Christmas Carol Humbuggery

[Disclaimer: I do not believe everything I am about to write. I don't even believe half of it. It's just all in curmudgeonly good fun, folks.]

There are so many stinkin songs about missing that "Old-Fashioned" Christmas. They list the elements of an Old-Fashioned Christmas, and I've got to say, there are about none of them my Christmases are missing. The only thing missing is a log fire and I think my Christmas is plenty complete without it. So if other people have Christmases with the elements mine have (carols and presents round the tree, choirs, stories, family near, children excited for toys/Santa, etc.) what is it they are really missing?

1 - It's the Old Fashioned part. They've bought into the hype that presents (ie - a carved horse and a dress for your sawdust dolly) were better before the invention of electricity. They miss worrying about whether their children will survive this year's smallpox or scarlet fever epidemic. They've forgotten that the reason the family huddled round the fire is because it was the only source of heat in the entire house - or if we make it even more Olde Faschioned, the only thing keeping the wolves at bay - and the reason we told stories around that fire was because electricity hadn't been invented yet and there was absolutely nothing else to do in the dark. Yeah, that's something to miss.

2 - The more likely answer: what they really miss is the lack of responsibility. Christmas was magical because it happened without me having to do a thing about it. Mom and Dad took care of it. I miss not knowing how Christmas happened because I had to do it. Back in the Good Olde Days, I didn't cook the food, I didn't buy and wrap all the presents, I didn't have to come up with the colorful answers to confuse the kids, I didn't have to worry about how to pay for it all, I didn't have to do anything but wait for presents and maybe lick the beaters. I didn't sleep for excitement, not because I was up fitting screw R23 into parts J and the-Chinese-character-for-practical-joke that don't fit together, using a butter knife because the screwdriver is missing. A few decades later, though, we'll miss the Old-Fashioned Christmas when we had responsibility and knew that we wouldn't be forgotten in the Old-Fashioned Folks' Home ... again.

Now that you mention it, I Like my new-fangled Christmas.