Happy Holidays!

            This is my favorite time of the year. From Halloween until New Years I have always been able to put aside my troubles and be relatively happy. Most, if not all, of you know that I am a Bi-Polar. I suffer from a severe depression which manifested itself in my mid teens. The first crescendo of this condition occurred when I attempted to off myself two months before my seventeenth birthday. Yes I know you all know about this because I won’t just shut the fuck up about it. All I can say in my defense is that the more I talk about it the les control that and similar experiences have over me.

            The exception of the fall of 2008 I have nothing bad to say about any of my end of the year experiences. And to be fair 2008 was when I didn’t even put the tree up, my oldest daughter did it on Christmas Eve. That year I was in the throes of the single worst depression of my life and I literally came out of it ON Christmas Day … MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS! Even the Christmas, I think I was 7, when we had no heat was still awesome.

            My mom has problems. I have talked about them and worked them out of my system so I have no desire to rehash them here. All that would do is hurt her if she ever reads this. She never reads my stuff as far as I know so that is only a slim possibility. The one thing my other has always done right is Christmas, no matter how bad things were, no matter how little money we had, my mom made sure that Christmas was a memory to be treasured.

            Anna Hilden, my mom, is a clever woman. She began shopping for next year’s Christmas as soon as this year’s was finished. She was like a hawk when it came to sales and promotional events. She would always go to K-Marts “Blue Light Madness” sale (do they even do that anymore) and she was the Queen of Black Friday until it became so greed inspired it was no longer fun.

            Mom has been a Bi-Polar with a chemical dependency problem for most of my life. She also suffers from Seasonal Effective Disorder which means when it gets cold and dark all she wants to do is curl up in bed and not get up again until spring. But for Christmas when I was a child my mother always managed to overcome her depression long enough for us to enjoy the Holiday. Yes the next day she was very likely back in bed and it was up to me and my brother to rectify the wrapping paper and decoration apocalypse but that was okay. It was all worth it.

            No matter what, Christmas was always a good time.

            I have seasonal effective … blah, blah, mother fucking blah myself. But for me it’s the summer. When the humidity is high, the thermometer breaks, and the sun never sets but instead lies in wait behind buildings and trees to ambush and rape me I am miserable. I never matters how low I have the AC set or how few clothes I wear, I am miserable and all I want to do is sleep until the leaves change and the flowers die.

            The last quarter of the years was always my refuge.

            The first Holiday Season I spent as a father I was worried and my worry was very selfish. I was worried that Halloween and Christmas would become boring and that all of the things I loved about them would be negated. It would in fact be ruined by the needs and wants of three little children and one infant who could never “Get” how important this time of the year is to me.

            Okay you can now commence with calling me a fucking moron. I won’t be mad just get it over with so I can move on and wrap this up.

            Done?

            Good, moving on.

            Kids make the holiday season a million billion trillion times better. Taking my kids trick or treating is amazing. Taking them to my Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving is one of the highlights of my year. And I think that it goes without saying I cannot imagine Christmas without my family. Two years ago I started a new tradition were al of the kids, there significant others, and honorary immediate family members come over. We eat, watch Christmas movies, drink, and have some of the best moments of my year.

            Few if any memories beat seeing my sedate reserved baby brother turned into a drunken hugging giggly kid.

            So what is the point of this essay?

            Is it to say I am depressed mother fucker?

            No, not at all, in fact I feel really good right now.

            Is it to reminisce about my childhood holidays?

            Maybe to a degree, I love those memories.

            Is it to tell how much better the holidays are with my kids?

            Yeah that is a significant portion of it I guess.

            Is it because I feel like bragging about how good my life has been lately?

            Not gonna answer that one.

            What I will say instead is that I love all of you. All of you I know in real life and those of you who I have an intense online friendship with. I love my readers and my fans (I feel a little douchey writing that one) I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for each and every one of you. I hate, Hate, HATE it when people go on about how blessed they are (Has nothing to do with the person saying it, it just was a favorite bit of crap my original Step Monster used fling at me). What I will say instead is that I am lucky to have each and every one of you in my life.

            More than any medication you people have helped me with my depression. I will never conquer it but with your support and kindness I can keep it in a check and be able to live my life in relative freedom. Things are only looking up for me and my family, there amazing and major things in the offing that I can’t wait to share. So what I guess I am saying with this is essay is this;

THANK YOU!