I lay in my bed but couldn’t sleep. The Advent calendar was taunting me. Its big numbers for the days dancing in my head like the Pink Elephants on Parade song from the Disney movie Dumbo. I slipped from underneath my comforter and walked to the kitchen. Each day I popped a flap and read a Bible verse on my Advent calendar but could not muster any Christmas spirit, compassion, or love. Tis the season of hope, peace, joy, and love. I just wanted the peace. My peace of mind. Not peace on Earth. And I didn’t feel any goodwill toward men. The endless Christmas commercials and shopping ads ground on my nerves. Buy one pair of shoes, get half off the second pair. People trampling one another on Black Friday for big tv’s and tech gadgets. Sale catalogs and coupons stuffed in the mailbox or inundating my e-mail inbox.

Right now, I would have loved to watch Murder She Wrote, but of course, the Hallmark Channel, since before Halloween, preempted the show to air every possible modern, mushy Christmas movie ever made. Tis the season for overspending, overeating, and overindulging with movies and alcohol and maybe for some people, drugs. Everyone wants their hands in people’s already strained bank accounts, wallets, or purses. The soup kitchens and homeless shelters with their non-stop ‘Can you find it in your heart to help us?’ Or the ‘Look at these poor children. Look at these poor elderly people. Read their stories. Open your hearts. Send your money our way or stuff it in our red buckets.’ While they endlessly ring their bells. Not to mention all the other toy drives, coat drives, food drives, and on and on. Don’t we live in one of the wealthiest countries on Earth? Why does it seem that everyone here is destitute or living from paycheck to paycheck?

I glanced at the Advent calendar. What Bible verse today was offering hope for nothing but more pressure to make everything perfect for people who didn’t care? Technically, it was today. Midnight had come and gone. I popped open the December 13th flap with the image of the Baby Jesus lying in a manger on it.

The verse read:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Proverbs 30:8 I NIV.

I laughed out loud. Was God reading my mind? Peering into my soul? Who, if not God, didn’t have endless to-do lists at Christmas trying to answer prayers sent to him from the mass of humanity he created? But HE is God. No more needs to be said on that note. I dropped the little flap. I walked to the lazy Susan and clasped the bottle of vodka. A little of this and some cranberry juice will taste wicked delicious while I read all the verses on the calendar for the rest of the season. I deserved a cocktail after all the shopping filled with stress and fighting the massive crowds. Christmas should coax the good out of people, even from the worst of them, but always accomplishes the exact opposite. The holiday brings out the worst in the best of people trying to get the best deal possible, or the best parking space, or the best of anything outrageous or ridiculous. After all, how many lights or decorations can someone put on their house? Like the old cliché says, “more isn’t always better. Sometimes, it’s just more.” And the Santa and Elf on the Shelf foolishness? Children’s fantasies shouldn’t be indulged like that. They grow up to think the world is a happy place, and that people are generally good. Nothing was further from the truth.

I mixed my drink and sat at my kitchen table. Man, could I make a cocktail or what. The right amount of vodka and cranberry juice without measuring either one. A throwback from my days as a bartender in college. The newspaper lying on my table had an article with a headline Holiday shopping off to slow start, US retail sales up 0.2%. The article said steady job gains, a low unemployment rate, and rising wages lifted consumer confidence, and economists expect this year’s holiday shopping season to be a healthy one. Consumer health? What about everyone’s mental health? Mental health after everyone goes into debt. A late Thanksgiving. Snow. Cold weather. Trade wars. Low interest rates. All drive the economy and a business’s bottom line for a good Christmas season. I say let’s celebrate one Christmas without all the materialistic mumbo jumbo. I don’t think God intended for the birthday of His only Son to become so economically based and the purpose for retail sales’ studies, and people’s happiness.

I turned in my chair and lifted the Advent calendar from the wall. I laid it in front of me. This calendar was supposed to make me feel better and happier during the season. Lessen my loneliness and depression. Give me a little joy and happiness. I popped open the December 15th flap with the image of a Christmas candle on it:

The verse read:

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8 I NIV

Christmas is a time for love, but apparently, I don’t deserve to be loved deeply and have a multitude of sins. Perfection is not in my repertoire. Never has been and never will. Lucas had broken up with me last month. His excuse. It’s me, not you. He expected too much from a partner. Mike and Deke had said the same to me. Several years apart, but the same excuse. Obviously, it was me. I never had or did enough for anybody. Unfortunately, I couldn’t break up with my mother, and she couldn’t leave me alone. When you’re an only child, parents place their eggs all in one basket, so to speak. Lord help all those other only children in this world. All their hopes and dreams disappear and are replaced by the parents’ dreams. They call it love. I call it suffocation. Which holiday was worse for people’s shallowness? Thanksgiving or Christmas? My office Christmas party deserved a high rating for shallowness. A bunch of lawyers and their spouses trying to one up each other all night. Paralegals, almost lawyers, don’t rate at all. To anyone. Not their bosses, boyfriends, or their mothers.

I sipped my drink. I popped open the December 14th flap with the image of the Little Drummer Boy on it.

The verse read:

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3: 9-10 I NIV

So, a rebirth verse. Hey, that’s a rhyme and appropriate for Christmas, I guess. Seems more suitable for Easter but oh well. I never lied to anyone. Everyone in my life lied to me about everything. Never telling the truth about how they really felt or about what they really thought. Deep down they believed I was a bad person. Never did anything right. Always needed someone to tell me how or why to do something. The sad part about the situation is that I keep wanting to please everyone else instead of pleasing and caring for myself first. Isn’t everyone supposed to love themselves first? I should’ve taken a sleeping pill. All these verses hit too close to home; although that’s the point of an Advent calendar. To make a person think about the true meaning of Christmas. I popped open the December 16 flap with the image of The Christmas Star on it.

The verse read:

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalms 34: 8 I NIV

I stood and walked into the bathroom. My bottles of valium and sleeping pills called to me. Which one should I take? I dumped quite a few sleeping pills into my palm. Back in the kitchen, I washed them down with my cocktail and sat to stare out the window. It wouldn’t take long for the booze and pills to take effect. The wind raged and the splattered snow made patterns on the glass. The plows hadn’t cleared my street yet of the snow from yesterday’s storm. My neighbors better move their second car off the street, or it will get buried. Storms, whether rain or snow, always made me melancholy. A sigh escaped my lips, and a tear flowed down my cheek. I turned my attention back to the table. I pushed the calendar aside and paged through the newspaper again. My eyes felt droopy and my muscles relaxed. I gathered the newspaper and the Advent calendar, threw them in the trash and went to bed. I had hoped not to wake up, but another day arrived for me to try and numb the pain again.