Three Days of Dopamine

Listen.  We learn things when we learn them.  This one, I learned this year.

I have never in my life been ready for Christmas a single day before it was time.  I’ve usually been up on Christmas Eve, well past my Christmas prime, wrapping and tying and low-key resenting the fact that all of these things will be torn open in a few hours and nobody will even fully appreciate the crisp corners and the sparkly ribbons.

Many an Eve I’ve spent with Bing Crosby and his friends, as they sing washing their hair and hands in snow, while I ran out of scotch tape.

This year, I finished early.  What the what??  Early finisher?  What are we, Type A??

Not only that, but I decided not to mole the gifts away in a closet.  I set them all out on the dining room table, a festive display of wonder and curiosities, of crisp corners and sparkly ribbons.

And now, instead of one night of resentment, we get three days of bonus dopamine.

We learn things when we learn them.  It only took me 46 years.

Christmas may come now.

I’m here for it.

(“Tricia, weren’t you sad just yesteray?”  Yes.  I am layered and complicated.  So is Christmas.)