Then the cold dry wind comes, and the swirl of the brittle corpses of leaves, and the skeletal black branches silhouetted against an angry gray sky, and the sex-crazed deer trying their best to suicide-ambush unwary drivers, and the frenzy of gauche commercialism in expectations of holiday sales that often disappoint, and the gloom and melancholy resulting from too little sunlight on the skin, and the discomfort of obnoxious relatives in too-close proximity, and the scratchy irritation of clothes that are meant to be more warm than comfortable, and the ache of feet that never stop being cold, and noses that run, and eyes that water, and knuckles that chap and bleed, and the mocking sun that is paradoxically too bright yet without warmth, and the rich aroma of hot chocolate that soothes for a moment before being quickly subsumed by the oppressive norms of the season, and the calendar--that hale tormenter!--chiding us at every interaction that there's more yet to come.
But seeing loved ones on holidays, reveling in the joyful faces of laughing children and the kindly faces of caring elders, makes it all worth it.
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