My name is Jeff Saunders and I hate the holidays…
The season is upon us yet again. Ahh yes - seems like only yesterday grandma Tess tripped over the cat and fell into the tree. Her festive red moo-moo littered with a thousand pine needles made her look like she was buttered and rolled in a bowl of green rice. Her arthritis stricken index finger affixed to her thumb with the sap of the 8' blue spruce and all night she appeared to be giving the “okay” sign to everything she attempted to grab.
And who could forget Uncle Stanley having “one too many” (which is what Aunt Wanda always said of his drinking. In reality he probably had 13 too many.) and swaying up to the table with his fly down and that drunken, wandering left eye with the disturbing, droopy lid?
Oh and dear old great uncle Abe's inappropriate, politically incorrect lyric substitutions on virtually every Christmas song that played in the house; followed by his annoying, snorting chuckles as though he didn't do the exact same thing with the exact same tune last year… and the year before… and the year before…
“C'mere, boy,” he says, “guess what I see?”
*Sigh* “What?'
“Jeff's nuts roasting on an open fire Abe is nibbling Wanda's toes! *Snrk* heh, heh, heh, heh *snrt*”
He had an unhealthy obsession with Stanley's wife Wanda and an apparent foot fetish that seemed to work its way into all of his “jokes.” And if that weren't bad enough, he's also “that guy” - the one who yells out, “SEE YA NEXT YEAR! Heh, heh, heh, heh… *snrt*” on New Year's eve just before midnight - every… single… year. Begs a good flogging, eh?
It's not all bad though. I mean it's only once a year that we're really all together. Sure, there are visits here and there with these people and that I can handle; but there's just something about having everyone in the same house on Christmas - a chemical reaction of sorts that transforms everyone into holiday hosers.
So every year, to maintain my sanity, I make a list of all the things that suck about the Christmas season. The following is…
The Top Ten Holiday Traditions that Remind Me of why I Hate the Holidays
- Christmas-ated TV shows. Every show every year without fail will begin airing their holiday specials right after Thanksgiving. The turkey is still rumbling through my intestines producing fantastic little toots of gas that smell of gravy and walnuts. I flip on the tube only to find “a very special Christmas episode of Desperate Housewives.” A tree and all the decorations appear on the sets without warning and on January 2nd - they vanish. I'm convinced this is the result of a yearly meeting between the networks and the mall.
- A Christmas Story. Yep. We've seen it 2,287 times but TBS continues to air it for 24 hours back to back beginning at 8:00PM Christmas eve. And no matter when you turn on the channel over the course of that run, you will land at the same point in the movie as the last give or take 5 minutes.
- Santa on satellite. Christmas Eve. 11:00 news. Dad flips on channel 12 and we're treated to a very realistic, animated satellite image of Santa on his sled cruising at about 18,000 feet somewhere above Idaho. The irony is that any kid young enough to buy this crap went to bed 2 and a half hours ago.
- Useless gifts. There is nothing - repeat - nothing worse than asking “Santa” for the coolest new X-Box or PS2 title only to open up a package containing a copy of 1984s Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo on DVD with bonus features that include, hopefully, an apology for releasing it in this latest format.
- Celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Isn't it convenient that baby Jesus graced the earth just after thanksgiving but right before the new year? You couldn't have planned a more perfect birth date - right in the middle of the holiday season. This couldn't have anything to do with the first time the networks and the mall met could it?
- The dramatic retelling of T'was the Night Before Christmas. Nothing says “joy to the world” quite like Uncle Stanley's beautifully slurred rendition of T'was the Night. The kids are about 25 minutes away from their pre-Christmas-morning-frenzy slumber. Mom gently lowers the house lights and the bright twinkle of a tree still crooked from grandma's impact casts a warm glow on us all. Uncle Stanley stumbles up to his usual spot splashing what's left of his 14th Jack and water on Becky and Jacob who are unlucky enough to be up front. He clears his throat and begins “twars thunye beef… or… krisms anall thhhhhhhh… roo the houssssssss. Nahcreesher was turrin… nahven a mouse…” he'd then hold his index finger to his lip and go, “shhhhhhh,” even though no one said a word or even “turred” during his soliloquy. 22 minutes later, he passes out trying to pronounce “thistle.”
- Kenny G - The Greatest Holiday Classics.Has there ever been a more boring, annoying, droning, sodding wannabe musician? Wait - don't answer that; I myself can think of a few… Bob Dylan comes to mind; great lyrics but you can't tell by listening. There's Michael Bolton too but I wouldn't call him “musician” with a straight face. So my mother insists on putting Kenny in the rotation every year. Sometimes Nat Cole will get two in a row on random play then maybe a Bing Crosby, “bah, bah, bah bluuuuuue…” You forget the G-man is there - until the player spins and locks on his drawn out, cookie-cutter rendition of I'll Be Home for Christmas and your ears catch fire.
- Fruitcake. Inevitably, at least one old person will drop an F-bomb, unwrap it and put it out with the festive yet leathery red and green jellybean cookies your brother's wife bakes each year. And each year both go untouched by everyone but the dog.
- A stocking for pets.Seriously - whoever thought up giving gifts to pets should be shot with a squirt gun full of cat urine.
- Shopping. I don't know about you but I hate running around on Christmas eve. Especially when I didn't get anyone anything and I have to start and finish in a couple of hours. Then I realize the stores are full of people just like me - the procrastinators. Wound up and miserably rummaging through the picked over, mostly vacant shelves of places like Wal-Mart and the gas station around the corner from my parents' house. My mom got me a laptop and I got her a bag of Funyuns.
So while I'm using my copy of Electric Boogaloo to reflect the sun into the eyes of my neighbor's rabid beagle, I can't help but hope that magic and joy of the season touches you and yours as deeply as me and mine.
Ahh yes - the holidays… I think Ebenezer Scrooge said it best:
“Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer...? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" upon his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
Ho, ho, humbug to all and to all a good night!
