New Christmas by Tiffany Gu
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, it really is. With a beautiful juxtaposition of red and green that would seem horribly out of place any other time of the year, Christmastime, the holiday season is a unique entity unto itself. I find that around this time of year, there’s a constant ringing in my ear, but not because of some sort of disease and bodily malfunction, but because of jingle bells, filling the world with merriness, constantly. Though Christmas definitely has changed in meaning through the years, it’s still a time to cherish, an annual marker of love and appreciation.
Christmas Eve ten years ago meant staying up as late as possible, with the brimming excitement for the day to come preventing any hope of sleeping. It meant watching those classic Christmas movies, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the abominable snow man. It meant singing on those risers with the rest of your classmates in elementary school those Christmas classics, seeing if you finally grew enough to not be on the bottom riser. Christmas to a kid consisted of bolting down the stairs at the crack of dawn to take a crack at the presents, hoping your parents would have cracked an eye open as well. Christmas fostered the very beginnings of those ever-popular reaction videos on Youtube, as relatives would come, armed with a video camera and permanently etching the goofy childish grin of yours into tape forever. It meant writing extensive wishlists in hopes of getting that pony, being on your very best behavior if only for those 25 days so you wouldn’t get that dreaded coal. But of course it’d never come because as you got older, as you tucked more Christmases under your belt, the cookies you left out were tucked underneath your parents’.
As you got older, Christmas changed in meaning. There were the few awkward years after you discovered that Santa Claus wasn’t real, a couple years of denial, of trying to hold onto that dream, a couple years where Christmas had lost its “magic” and kind of just slipped by. But as life goes on, we’ve gone to truly appreciate Christmas, that it’s not all about presents and opening open those packages, the way we thought of it as kids. Not that we’re old or anything now. But there’s a different angle to be seen this Christmas, one that disregards the food and the materialism but perhaps now, there’s more of an inclination to enjoy Christmas for the sake of enjoying. And although the little things about Christmas have changed and our responsibilities and slight growth in age have as well, Christmas is still Christmas. Putting up lights and decorating the tree remain the same and the love falling through the air like the snow we see only on television is the same as well. And for the rest of our lives, though we may partake in different traditions, Christmas remains forever the hap-happiest season of all.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays everybody!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, it really is. With a beautiful juxtaposition of red and green that would seem horribly out of place any other time of the year, Christmastime, the holiday season is a unique entity unto itself. I find that around this time of year, there’s a constant ringing in my ear, but not because of some sort of disease and bodily malfunction, but because of jingle bells, filling the world with merriness, constantly. Though Christmas definitely has changed in meaning through the years, it’s still a time to cherish, an annual marker of love and appreciation.
Christmas Eve ten years ago meant staying up as late as possible, with the brimming excitement for the day to come preventing any hope of sleeping. It meant watching those classic Christmas movies, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the abominable snow man. It meant singing on those risers with the rest of your classmates in elementary school those Christmas classics, seeing if you finally grew enough to not be on the bottom riser. Christmas to a kid consisted of bolting down the stairs at the crack of dawn to take a crack at the presents, hoping your parents would have cracked an eye open as well. Christmas fostered the very beginnings of those ever-popular reaction videos on Youtube, as relatives would come, armed with a video camera and permanently etching the goofy childish grin of yours into tape forever. It meant writing extensive wishlists in hopes of getting that pony, being on your very best behavior if only for those 25 days so you wouldn’t get that dreaded coal. But of course it’d never come because as you got older, as you tucked more Christmases under your belt, the cookies you left out were tucked underneath your parents’.
As you got older, Christmas changed in meaning. There were the few awkward years after you discovered that Santa Claus wasn’t real, a couple years of denial, of trying to hold onto that dream, a couple years where Christmas had lost its “magic” and kind of just slipped by. But as life goes on, we’ve gone to truly appreciate Christmas, that it’s not all about presents and opening open those packages, the way we thought of it as kids. Not that we’re old or anything now. But there’s a different angle to be seen this Christmas, one that disregards the food and the materialism but perhaps now, there’s more of an inclination to enjoy Christmas for the sake of enjoying. And although the little things about Christmas have changed and our responsibilities and slight growth in age have as well, Christmas is still Christmas. Putting up lights and decorating the tree remain the same and the love falling through the air like the snow we see only on television is the same as well. And for the rest of our lives, though we may partake in different traditions, Christmas remains forever the hap-happiest season of all.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays everybody!
But if it is, then it should be capitalized.]. It meant singing [move "those christmas classics" here] on those [change to "the"] risers with the rest of your classmates in elementary school those Christmas classics, seeing if you finally grew enough to not be on the bottom riser [that last phrase is kind of awkward]. Christmas to a kid consisted of bolting down the stairs at the crack of dawn to take a crack at the presents, hoping your parents would have cracked an eye open as well [the "as well" is misplaced-- you mean to say that you wish your parents to have, like dawn, cracked [an eye], right? then i think you should change it to "your parents too have, like dawn, cracked an eye"]. Christmas fostered the very beginnings of those ever-popular reaction videos on Youtube, as relatives would come, armed with a video camera and permanently etching the goofy childish grin of yours into tape forever. It meant writing extensive wishlists in hopes of getting that pony, being on your very best behavior if only for those 25 days so you wouldn’t get that dreaded coal. But of course it’d never come because as you got older, as you tucked more Christmases under your belt, the cookies you left out were tucked underneath your parents’.