(Inspired by the December theme song “Baby Its Cold Outside,” written 12/04/2017.)

If you forced me to rank what lured me into loving Christmas, the top three would tie, but here goes:

In Third Place? The happy smiles, better moods, and all around good cheer.

A close Second Place would go to the pretty lights. Gem-stone-colored eye-candy. The big C9’s. Bright. Hot. Quick-to-blow fuses. Electricity wasting fabulousness.

The “Miss Congeniality” award, or at least an honorable mention, goes to the homemade caramels and cookies—which, until this year, I made in multiple quadruple batches, burning fingers and tasting samples along the way. More recently, I’ve been trying not to eat the sugary, buttery goodness—obviously, my body in evidence, I have failed at times.

But First Place? First Place would go to holiday music, secular or not.

From age three or four, I sang. Put on shows. Christmas pageants in my living room. Later, in my prime, I could sing a tear-inducing “Oh, Holy Night” ala soprano Renee Flemming. I sang in choruses and musicals, solo’d for weddings and funerals. I even fronted a couple bands in my twenties. But I never once had the chance to perform a favorite: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

I have a soft spot for the scene from the movie Elf where Jovie (played by Zooey Deschanel) is singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in a women’s locker-room shower—everyone sounds better in the shower, am I right? Will Ferrell, playing Buddy the dorky, sweet, clueless elf, is secretly sitting nearby on a sink counter, legs crossed, quietly answering Jovie throughout the call-and-response song, so quietly that Jovie doesn’t hear him. Until the end. The last line, “Baby, its cold outside,” he belts out along with her. If any of you heard [or read] my October-monster story, you’d know Buddy would have scared the livin’ daylights out of me, like he did Jovie. But still, the movie is my all-time holiday favorite.

I must have played the soundtrack five hundred times since its release fourteen or so years ago—but ONLY during the holidays—NEVER before Thanksgiving. A couple pop songs, Louis Prima’s “Pennies from Heaven” and Billy Preston’s “Nothing from Nothing” bookend some Christmas greats. From Ella, Lena, Eartha—what’s not to love? If you get the CD, don’t expect Will Ferrell singing with Zooey though. Leon Redbone, who plays the snowman, takes over.

Even before loving the movie Elf, I became the keeper of Christmas for my very large family. Years ago, a couple cousins of mine, Brian and Mark, as roommates on the Northside of Chicago, started a small-ish, family holiday party. A few cousins, some aunts and uncles would show up early, maybe four or five o’clock. Around eight or nine, just as the aunts and uncles left, Brian and Mark’s friends would arrive for the higher-alcohol-content after-party.

But, after a few years, maybe because they weren’t roommates anymore, the guys stopped hosting family parties. I called to ask if I could jump in. I don’t remember what year I took over, but over these past twenty-some years, give or take, my annual party has grown from fifteen to twenty friends and family in a small Forest Park townhouse to seventy-five in my large suburban house. Seventy-five. Remember, I said I have a really large family. One hundred and twenty-five showed up to the last family reunion. And that’s just my Dad’s side. And not all of them. And they’ve birthed dozens more since. Yes, Dad’s side is Irish Roman Catholic. Mom’s side is German. That makes me a stubborn drunk. But I digress—classic Irish pattering.

Anyway, I’m single, no kids. And as exhausting as it’s been to put together, the party has been a really fun way to see my niece and nephews’ eyes light up, to watch my cousins’ children in the “kid pit”—which is what I’ve branded the big, cushy sectional in my basement. The kid pit is loaded with pillows, and I add stuffed toys: a reindeer, elves, a bear, a moose, and a snowman. The kids jump and trash the cushions like a bouncy house—until Santa arrives. They follow St. Nick (a/k/a Cousin Mike or Cousin Chuck) all over my house.

The adults have been terrific fun to watch as well. Gabbing around my fireplace. Splurging on all the food and the dessert table. One of my favorite sights to see has been watching a few funny uncles and older cousins stuff their pockets with my homemade caramels. They tried, at first, to hide their stashes from their wives, until the pocketed caramels melted into sticky messes and exposed their efforts. From then on, I prepped Ziploc baggies of individually wrapped pieces of heaven for each man, like party favors.

But…of those first cousins that have regularly attended my party, their children are aging out of eye-popping amazement at my two large, well-lit-eye-candy Christmas trees, the lighted swags down the staircase, the sparkling boughs over the windows. The Santa collection. The mischievous elves that dangle from the basement drop-ceiling as if they are flying overhead, or the three that appear to be sliding playfully down a bannister. I used to tease the littlest kids that the elves wouldn’t move again until we humans weren’t watching.

Besides the kids growing up, sadly, we’ve lost, just this year, two caramel-loving patriarchs: Uncle Irv and Uncle Jim.

It broke my heart to know they wouldn’t attend this year. Their pockets wouldn’t be filled with candies that made them grin like children.

I’m sorry to be a downer, bringing up the ravages of time. But the loss of these two men, and seeing my eighty-five year old father’s decline speed up this year, it’s been tough on my holiday spirit.

Add all this to the last few years of destressing and reinventing myself, and the inconclusive results I received when I polled my cousins about having the party or not, I decided to not have the annual party this year. The party would have been set for this coming Saturday. I’d wavered in my compulsive feeling of obligation for weeks, using the passage of time to help make my decision. I’m still feeling a bit guilty, neglectful, even though I think it was the right thing for me, this year at least.

You see, the party, as generous as it may sound to host such an event, year after year, had a selfish element to it. I used to feel such self-satisfied pride from the praise and gratitude of others for pulling it off. It had fed my need to impress, to be viewed as a success. With my big house. My Martha-Stewart-on-crack, over-the-top holiday decorating. My hiring of two professional servers in black-tie to help. So hoity-toity…

But as much as I may have wanted to taste a bit of self-aggrandizement in past years, to see my self-image viewed better in the eyes of others—as a success in work instead of a lonely fraud at life—the party had started as something else. Something simpler. I remember having seen someone, probably flippin’ Martha Stewart, say that if you want to be invited out, to have better or more friends, more opportunities to build relationships, you should invite others who will then reciprocate. I even hoped that maybe a cousin would eventually set me up with a handsome friend who’d say to me, “Hey, don’t leave. Baby, it’s cold outside.”

I’d thought the party was a great idea—and it was. It helped our family stay closer. But flippin’ Martha Stewart had been wrong. The reciprocal invites hadn’t taken off. Or, maybe it was just me not liking the few that were offered…and that’s on me.

In recent years, I’ve been finally facing the real, underlying issues in my life. I quit the career that I’d allowed to take over, and I’m addressing my want of connection. I took steps to alter the path I was on, and I’m happier for it—even if the holidays are testing me a bit.

I still love Christmas. I’m playing that festive Elf CD until it wears out. In a few days, I’ll have the good cheer of a modest few family members around. And while I didn’t bake or make candy this year, I’m still agog at brilliant holiday lights. But I don’t really need the party anymore to prove to others how well I’m doing. It’s less important what others think, more important what I believe and that I have confidence in my path, even if it forces me to drop pretenses and face the loneliness prevalent in our shared human condition.

That said, I will leave you with this. A challenge of sorts, a winter project to drive off any seasonal-affective-disorder blues. Reach out to friends and family, especially the single ones, and especially around the holidays—but not only then. And not with pity, just as a fellow human being, making a connection. And maybe, just maybe, that person won’t be lonely at home, thinking, “Damn, it’s cold outside.”