Now that another Christmas season is over for everyone except the garbage collectors and returns clerks, I feel obligated to offer my post Bah-Humbug commentary.

For several years now, I’ve had The Christmas Humbug. This bug ironically coincides with the fact that since I have a bazillion kids, I’m on the giving end more than the receiving end. Or maybe I’m in a humbug mood just because I’m smarter nowadays and more uncommercialized. I can’t say for sure.

Greg, the optimist in our marriage, frequently quips, “Christmas cheer!” to his realistic better half as she pitches the fourteen-foot-high stack of overpriced, oversexed advertisements in the garbage. “I’m over it!” I protest, but Greg’s Burl Ives’ CD is on repeat performance. Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas? Sure, if you own Wal-Mart.

Thanks to the Wal-Mart generic gift aisle, I own a fancy assortment of funny flavored mustards. It’s stuffed back onto the top shelf in my laundry room, a Christmas Cheer casualty from six years ago. Lava lamps, ch-ch-chia pets, purple mustard wrapped in fluorescent Santa paper—welcome to America! Anyway, I can’t think of anyone I know who likes Honey Flavored Mustard Relish. And besides, how would one find this information out? Excuse me. We just met, I know. But I couldn’t help but notice that you might possibly enjoy this green-tinted Dill Spring Mustard!

I’ve tried to protest the Tickle Me Elmo craze for a couple years now, but I only succeeded in making myself annoying. In the end, I didn’t feel any holier, and I don’t think God thought I was either.

It’s best just to let the batteries die and then not replace them.

But ‘tis the season, really. Except for in mall parking lots, everyone seems to be in a better mood at Christmas time. I talk to strangers that I normally wouldn’t have much to say to. Talking about nothing and anything and everything and something is so much easier during this holiday. Too, when I’m on my front porch in the summer, I usually just wave politely. But now I have something to shout—Merry Christmasssssss!—and it just feels a whole lot better. We are closer with our neighbors now —due to inflatable snowmen.

When it is all said and done, my Christmas Humbug appears to be morphing into something else entirely. I can’t say for certain, but it looks an awful lot like the everyday, ordinary saying that goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em.” Except for the Elmo part.

Christmas cheer.