Christmas Postpartum

Oh, you must go see Caley’s darling new Christmas Eve baby! And get this: she named him OLIVER! (If you go to the comment section of the Namer’s Remorse post, you can actually SEE her choosing it.) Oliver is my favorite boy name, and it has been my goal to talk someone into using it. Hmm…..should I choose a new name now, or just a new pregnant woman?

I’m sitting here in a daze, drinking coffee in an attempt to animate my pajama’d limbs. There’s a baby tiring of floor time. There are two toddlers who are going to leak through their nighttime diapers soon if I don’t do something about it. There’s a third-grader who will sleep late and then not be able to get to sleep tonight. There’s a first-grader who wants me to tell him what he should make out of Model Magic.

But Paul is at work and it’s the postpartum stage of Christmas. The “unpacking after the trip” stage of Christmas. The “morning after” of Christmas.

The presents are opened and must somehow be incorporated into the household. The glitter is back to looking tacky. The wrapping supplies must be packed up and put away. The house will look bare and plain, and the whole long winter stretches ahead.

I got a running start on this stage by feeling even as Christmas approached that the whole celebration was a little nuts. We hang little sparkly doodads on a TREE we bring into our HOUSE? We all go out and buy things for each other and hide them in decorated paper? The whole holiday is basically about swapping things? I felt like an anthropologist trying to puzzle out the strange ways of an ancient culture.

And indeed, that’s what most of our Christmas traditions are: the strange ways of an ancient culture. “Christmas” is just the most recent name for a longstanding idea that winter could use a little glitter and booze to give it some life and hope. The current name was chosen by Christians who couldn’t participate in the established pagan winter holiday but didn’t want to give up the fun, either. Rename it! Give it religious significance! Then you can celebrate it! It was a clever workaround and the name was catchier than Pagan Winter Holiday, and it stuck.

Well, whatevs. We are not a religious history blog, nor are we truly anthropologists. Nor are we entirely sure when the word “anthropologist” can stand alone and when it needs an adjective such as “cultural” or “nutritional” in front of it. All we know (and can we drop the plural pronoun now? thanks) is that after Christmas is over, it seems like we still need glitter and booze.

The happy anticipation? Gone. The excuse to bake and eat? Gone. The pretty paper, the pretty ornaments, the pretty Christmas lights? Gone. The excuse to spend a little more? GONE GONE GONE. Now is the season for bills and for clean-up, and for commitments to diets that are going to be FOR REALS this time. It’s no wonder we feel accompanying seasonal emotions.

35 thoughts on “Christmas Postpartum

  1. Jess

    I am hoping to avoid the post-Christmas letdown this year because I am so excited about 2008 being the year I get married. Here’s hoping wedding mania will allow me to surf right on through all the blah winter days that are looming. Also, the shortest day of the year has passed, so it’s all downhill from here.

    Reply
  2. Whimsy

    You’re so totally right about the Christmas PPD. We spend so much time and energy building up to the event that we can’t help but to be let down afterwards.

    I took down the little Christmas decor I had actually taken the time to put UP, on CHRISTMAS DAY. Because I decided I just didn’t want to delay the let-down.

    EMBRACE THE LET DOWN! SPEND THE GIFT CARDS! PLAY WITH THE PRESENTS UNTIL THEY BREAK!

    And besides, the way retail works, we’ll be seeing signs of Christmas 2008 in about 3 months.

    Reply
  3. AndreAnna

    You just put into words what I couldn’t all day. I feel hungover, depressed, tired, and sad. Weird, huh? When I had such a wonderful holiday filled with surprises, family, food, and laughter.

    It will pass.

    Reply
  4. Alice

    my christmas PPD manifested whilst driving from my parents’ lovely comfy house in NJ straight into work back in VA on weds morning. and karl is still in south dakota. XMAS WHERE ART THOU.

    Reply
  5. Jess

    I know I already commented on this post, but I just had to say that I just went back and read your archives from December of last year, and they were so interesting, and also I was interested by the fact that some of the posts had no comments at all and none had more than three (unless I overlooked one). That is amazing to me. Also, I loved reading your posts from last December and comparing them to this December.

    Reply
  6. Jenny

    Woman! Shhhhh! Oliver is MY name! I have baby name lists from the late 90’s to prove it! I will be so pissed if Oliver is the new Jack by the time I have a boy child.

    Reply
  7. Swistle

    Jess- I know, isn’t that weird? I wish I’d had Google Analytics from the beginning, so I could see the graph of visitors.

    Jenny- Sorry, too late: Oliver is a name that occurred to all of us in the late ’90s (in fact, I’ve liked it since before 1994, which is when I foolishly gave the name to my cat), and now we’re all using it. I mean, go type it in to the Name Voyager and you’ll see we’re not the only ones noticing the awesomeness of the name. This is the way it goes with names: we all think it’s “our special name” but we’re all thinking it at the same time. It is unavoidable. The good news is that you probably wouldn’t want to use a name that no one else liked, or else you’d go with Herbert and Hortense.

    Reply
  8. Tessie

    Jess, I thought that was such a great idea to go back and read Swistle’s December 2006 posts, but I now find myself obsessed with finding the post on which *I* first commented. ARGG! GOODBYE AFTERNOON!

    Reply
  9. SP

    Swistle, you need to come visit at my house. I’m putting up my tree tonight – or this weekend, depending on how lazy I feel tonight – and I have lots of special holiday boozy drinks.

    Reply
  10. Daria

    People you are`so forgetting New Year. the whole week between christmas and new year is a great excuse to celebrate …
    I’m buying a tree tomorrow (fake, 70 off) and decorating it.

    Reply
  11. Secret Mom Thoughts

    I’m right there with you. I’m throwing all the baked goods out and getting rid of the excuses for overeating yummy cookies. I’m looking forward to spring. Gift card spending definitely helps. Also I’m still in my pjs and it is 4 pm. Is it time to change yet?

    Reply
  12. Stacie

    This year my in-laws arrived on the evening of the 26th. So far my MIL has implied that my house needs dusting, that we don’t say “no” often enough and that if the kids don’t behave perfectly it is OUR FAULT for SUCKING as parents.

    So no post-Christmas letdown.

    AND this year we started a day-after-christmas-gingerbread-man-decorating tradition. It was awesome. Very messy with much eating of frosting and little actual decorating of cookies. I recommend it.

    Reply
  13. Marie Green

    Love the Christmas eve baby. A few years ago, I was at a birth on Christmas DAY. I cried when I had to leave my family (it was about 3pm), but once I got there it was so exciting! Now I love Christmas baby stories.

    I don’t have Christmas PPD yet. Since we are still in SD, we haven’t got to use most of our loot yet, so we still have that to look forward to.

    Also, my twins have a birthday in January, so we still have that to look forward to. It has REALLY helped my winter BLAHS. I still get the winter BLAHS, but they usually set in after the girls’ bday.

    So! How about another Swistle baby, preplanned to be born in the D-E-A-D of winter.

    That’s my only suggestion.

    That, or go and visit Tessie, what with her FIFTY degree “incliment weather” days. THAT IS CRAZY! Tessie, can we all come?

    Reply
  14. fairydogmother

    I ate Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s for breakfast this morning. Again. I was considering extending the holiday season until my birthday next month, and re-committing to healthier habits after that.

    Then I found out today that Starbucks is bringing back their yummylicious cupcakes in February.

    I’m so screwed.

    Reply
  15. Emblita

    Us crazy icelanders (who’s winter festival traditions haven’t changed much in the last 1000 years- heck we didn’t even bother to change the name to Christmass- its still Yule) we have 13 days of christmas. So nobody takes down their tree or lights until the 7th of January. In some cases we keep the lights until well into february. What?! Its dark here in the north. On the 7th we have elf bonfires, when all the elves come out and dance (or you know kids dressed up as elves) around great big bonfires. Then, then christmas is over. So no yule blues for us yet :p

    Reply
  16. jennifer

    Ah, don’t forget the glorious Last Fling that is New Year’s Eve! One last time to use that glitter & booze to have a great time before we all settle in the for the long winters’ night…

    Reply
  17. Swistle

    Tessie- Did you find it? You guys got ME questing for everyone’s first comment, but I made myself stop: that way lies madness.

    Stacie- HA HA!! I mean, oh dear. And I love the idea of having traditions for the days following Christmas.

    Marie Green- TERRIFIC idea. Maybe for next year.

    Emblita- Now THAT is the way to do it. I think the reason we get the holiday blues is it’s OVER too fast. All that build-up, and then POOF.

    Reply
  18. SaraJ

    Yes, we go till January 6, which gives a the season a gentle decline instead of a sudden jolting stop. Of course, it also helps that we’re visiting out-of-town family for Cmas, so we’ve still got all our own presents to open at home. But, still, it just delays the inevitable: the dreary days of January and February are coming.

    At least we don’t have to live in all the SNOW in the South. :)

    — SJ

    Reply
  19. Mary

    You captured the current season perfectly. I can only add that it’s also preface to tax time. How’s that for a mood breaker? I once had a teacher (in elementary school) who told us that our solemn duty — forget learning our presidential lineage–was to really really rock out on Valentine’s Day. Thanksgiving, Christmas and then New Year’s Eve/Day — we get one whole long bleary January and then half of February (in the thick of black and ice, here) with NOTHING to brighten it up. So I’m tipping a glass in a couple of days and then maybe even move a tree into the house on February 14!!

    Before mud and spring yard clean-up, and the real tax season starts.

    Reply
  20. Tessie

    I DID find it-February 9th, 2006. Recipe post (of course). I know I had been reading before that though, since I recognized some of the older posts.

    That’s less than a year ago, which is weird because it seems LONGER.

    Reply
  21. Saly

    Ah yes, the post Christmas let down. It sucks. We did all of the unpacking rigt on Christmas night because garbage day was Wednesday, and we WERE NOT sitting on all of that for a week.

    You can totally name my baby…or help. If it’s a boy, that is. I think we’re set if it’s a girl.

    Reply
  22. I know you can hear me...

    This is the first year that the day after Christmas had me all in a funk and out of sorts. But I was also out of town at my parents, so perhaps that had something to do with it (although I always am out of town for holidays, so who knows…)

    I am liking the 13 days of Christmas idea…how do you think we could go about getting that started in the US?!

    Reply
  23. Omaha Mama

    Contemplating many things, including a “diet (yuck)” so please let us (me) know when you get it all figured out so I can copy you again. I totally did not make it on the Couch to 5K but want to do something. Anything. Hmmmmmmmm…
    Push ups?
    Baby lifts (he weights 30 now)?
    Walking?

    I can’t decide, so need to see what you’re going to try. Now am going to go get some more cherry cordial hershey kisses out of the fridge.

    Reply
  24. Jess

    This is now my THIRD comment on this post, but I have to comment again because I need to know if your baby-naming expertise extends to dog names. I posted on my blog about the dog my parents are getting because my mom is having serious trouble with the name. I need your help!

    Reply
  25. Laura

    Oh my gosh…I am so sick of folding boxes…and then more boxes, because if I throw them away I won’t have enough for next year, even though I didn’t even use up all of last year’s. You know? The clothes boxes? I hate them and love them. It is super depressing for it to be over, and yet, less depressing because it’s over. I am talking in oxymorons and I kind of like it. No commitment to any one thing. I think it’s the new me…

    Reply

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