This is the time of year when the days are shorter and my bank is much smaller trying to keep up with a dizzying array of social activities focused around my my need to reign in my food addiction. The holiday season casts a dark cloud over the heads of people like me. I am always in a a state of moderate depression but as I forced indoors by the rain and the cold, I am given more hours to contemplate my complete inadequacy as a decorator, baker, and selector of gifts.Both of parents are dead. I think this may have something to do with the feeling as if the holidays are not particularly significant. My mother was always the person who believed in decorative sweaters, earrings, cards, and obligations. If my father ever picked out a gift, I am not aware of it. I know his name was added to many cards. He would get me flowers for valentine's day- an extension of holiday disappointment that reminds people that they have no one worth buying last minute candy or flowers from lest be thought of as indifferent. My mom baked for the holidays. Cakes, snacky things, sweet things were her speciality items. She could follow a recipe as long as it involved the potential for diabetes. Anything that involved cooking or protein was generally not her strong suit. I loved the smell of holiday candles and winter in the air.My parents are long gone now. I spent at least 6 year that I remember with a needle in my arm at Christmas. One year I got arrested for prostitution on Christmas eve. In the using world, people are more likely to talk about suicide then their families. It seems as if the months better October and January serve to highlight that you could not make it home for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or whatever the fuck there YOU ARE A LOSER. Or if you did, you hated ever minute because it highlighted you are not normal because you didn't drink the kool-aid and think all this stuff sucks.I have my own kids. We don't make a huge deal out of the holidays. We try to make sure they know we love them every day. We try to have family meals together a few days out the the week and morning snuggles. We let them know that some people don't have homes. My daughter knows mommy used to be on drugs and homeless. But that sentence end with "but I have never used drugs your whole life. I don't do that anymore." That makes the whole thing easy. Knowing that I can be present in the lives of my children is the holiday. It is magically to be a person of my word. I might decorate or make some holiday dishes but the most important thing I can give them is my love.