Weird and Trivial

Song of the Day: What Are You Doing New Year's Eve - The Orioles

So this is a really dumb problem to have and it's not even a problem, it just pricks at me temporarily whenever it happens.

I have been head-over-heels for Christmas my entire life. My dad and I were always butting heads because I wanted to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, I was always heaving the boxes of decorations out of the closet with my sister the morning after Thanksgiving, and I don't think anything makes me happier than Christmas lights at dusk during December.

Kayley is the one who gets labeled as the obsessive lover of Christmas.

This is a REALLY dumb thing to get upset about ("upset" is a pretty strong word for what I actually feel). You would think I would love having someone around who loves it like I do. And when we're together, that's usually the case because we know all the songs by heart and can just go nuts together. But for some reason it stings when she gets recognized as Little Miss Christmas.

I was thinking about this a lot last night and I eventually thought of this: as a kid I was always sort of surreptitiously trying to be like my friends. It wasn't so much that I thought I wasn't good enough as I was, but I really admired my friends and I think I wanted them to admire me too, and I thought that by getting the same binder or having the same favorite color as them, I would matter to them as much as they mattered to me. Yeah, the insecurity/jealousy thing ain't new.

So with this in mind, you would think that finding people who liked things I ALREADY liked would be just super fantastic and wonderful. My actual reaction was frustration. I think because on those rare occasions when I managed to have an original opinion, someone having the same one shunted me right back to square one, where I didn't feel unique or worth admiring or recognizing.

I can only assume that this feeling comes back now because in my own head, Christmas is sort of my Thing and then someone else gets recognized for it. As if Christmas can only be ONE person's Thing. Another person who loves it as much as I do should make me REALLY happy! And I suppose it does when I get down to it. Spreading the cheer and all that.

I must also remind myself that Kayley is "internet famous" and is therefore going to get more recognition than me, period. Which is fine, I don't really want to be internet famous.

I'm going to go adore Christmas now because in an hour it will be the Christmas season! And I'm really not genuinely upset about this whole thing. It's a prickly annoyance when it happens and then it goes away. This is just me considering the "why" of it.

This has been another episode of Emma's Crazy Neuroses.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas / Soon the bells will start / But the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing / right within your heart. - It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Perry Como (and every other crooner ever)