I was trying to be a grinch this holiday season.

I told myself I didn't feel like going through the motions, that I needed time to quietly remember the people I'm missing this year. I thought I had reasons to succumb to the depression that hits so many people as they head into the holidays.

Yeah, right.

I can do holiday stress, but I can't do seasonal depression. This year, I didn't even make it to the holidays before I started to cave a little.

About a week before Thanksgiving I found myself practically tripping over my 11-year-old son as we chased the Candy Cane Train through Ala Moana Center, giggling and trying to get a photo of my pensive-looking 4-year-old, who had her hands clamped over her ears to muffle the Christmas carols.

A couple days after that, I walked into the Disney Store to buy my daughter a pair of shoes and walked out with two huge bags that contained the shoes, plus Christmas decorations and a couple gifts that somehow have already been opened, played with and forgotten about.

My children chose to ignore my mutterings about canceling Thanksgiving dinner, and they were right to. When it came right down to it, there was no way I was going to deny my kids a whole turkey with all the trimmings. I'm thankful for them, and that's worth celebrating.

But that was going to be it. I announced to everyone that I planned to shun all other festivity from Black Friday through Christmas Eve.

Then my daughter started talking about how we were going to the opening of Honolulu City Lights. I'm not sure who put her up to it, but she assumed we were going, and I couldn't think of any reason not to. It turned out to be one of the highlights of my year as I watched my oft-ornery 11-year-old grinning as he held his sister up high to make sure she didn't miss the parade.

Ever since then, my daughter has been all about Christmas, making Christmas ornaments, writing letters to Santa and singing muddled Christmas carols.

She fretted before the Christmas tree went up and asking quite logically (and repeatedly) how Santa was going to put presents under the tree if there wasn't a tree for him to put presents under. She was so relieved when the decorations came out that she danced around with delight and tried to convince me a dozen times that "J-O-Y" spelled Santa.

And suddenly I realized I was joyous.

I loaded Christmas carols on the MP3 player and finally got around to watching "A Christmas Story."

Next up: "It's a Wonderful Life."

In spite of everything, it really is.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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