In search of inspiration for this piece, I spent some time looking through old columns written years ago for another paper in another state, basically in a previous life. I came across a Christmas column that, embarrassingly, got slapped with a special disclaimer:

“Perhaps Ebaneezer Scrooge himself paid Corrigan a visit as he penned this piece, which certainly is a departure from the typical warm and fuzzy seasonal column.”

Of course, I was trying for a departure from the typical warm and fuzzy seasonal column. Still, my normally, reasonably intelligent editor badly misread my intentions. I never have uttered a heartfelt “bah-humbug” in my life. I love the idea of Christmas. It is some of the realities of the season that bug me. Commercials advertising this or that escape from the hustle of the holidays prove I’m hardly alone.

In that previous column, I took potshots at, among other things, being trapped in overcrowded malls with no clear idea of what I was looking for; at moronic parents who drag frightened, screaming children to overcrowded malls to see Santa; at relatives who remind you, possibly in an overcrowded mall, why you don’t go out of your way to see them during the rest of the year. Now, is there anything in that list of complaints that should earn me the label of a Scrooge? Be honest. Is there anyone out there who has not experienced some of the same annoyances?

Call it a hunch if you want, but I believe the flourish with which I ended that long-ago column was the problem, an ending that suggested alcohol and video games can alleviate many holiday-related mental maladies. I even added something about games that allow players to rip out spines. Cringe-inducing bad writing. Allow me to submit, however, that getting carried away in one form or another is a symptom of the season.

Take Christmas lights. I have a genuine thing of some type for Christmas lights. You know how small animals with small minds are said to be attracted to shiny things? This is the part of the column where you fill in a joke at my expense.

Anyway, back in that previous lifetime, I used to put Christmas lights and other decorations up on my house year after year despite the fact I was single with no children. Despite the fact that putting up those lights was the source of a hundred annoyances: carefully laid decorating plans that didn’t come close to working, strings of lights that, of course, also refused to work. Falling off a ladder and nearly breaking an ankle, not to mention my neck.

Now living in an apartment, I can’t even put lights on our patio, which, maddeningly, isn’t equipped with an electric outlet. Despite a moving sale that disposed of plastic Santas and snowmen, I still have boxes of lights and blow-up decorations. On a wholly different front, when my father passed away, the only thing I wanted from among his possessions was his Christmas ornament collection. It’s sizable and I’ve only added to it. More shiny things, you’ll notice.

Pretending for the moment that this whole column is something different, allow me a personal indulgence long enough to note that as I write this, I am starting to feel a bit nauseated by Christmas spirit. Helping me look through those old writings, my wife insisted I’ve mellowed. My stomach says she could be right, but the thought annoys me. At least in print, I used to take great pride in creating complicated bits of sarcasm, an easy thing to do in Cleveland, Ohio.

About at this point, I’d like to get greeting-card mushy. I’d like to write about a philosophical sweetness and light, “the ever-lasting yea” as somebody put it. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” somebody else once wrote and in December those dreams are Disney-colored cartoons come to life.

By the way, yes, Virginia, there is, in some way or another, a Santa Claus.

I suppose I could go on, but mellowed or not, my teeth are starting to hurt. Nevertheless, despite a cynical approach to most things, when I write “Merry Christmas,” the expression is heartfelt.

And more importantly, since Christmas technically only lasts one day, Happy New Year.

Would a “yea” be appropriate?