Nobody puts baillee in the corner

(It took me a solid 25 minutes to think of synonyms for each word in the title of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”).

The older I get, the more sentimental the holidays become. When I was younger, I craved toys (thanks again for surviving the year of the Tickle Me Elmo, Ma, and I would love to hear what actually happened at that Toys R Us one day) and stocking stuffers. I lived in a gift-centric universe. Now, I simply yearn for time with my friends and family. I realize how selfish I was in my younger years by always begging to open more presents on Christmas Eve or getting upset about the one present my mom forgot (mind you, the woman would take full responsibility to take the heat of off Santa) instead of focusing on all of the time I was getting to spend with my loved ones. That’s why I’m officially declaring “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” the saddest Christmas song of my adult life (it might be second to “The Christmas Shoes,” but I don’t want to make you cry so hard that you can’t finish this piece, so let’s not go there).

For me, the song has a melancholy tone. I live over three hours from my family, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but for someone who has to work at least 40 hours a week and doesn’t even have a driver’s license, it’s hard. Thus, I take the lyrics to heart. I take it our narrator doesn’t have a way of getting home or is separated from his/her family (and friends) and desperately wants nothing more than to get home to spend Christmas with them and can’t. The same thing happened to me last year. My mom came to Austin, but I missed the rest of my family something awful. Also, think about the last time you were watching a holiday movie, and that song swelled as someone made it home just in time for dinner or a couple kissed for the first time or just to signify good news in general. It’s the background music when the Stone family accepts fate in The Family Stone aka one of the most heartbreaking scenes in one of my favorite holiday movies, while showing the clip of a distraught Judy Garland belting it out in Meet Me in St. Louis. If it doesn’t even bode well for my fictional characters, how can I hear it with a positive connotation?

I think the most heartbreaking line of the song (yeah, you know the line) is “through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow.” Every time that line comes on, my stomach feels like I drank expired eggnog. It’s harder to swallow than old fruitcake. It’s though I’ve been hit by Santa’s sleigh (I’ll stop and leave the comic relief to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from now on). Basically, I feel like you realize you are becoming an adult when you realize the full implications of those lyrics. Adult friendships and familial relationships are totally different as you get older, but this isn’t just a bummer piece. There is a positive spin to all of this.

The same line of my sorrows should also serve as a reminder about the importance of friends and family. It should make you realize how important it is to cherish all of the memories you have with your loved ones. As you grow up, your friends might move because of work and even to start their own families. You might move away from your family like I did. Therefore, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has a tone of both happy and sad sentiment. It should make you want to Skype your family for two hours on Thanksgiving and laugh because no one knows how to correctly hold the camera, and they make you talk to the animals. It should make you want to stay up until 5AM with your friends watching everything from the Peanuts’ holiday collection to totally bogus horror movies. It should make you realize how much people matter. I never want to have to visualize loved ones while hearing a line from a song, only to realize I didn’t utilize my time with them. You might be surrounded by Tickle Me Elmos, but they can’t sing Linda Belcher’s Thanksgiving song with you.

Sure, you’ll grow up, and life takes everyone in different directions, but you should never be so caught up in your own world that you don’t make time for those you love and care about. Adulthood is crazy, but make sure your loved ones are a priority, not an after thought. If you don’t, you won’t have people to tease you about things, such as crying during “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”