Christmas is once again driving me to the brink

A disclaimer:  Please know that once I write something--it is out--there is no reason to worry that it might really happen because the thoughts are gone once they hit the paper.

While driving to pick up the kids from school to day, I felt nearly suicidal--to the point that I pondered the idea of driving off into the ditch and wrecking the car.  There were telephone poles or trees that could be hit. The ditch was deeper in some parts.  How much damage would I do to the car and myself, I wondered.  Of course, all of those considerations happened in the less than a minute it took to go from the stop sign at Elder Creek to half-way to Fruitridge. 

Every year my husband and I have the same disagreements over buying things.  Every year I get called a scrooge.  Every year, I find no joy in giving.

I remember when I was a kid watching Eight is Enough.  It was a Christmas episode.  The mom had died, so the dad and kids were trying to get used to life without her and he had the new younger girlfriend "Abby."  All that aside, what was really cool about that episode was the idea of gift giving.  Apparently the mom would shop throughout the year to get one very special meaningful gift for each child--she would put great thought into it.  She would buy these, wrap them, and hide them somewhere for a long wait until Christmas.  The episode ended with the "touching" story that she had only had time to buy a gift for Tommy that year.  But I just thought the idea of actually getting something special and taking the time to get it was cool.  It makes for more meaningful gift giving that randomly scrambling at the last minute after school lets out and before Christmas arrives.

I've calmed down since I began the post, but I'm still a fucking scrooge.  Scrooge is afterall the one who has to, through self reflection, rediscover the meaning of Christmas and giving.