes are washed and put away.
These people have themed Christmas trees — purple and gold, or angels of varying sizes and shapes, or artistically tied bows.
In some cases they put up more than one tree so their children can have the joy of enthusiastically and lopsidedly decorating one tree, while the other tree — perfectly centered in the front window — is a dazzling creation fit for Pinterest.
Under the tree elegantly wrapped gifts sit in tidy stacks, their perky bows sparkling in the soft glow of Christmas candles.
Holiday people start and often finish their Christmas shopping before mid-December. They are never caught on December 24th bickering over the last doll, truck or sweater at the discount store. They know how to wrap even footballs and scooters without wrinkling the wrapping paper or wasting tape.
Their tabletop nativity scenes are intact and artfully arranged. The sheep and donkeys still have all four legs, and no Lego figures take the place of wise men.
Their Advent calendars are always up-to-date, neither neglected for days nor opened in advance so tiny fingers can steal the chocolates behind each little door.
Members of the holiday tribe not only put up Christmas lights; they also take them down in a timely fashion. Their outdoor decorations are coordinated; no pink flamingos or giant inflatable Grinches encroach on the life-sized holy family in the front yard. Their walkways are lined with poinsettias and decorative candy canes.
Holiday people help their children make handmade gifts. Handprints are turned into snowflakes and footprints into reindeer. A gingerbread house graces the kitchen table and nobody picks the candy off of it during breakfast.
Everyone smiles in their holiday photos; no one closes their eyes or cries in Santa’s lap.
Not only do their talents make their own homes gracious and welcoming; those with the holiday gene decorate their workplaces.
They bring in trays of homemade peppermint bark for their coworkers. They play soft Christmas music in their classrooms or cubicles. They own Christmas shirts or scrubs or lab coats, with matching Christmas socks, earrings or neckties.
Holiday people love holiday music and television Christmas specials. They really believe that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.
They do not get tired.
The rest of us — people who were not born with the holiday gene — try. How we try. We bully our kids into baking Christmas cookies, shrugging in resignation at the one-legged gingerbread men.
Our crooked Christmas trees are covered with an explosion of mismatched ornaments. We tape ropes of tinsel to the banisters of our stairs, knowing the tape will pull the paint off the banister as it does each year.
We tour streets with holiday lights because we know our own yards pale in comparison. We pull out our faded shapeless Christmas sweatshirts each year, praying they still fit.
Those without the holiday gene stress about Christmas dinner. Our turkeys are dry and our tamales are undercooked, but we eat them anyway. Our kids fight over who gets to use the one Christmas plate in the house.
We refigure budgets to allow for Christmas shopping. Sometimes we spend too much money, sometimes we have little to spend. We buy gifts at the last minute on sale.
The packages under our trees look like they’ve been wrapped by small children. We reuse the bows from last year.
We skim through photos on Pinterest, feeling inadequate. We push car radio buttons trying to find a station that isn’t playing “Little Drummer Boy,” before giving up and singing along.
We struggle with depression and anxiety. We lift a glass, or two, or too many in honor of the occasion.
We finish off the Christmas cookies when no one is looking, and make promises to ourselves to join the gym as soon as the holidays are over.
On December 26, however, we are transformed. We awake bright-eyed and filled with relief. We made it, we survived.
Our decorations may not have been perfect and our dinners may not have looked like spreads from a magazine cover, but we seized moments of joy among friends and family, amid gift-giving and receiving.
We happily dismantle Christmas trees, drag bags of wrapping paper to the trash can, yank the tinsel off the banister and pick at leftovers.
Mostly, though, we relax, knowing we are on equal footing with the holiday people for the next 11 months.
