Christmas means many things to many people. And like many other people, I will be spending Christmas listening to Billie Holiday, trying to swallow the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila and staring deep into the black abyss I call my soul between episodes of “The Real World” and gargantuan pieces of cheesecake.

I’m not alone on this one, and I know it. Christmas always feels like being forced to smile at gunpoint.

I blame the concept of the “ideal Christmas,” which is the one most of us never had but we think we did. It’s imaginary, but we still feel as though we need to live up to it.

We run around trying to force ourselves to the next level of consciousness. My aunt about gives herself a hernia trying to pretend for one day that she is Doris Day.

Every year, the holidays can leave us with a profound sense of failure because nothing lives up to the memories we have constructed from holiday specials and Christmas albums.

The perception of past happiness is always greater than the reality. It’s like going back to your old high school, and you can’t believe how small everything is.

When you’re five years old, Christmas is as close as you will ever get to real magic. The lights, the music and the stories make life feel infinitely more interesting than it really is, and you can get hooked.

Christmas is like heroin. The first time you spike that yuletide vein it’s the greatest rush in the world.

You feel like you could live forever, but you will never capture that feeling again no matter how many times you try. At least that is what Christmas was like at William S. Burroughs’ house, but the point is still valid for the rest of us.

Milan Kundera expressed it best in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Life in the West is supposed to be so happy, but most of us run around never realizing how miserable we really are. We know we aren’t as happy as we are “supposed” to be, and that makes us feel guilty. After all, we live in the land of milk and honey; who wouldn’t be happy?

But wealth doesn’t make people happy. Wealth is to the soul what carbon monoxide is to the blood. Wealth fools you into thinking you have everything you need, and meanwhile, your soul could be starving while you ignore it.

Socrates said that desire creates suffering, and Christmas is all about desire. We want expensive presents with fresh batteries.

We want a moist turkey and muffins so fluffy they would make Martha Stewart jealous. We want all of our relatives to drink rum all day in the same house without fighting about every minor transgression they ever suffered. We even want the cat to stay out of the tree.

We set ourselves up for disappointment because our expectations are so high we could never attain them.

I think the key to success is to set reasonable goals for yourself. Try not to go for the ultimate Christmas experience. If the members of your family don’t normally sing, don’t try to get them to do “Jingle Bell Rock” on Christmas Eve.

If grandma used to punish Uncle Bill by making him wear a dress in the front yard, don’t expect them to sit next to each other without a knife fight ensuing.

Dysfunction really is the norm, so don’t feel like there is something wrong with your family because they aren’t like those freaks of nature on Hallmark commercials. Good Lord, no one’s family lives up to the standards set by Norman Rockwell paintings. We should all be glad if we make it out alive.

You can’t dictate scientific innovation, and you can’t dictate the relative success of your holiday gatherings. Don’t doom yourself to failure. Keep an open mind. Be adaptable and flexible. Be tensed and ready for action, but don’t go looking for trouble.

Don’t expect to finally have that special moment when you suddenly realize the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas is just life forced into sharp relief for a day.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily and wants nothing more for Christmas than Quick Es!