Niagara falls Frankie angel

Mark this event, write it down. I need to remember when it all started. This was the first Christmas that slipped through my fingers. The first Christmas I never got the full-on, "It's FUSKING Christmas!" feeling -- Santa, Jesus, goodwill toward men and all that. Mark it down so when I'm visited by three ghosts I have a place to trace it all back.

Wrapping presents at my mom's house and watching a little bit of A Christmas Story I thought I felt something, but nothing came to fruition. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty to be happy about. I know that. And it wasn't so much that I was unhappy as much as I felt like something was missing. Something's not the same.

There it is again, that abstract term I've come to know so well. Something.

About a week before holiday ground-zero -- as a last ditch attempt to clasp on to some festive feeling -- I tried to go buy my favorite Christmas movie, Scrooged but I couldn't find it at any of the local stores. It's been a couple of years since I've seen it and most of the time it's my holiday pick-me-up. My Christmas Viagra, if you will. Christmas movies on TNT or USA. That usually does it for me. Queue the warm and fuzzy.

Maybe a winged Carol Kane needed to hit me in the face with a toaster. I could have used that this year.

Christmas day was good. All the pieces were in place. Everything played out as planned, as it always does. Food, family, presents. We ate Turducken, which I don't know how I feel about. A chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey. It sounded more like a dare than actual cuisine. It was good, I guess, but I still felt nothing. No Christmas glow.

I even got to see the abomination of a house on the way back to Grandma's. The house you can see from space. Every neighborhood has one. It stands tall with a blinking light covering every inch. The one that looks like it's on fire. On fire with Christmas.

Seeing this should have done it, it's a tradition after all. It should have struck that dormant Christmas nerve. It should have started my heart growing three times it's size, but somehow, it wasn't the same. Like looking at a bicycle when you're all grown up. It's not as big as when you were seven. It serves a different purpose now.

I remember things being larger. Bigger than I could ever surmount.

I feel like I just rubbed my eyes and rubbed away the magic.