Christmas is literally tomorrow

Don’t “@me.” I know what “literally” means.

It means “figuratively.”

It used to mean “literally” but people don’t know what words mean anymore, so now it means the opposite. I am using the term ironically.

Anyway, I digress. My point is Christmas is coming to a home near you and quickly. Seriously. Super fast. It will be here quicker than that Amazon order you just placed before reading your New South Essay for the week.

What in the name of Kris Kringle is going on? Why is this happening? Is it global warming? Is it the compression of the time-space continuum caused by all the working from home during the COVID pandemic? Is it a government conspiracy? Is it NASA? Is it the IRS?

As I was hyperventilating this week over not having all of our Christmas decorations up, I decided to conduct a thorough investigation into this whole “Christmas is arriving faster this year” mystery. Seconds after I Googled it, I learned some stuff about the position of the Earth in its orbit around the sun, some popes named Gregory and Julian, and sundials and stuff.

Oh, and also that Thanksgiving was later in November this year.

Mystery solved.

In fact, this is the shortest period between Thanksgiving and Christmas that there can ever be. Just 27 days. That’s not even a full month, people. Do you understand the consequences of this quirk of the calendar? It’s not like you can even add a random day in there like Leap Year to make up for it. You have less time to be Christmas-ready than ever.

By comparison, last year’s span between the two holidays was 32 days. You’ve got to hand it to them, those Gregorian Calendar people managed to pull off the biggest punk of all time. They made us think we had loads of time to get ready for Christmas with 32 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, lulling us into complacency. Then, just when we thought we had heaps of time (yes, that is an actual unit of measurement for time and volume and surface area) to order everything from Amazon Claus, it turns out there are only 27 shopping days this year.

Not cool, Gregorian Calendar people. Not cool.

Last year I wrote in this space about how nothing gets done in the runup to Christmas. Well, this year, everything is getting done and there’s no time to waste, even to read this blog post. So stop reading now and go order some more packages! It doesn’t matter what’s in them! Just order packages!

I am feeling the pressure big-time. We are behind on everything. We did not finish our decorating Thanksgiving weekend as we typically do, largely because I chose on Black Friday to sit in sub-arctic temperatures for 498 overtimes while Georgia Tech still lost to Georgia. To be fair, I have done all I can do with our external decorations, but Carla, my Darling Beloved, has chosen this year of all years to address her serious concerns with the condition of our wreaths.

It’s important to note that “wreath” is our primary holiday decorative item and the key to our holiday aesthetic. The kids today would say our Christmas decorations “low key give major wreath vibes.” Santa cannot come to our house until every window is adorned by a wreath. And this year, at the exact moment when we have fewer moments to adorn our windows, we apparently have to augment our wreaths.

This, as Sir Topham Hatt said a million times on those Thomas the Tank Engine videos Barron loved as a child, has caused “confusion and delay.”

I have learned over the course of my bliss-filled marriage I cannot control what I cannot control, and that especially extends to my Darling Beloved. Instead of trying to pressure her to speed up Operation Wreath Enhancement, I have been coming home from work every night and pulling out one decorative item that has special meaning to me and putting it in its special place where I have been trained to put it since we moved into this house 11 years ago.

This has eased my anxiety a little, but at this rate, it will be Dec. 43rd before our stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

As if all this wasn’t enough to make me completely stressed out over this shortened season, we are going to Florida to see my parents BEFORE Christmas this year. That effectively shortens my window to have all of the Christmas stuff done by another four days. So really, I have 23 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas to squeeze in all the preparations.

I hate to break it to you (not really) if you have been planning to do all of your shopping after school gets out, this year in our school system winter break doesn’t commence until Dec. 20. That’s like five minutes before Santa arrives. You have no time to do all the things you think you have time to do.

Am I stressing you out yet? Yes? Well, now you know the delight my Darling Beloved experiences living with me on a daily basis. It’s a real treat.

I haven’t even listened to the iconic “Frosty the Snowman” on Harry Connick Jr.’s 2003 “Harry for the Holidays” album, a staple in our household.

I hope you have found this helpful. New South Essays strives to engage in service journalism, if you call raising your anxiety level and getting you all worked up over your holiday “to-do” list “service.”

This isn’t some blog about wellness and mindfulness and demurity or whatever to help you “cope with holiday stress.” No sir. This is about elevating your holiday stress to unprecedented levels.

Besides, if I’ve learned anything in my 54 years on this planet, it’s that being stressed out is really what Christmas is all about… especially this year.