The fine line between lazy and indifferent

I have never completed a holiday meta-achievement.

I've never actually tried to complete a holiday meta-achievement.

I say this because last night I decided to buy the pink elephant pet instead of saving my tokens for the items required to get the Disturbing the Peace or Brew of the Month achievements and I'm waffling on buying the gnome-o-vision goggles with the tokens I get going forward, if I bother to get any more tokens going forward. Would I really rather have those silly toys than the violet protodrake?

Yeah, probably.

So, why do I consistently choose not to put the effort into holidays, even though the reward is so substantial - that super-fast dragon would be a great thing to have, and holidays are probably my only means of achieving one. Still, I don't bother.

Why not?

Is it that the reward isn't that big of a deal? I can make the argument that farming on a 310% mount would be an exercise in frustration - my current fast flying mount is already slightly faster than the client's ability to detect and post node blips on the mini-map, often popping them on the map slightly behind me and forcing me to circle back to them. An even faster mount might well miss nodes altogether.

I can also argue that flight speed isn't really that big of a deal - I have fast flight on Barls and my druid flies at the revised quicker base flight speed and I really don't feel like the difference is enough to compel me to save for fast flight on the druid, not as a priority anyway, perhaps as a luxury post-80 if I do an argent tournament grind for gear and wind up with a gold surplus.

I can claim that the reason I don't bother is because it would be too crushing if, due to circumstance or incompetence I was unable to finish one of the holidays deep into the chain and had to wait an extra year on account of one missing achievement and am therefore guarding myself against such immense frustration and despair.

Or, maybe I'm just lazy.

Sure, holidays are casual-friendly, but they're not exactly casual. To complete a holiday with limited playtime you are required, during many of them, to completely devote your playtime to that holiday, often for the duration of the holiday. Holidays are in a lot of ways worse than daily quests - you have to do them, you have to focus on them, and you have the added weight not only of determinism but also of urgency - if you miss a day, if you miss an achievement, you pay a 12-month penalty.

Holidays also often require a level of PvP play that many like myself, who simply do not enjoy that part of the game, are turned off by. The need to fight into and through enemy cities is an unfair requirement for the achievements as they really punish the casual or fringe player who cannot accomplish these tasks alone and might not have access to the large groups needed to push forward with these events.

Trying to do What A Longs, Strange Trip takes guts if you really care about the attempt and you are not gifted with above-average playtime. More fortitude than I have, apparently.

In the end, I'm just too afraid to fail at it to try to do it.

You will all be very cute as gnomes.