Look Forward To This - Part 1: Half of the Holidays

What does it mean looking forward to something, honestly? When we are looking forward to something, does it mean deep anticipation? How about when we say it ironically, are we joyful because we said it, but didn't mean it? Is what we look forward to a universal need?

Maybe I have too much time on my hands, but during a conversation, someone mentioned that they were going to an event and was "looking forward to it." Intrigued, I wanted to know what about this event was so important. Basically, the response was a shrug and, "I have never been there before." It was then I began to compile a list of things we look forward to and then put them into categories. Looking at the record, I also wondered if the same event we could substitute the word "dreading" for the terms "looking forward to." 

In this and other upcoming posts, I will tackle holidays and special occasions. 

Holidays - Holidays are considered big ones such as New Year's Eve/Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We look forward to each one of them and differently depending on our age. I will recognize the feelings of those who experienced a tragedy during one of these holidays, and it only reminds them of that. I will also recognize those who hate holidays due to a sense of loneliness. I will not make light of your pain, just know that I have been there with both, and it does suck. 

New Year's Eve/Day - As a youth, this meant fireworks, staying up late, and watching New York celebrate an hour before we did. It meant my dad getting up from the couch at the stroke of midnight to flip the lights on and off yelling, "Happy New Year," and then telling us it was time to go to bed. As I grew older, I noticed more and more what people who were on TV were wearing and doing. There were tons of libations, dancing, music, more libations, and of course, kissing. When I finally got to a New Year's Eve party in my early twenties, well at least a grown-up one, everything was there. Drunk people, spilled drinks, crying singles, loud music that I didn't want to dance to, but, at the stroke of midnight, I got kissed by a random stranger who disappeared soon after.

Well, as time has passed, I am not ashamed to admit that I do not go downtown anymore to celebrate the coming of a new year. The last time I went, it was a massive crowd of people having a great time. It was the freaking traffic going home that made it so difficult. So many rookie drivers out there who should have called a cab made me feel like more of the kid on the bumper cars who hates getting slammed into. I don't watch local coverage anymore only because our newscasters are really terrible talking about happy things without cue cards. However, I follow the family tradition of flicking the lights off and on.

Some people dread this time of year, sometimes because they are facing difficulties that never seem like a new year will solve. We also know that someone will tell us that they are so glad (insert year here) has ended and is looking forward to (insert different year here). Others will make promises or resolutions; they know they will not keep. It is the season of endless commercials about losing this or quitting that. We see news stories about how, if we purchase whatever is advertised, we could lose this or stop doing that. Here is something to think about, the human race made up time to make sense of our world. The universe does not care one Flaming Cheeto about us waiting until January 1st to make resolutions or face challenges. We might need to remember that the years do not cause problems or issues. We also need to stop waiting until the beginning of the calendar to make decent choices for ourselves and not let Madison Avenue tell us when. Finally, that hopeful optimism that things will get better should be every day. If things are good, then we should find someone who needs the uplifting and give it to them for free. 

Valentine's Day - In our youth, Valentine's mean two things, chocolate and Brach's candied hearts. As a disclaimer, never, ever get me those message hearts, they taste like I just chugged a gallon of Maalox and no telling how many Valentine's cycles they've seen. I may be dating myself, chronologically not creepily, but in grade school, we would buy a box of valentines and make sure that everyone in our class got one, even the ones that would give you wedgies behind the gym building. The ones we thought were cute; we might also add the word "love" before signing our name in crayon. We would parade around at the front of the class, casually dropping each card into the corresponding bag. We would then make a heart out of construction paper to bring home, and then dig through our bags, making a list of those who blew us off. 

By the way, valentines today are friendship cards to ease the pressure from our youth. I blame the Simpsons for that one.

As we get older, the expense of this Hallmark-sponsored holiday becomes more substantial, as are the expectations. In middle school, you had to get there early to buy a red carnation that was mutilated before they ran out. By lunchtime, it was apparent who had the boyfriends that got there in time and those who did not. In high school, we went from carnations to roses, and colossal freaking stuffed animals. Male pride was at stake if that giant bear holding a heart fit inside of a locker. 

Adulthood hits, and the pressure increases on making sure you don't forget the 14th of February. It is now the male of the species realizes that skimpy underwear may be accepted, but it better have some explanation attached. (Men, I have to explain this to you, you may need more life experience) It is the time for romance, expensive dinners, and hopefully, happy endings were both end up sweaty, sticky, and smelling of chocolate. 

Valentine's Day can be a real pain in the ass for those who strongly feel, as much as I do, It isn't until later, for many, that the realization dawns that corporations push this on us, and we are okay with it, as long as nudity occurs. As a species, we are told to spend money, getting dressed up to eat expensive food, and then go somewhere to root around, scampering in skimpy underwear. My question is, minus the spending money and expensive food parts, why aren't we doing this four to five times a week?

Easter - This can be a tricky one to talk about it because of the connotations and connections with religion. While I could meander off into an explanation between bunnies and eggs to the intent of the holiday, I will suggest using the Google, since it knows EVERYTHING.

As youngsters, this holiday rocked! In my youth, it was something to look forward to. The Easter Bunny was about to arrive. My siblings and I would plot on how we were going to find all of the hidden treasures and somehow avoid eating egg salad sandwiches for the next month. The season of egg hunting would always begin a few days before the main event with the ritual of dying the eggs.

Back then, things were tight in the house, but my parents would always find a way to get the requirements for the egg transformation ceremony. We would rarely see the fancy PAAS fashions on our hard-boiled wonders,  but thinking back, I am not sure we gave a flying snoot about having cheap stickers ruin our works of art. Of course, my mom would lay out the dyes in separate bowls, make sure that the water-vinegar ratio was correct, and then would finally warn us not to produce eggs that were colored so severely that the Easter Bunny (EB) wouldn't use them.

So there we were huddled around the kitchen table with our little oval canvases in hand. The first thing to accomplish was to inscribe our name on one lucky egg. Even to this day, I have no idea why we had to, but who am I to question the powers that be? Most of the time, we would choose a solid color, usually green or blue. After completing our namesake, there were no holds barred. We would experiment with dipping one end in one color and then the other side in a different hue. One of us would drop the egg during this process and end up with a polychromatic combination that was close to purple charcoal on one side and some puke green on the other.

Once that warm-up even was completed, then we were prepared for such a hunt that Elmer Fudd would have been proud of. My siblings and I would wait to about 5:30 in the morning or so and stake out the house, making a mental treasure map all along the way. We made sure that we noted where the plastic eggs were and the locations of the hard-boiled ones. For whatever reason, the EB had an endless supply of plastic eggs (that were filled with candy and sometimes even pennies and nickels) but needed hard-boiled ones from us to hide. However, when you are 7, things like this do not bother you as much as trying to locate as many treasures as possible when the house is too dark to see clearly.

Around 6:00 or so, my parents would come out and then FORCE us to have orange juice before the hunt was to begin. Even today, I am not sure if it was the joy of seeing us fidget or the need to get us something in our systems before the sugar onslaught. So there we were back at the table, not paying attention to what we were drinking, we just wanted to make sure that our mental maps were still accurate through the use of glances. Finally, we were released, and the game was afoot.

One sibling of mine was the miser of the group and would scramble around looking for the plastic ones that had the change in it. Upon spotting one, he would give it a slight shake, and if it sounded like candy, he would ditch it quickly and move on to the next. Later on, he discovered that if he kept the candy, he could swap it for pennies. My dad, of course, delighted in sitting on the couch and giving up hints as we looked around. He was partial to the "hot and cold" method whenever we were near a hard-boiled egg. Maybe he did not realize that those eggs were not as valuable in the opinion of us egg hunters, so in desperate attempt to keep him quiet for a bit, we would reluctantly put the egg he was hinting towards, which we had known about since 5:37 that morning, into our basket.

Finally, after 15 minutes or so of hard work, we would compare our stashes and delight at the fact that the EB had left us Easter baskets with treats inside of them. I always knew which one was mine since, at a young age, I was sensitive to dark chocolate, and somehow the EB instinctively knew to get me a white chocolate bunny. Usually, there was a good assortment of chocolate-marshmallow bunnies, some peeps, those malted eggs that never tasted right, and of course, jelly beans. I was always careful to ration out my swag, for I knew that it had to last me longer than a few days for nothing was better than to grin and eat a peep when your sibling looks on with mournful eyes.

A rather lengthy flashback, but it is an example of how I always looked forward to Easter. Today, you really cannot find those original jelly beans; I blame Jelly Belly. I have no children, so dying eggs means I have ten weeks of egg salad sandwiches. Getting older, I hide things from myself all of the time, including things with pennies in them.

TBC