Onward ho ho ho.

It's over and I couldn't be happier about it. I know I shouldn't be, in much the same way that I should like to hold everyone's babies all the damn time, but I am. Thrilled. Consumed with the joy that I feel I should have had while everyone was trimming their trees with awful balls and cloth ornaments not washed since 1973. I'm happy Christmas is over.

In my house, Christmas does mean carnage. Not a one of our nuclear foursome escapes it, although I seem to be the unwilling recipient of most of everyone's anxiety dump. This isn't martyrdom; it's a clear, observed, documented, admitted family fact that I'm the black sheep of the clan, particularly at the holidays. Thanksgiving was an absolute debacle, my mother criticizing my every effort down to my reheating of the Thai takeout, all the while praising my sister's Godly steps and clearly superior highlights. I measure the success of most holidays in number of crying jaunts, and given that this year I made it through with zero, Nondenominational Holiday 2007 was a banner event in the old Likey household.

I'm convinced that this is a direct result of the no fewer than $80K I've invested in therapy this year with a woman who is helping me to set some boundaries. No, I don't want to spend my Christmas feeling like a damn 12 year old again. Yes, I'll come over; no, I won't help with the green beans, because every time I enter the effing kitchen you pull out a grenade and I really don't look all that great in red Kevlar. You see, as an adult, these are my holidays too, and I deserve some damn joy out of them. So I get it out of finding cute bows and shiny wrapping, patterned boxes and decorative gift bags. I get it by being the creative one. It's one of the things my family allows me to excel at, something they will actually comment on in the positive. Little joys.

I am convinced that bigger ones await. I want so much to have a family of my own, a husband and more cats and a dog and someplace to put up a tree, a safe place where I'm accepted and success isn't measured in a lack of tears. I pity this poor man, the eventual recipient of decades of stunted Kris joy. I can't wait to choose bold reds and place settings for those I'll welcome into my home. I can't wait to squeal upon finding the perfect holiday cards, to command a kitchen in which I'll cook the green beans any damn way I please, to pick up ornaments during our travels no matter what time of year. It won't be a taking back of the holidays, because they've always belonged to someone else. It will be starting traditions from scratch, every last one of them a success and a joy simply because they are mine.