I’ve spent a considerable amount of time the past few weeks sitting in front of the television watching Christmas movies. I am crocheting a gift for someone I love (and now all of my loved ones are terrified they are going to open up a gift this Christmas that looks like this…..)

You will all just have to wait and see. But I will say that at this point in time, the only body parts that have any kind of strength are my fingers. I can’t hike a mountain, but I challenge anyone to thumb wrestling.

Anyhoo, as anyone who watches Christmas movies knows, there is basically one plot and they just use different actors to play the parts. However, my biggest takeaway from the numerous movies I have watched is that there is no fear of climate change when it comes to Holly Village or Snowflakeland or Reindeerville or any of the other always Christmas-themed-named towns being visited by the cold-hearted woman attorney whose heart is about to grow three sizes upon meeting the town lumberjack. Because, my friends, it’s always snowing in these towns. Large flakes. Huge piles of snow that women can somehow easily navigate wearing high-heeled boots.

There is also no concern about the use of electricity, because there are twinkling holiday lights EVERYWHERE. I watched one movie in which the rich businesswoman was walking in the woods with the man who makes a living carving ornaments and there were twinkly lights throughout the forest. Having struggled very recently with putting up lights, my first thought wasn’t who decorates a forest, but instead WHERE IN THE HELL ARE THEY GETTING THE ELECTRICITY.

Quite frankly, instead of cheering me up, these holiday extravaganzas are adding to my already deflating Christmas spirit. I know we all are tired of COVID. It’s a thing. With a name. COVID fatigue syndrome. Okay, I added the syndrome part, but it feels syndromy to me. Because a lot us have the same feeling.

Mine reached its peak when I first heard the words omicron variant. Mother of our sweet Baby Jesus, will the variants never cease? How many variants do we have to have before we all get vaccinated? I am dead serious: If they told me I would grow a second head in 10 years if I get the vaccine, I would do it. I DON’T WANT TO WEAR A MASK ANYMORE.

In very grinchlike fashion, I was complaining about this to my daughter-in-law Jll. She told me that their minister expressed the same opinion about COVID fatigue in her recent sermon at their church service. She said that even the word pandemic was dragging her down to the ground. She had a simple solution. She was no longer going to use the word pandemic. Instead, from that point on, she is calling it a pandy. She said the word pandy is so much more cheerful than pandemic.

Friends, she is absolutely correct. I assure you that if, in a couple of years from now, there is a Hallmark movie that takes place in 2021, Candace Cameron Bure will be referring to it as The Pandy. She will be a candy maker who falls in love with a visiting stock broker who hates Christmas. Her homemade Pandy Candy will change his life forever.