I love Christmas. I really do. I don’t get annoyed at merchants getting
their decorations up before American Thanksgiving, and I find myself itching
to put up my own.

I’ll be honest though, I was not always as you see me now.

I used to loathe Christmas. So what changed? Well, there are two key factors
that underlie my newfound love of Christmas.

First, becoming a parent.

Second, I no longer work in retail.

Ah, December in retail. 15 hour days. No time for breaks or lunch. Just
hustling all day. I did it for years. For more years than I care to recall I
subsisted at work during Christmas time on nothing but coffee, chocolate
covered coffee beans, and the rush of closing deals.

Healthy? Absolutely not. But for a long time it was fun.

That said, I had no interest in celebrating Christmas; no interest in
decorating, no interest in celebrating, and certainly no interest in playing
Christmas music after hearing it for 15 hours straight.

I didn’t celebrate Christmas for pretty much the same reason porn stars
don’t go to the bar looking to meet someone.

At about the same time that I was getting sick of retail, I also was going
to become a dad for the first time. I decided then that I would actually
like to see my kids grow up, rather than be constantly working, so I left
retail and moved into custom installation, a job with regular office hours.

I vividly remember my first non-retail Christmas. The two weeks before
Christmas were quiet, and a got a lot of work done on the design projects I
was working on. Even better, we closed our office for the week after
Christmas!

So, absent the stress and hassle of working Christmas shopping hours, and
watching the joy and wonder of my kids as they’ve gotten older and get more
excited about Christmas every year, and I’m a reformed Grinch who actually
enjoys Christmas now.

Someone should make a movie about that.