I believe in you Santa. You believe in me?

December 2022

I’m hoping to sail into 2023 free and clear – no guilt, no regret, no remorse. No sad reflections on my 365-day voyage through this past year.

I’m hoping to steer around any self-flagellation about the high crimes and misdemeanors I committed, or the sins of omission I made on my journey across the stormy seas and the placid lakes of the last 12 months.

I did it and I’m done with it.

And I’m going to begin my trip through the new year by avoiding resolutions that I’ll do better next year. I’ll leave that stuff to the good people who think they need in order to be even better people – those promises to themselves that they won’t do this, but they will do that.

My plan is simple: Just to be sure, just to make it easy to slide into ’23 with no chains of ’22 dragging me down, I’m breaking – right now -- all the resolutions that I know I ought to adopt before the new calendar goes up on the wall.  I’m throwing the resolutions against that wall – splat! – and walking away a happy guy.

I’m going to eat that big bag of potato chips at one sitting. I’m going to enjoy that quart of pure vanilla ice cream, with a thick oozing layer of chocolate syrup on top. I’m going to eat an entire loaf of raisin bread, with butter.

It all started a month ago when I compiled a list of all the things I need to do to get myself back on my self-improvement track. I tried my best -- for a couple of days or so -- to achieve those goals. I worked my way through the entire list but, sad to say , I didn’t do very well. The resolutions ended up as a tangle of twists and turns piled on the floor.

But I look at it this way: By facing up to my failures now, in the season of good cheer, Christmas lights and endless Yuletide carols, I can ease some of the pain of defeat, the agony of falling short once again. My plan is to suffer through the bag of chips now, when spirits are bright and sleigh bells jingle in the night. Numb myself with dreams of a “White Christmas” while I eat my bucket of pale ice cream. Lose myself in the tinkle of “Silver Bells” as I drown the bowl in brown goo.  Fool myself with the cleverness of “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” while I chew the mound of raisin-studded dough.

“Maybe 2024,” I say when I suffer twinges and twitches of conscience. Maybe I’ll just slide into better behavior, despite myself. I reassure myself with the hopeful tale of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the peculiar, scrawny little buck who gets a second chance at Christmas and scores big. Santa rescued him; maybe Santa will intervene for me.

I’m sure psychologists have a name for this kind of conniving behavior, this kind of sleight-of– head tomfoolery, this intentional fizzle-out. Their DSM-5 guide to mental disorders probably calls it something like “Resolution Reflexive Resistance” and has a clinical description that includes words like “self-deception” and “rationalization” and “avoidance”.

Most of the people avoiding discussions of their bad behaviors with their therapists are younger than me and have plenty of time left to figure out how to look in the mirror and face reality.  I’m a wrinkly old codger, with a shorter list of stops left on my cruise through life, so why should I deprive myself of some of the simple pleasures still left.

Why try to embody sweetness and light when I can be pardoned for being grumpy and growly? Why become a wise old owl when it’s so much fun to be an irritable old curmudgeon?

So when I yell at the guy who swerves into my lane ahead of me and he makes it through the yellow light and leaves me sitting at the red  – yes, when I shake my fist and holler “Grandma got run over by a reindeer and I hope you do too!” – I’m not going to feel bad about it. Road rage might be naughty but in truth it can be nice, if you don’t let it go too far. It has a therapeutic value that shouldn’t be overlooked.

And if, on New Year’s Eve, either this year or next, I decide to cut a rug, as they used to say, I don’t want anybody to admonish me to “act my age.” If I want to rock around the Christmas tree, let me rock. My ability or inability to flex my legs the next day is my business.

Or if I show a little avarice, like the sultry lass singing “Santa Baby” and coaxing the jolly old man for “a ’54 convertible, light blue,” don’t scold. It’s no sin to ask for a red ‘Vette. Santa can always say no, the same way he’s done every year in the past.

So now, today, with broken resolutions out of the way, I’m set to steam into 2023 with no lofty goals waiting to weigh me down. I’ll spend the next 12 months as the lout that I am. I’ll sail across another happy year of shame and embarrassment, and worry about the guilt when 2024 appears on the horizon.

I believe in you, Santa, so let’s see if you believe in me.