Seasonal Affective Disorder

It's the holiday shopping season again, which I could totally do without. Don't get me wrong: I love the holidays — the lights, the window shopping, the presents presents presents, and the potential for more presents. However... you know, for eleven months of the year, I can hide in my room, safe and secure and uncomfortably alienated from everybody, but then Santa rides down Sixth Avenue at the end of the Thanksgiving Day Parade and it's time to go through my address book and make my own little nice/naughty list.

I guess I'm not all that different from everyone else during the holidays — only more neurotic. Santa doesn't need to worry whether his supposed friends are gonna think enough about him during the Christmas season to reciprocate his generosity. So there's that, and it's not like there isn't the least bit of bitterness simmering in my heart when I remember going year after year without so much as a card from them. So there's that, but like I said, I love the holidays, unduly even. The real depressing issue for me is the second list, what I'm gonna buy the lucky folks who fall on the good side of my nice/naughty list.

The whole gifting process is a very delicate one, because I want to find the absolutely perfect gift. I used the to think that the perfect gift for a friend was something they wanted but they'd never buy on their own, but I've done some unhealthy soul-searching and I realized there's more to it than that. The perfect gift reflects the receiver... and when I can't find the perfect gift, it's because I'm so aloof that I never really got to know even my best friends. Constant reminders. And no wonder people get depressed during the holidays.