And this “one present for Christmas and your birthday” for the last 47 years has really sucked too.
It wasn’t MY fault I was born on December 25, you fawking cheapskate!
This year my daughter is in Georgia and my girlfriend is at her father’s, so on XMAS day I will sitting in the dark with a bottle of Jack, cleaning my automatic rifle.
He was a quiet man…
Kept to himself mostly.
No, her new job is in Charleston, SC - right? 
BBJ, you’re a cool, sexy, educated woman. You should have an SO that recognizes and appreciates this about you. Don’t settle for anything less.
As for the parents, have a heart-to-heart conversation, minus the personal details.
Hang in there and try to enjoy the Holidays despite it all.
To my husband:
Help. I need help.
This is our last Christmas together as a family. Yeah, it’s melancholy, but we’ve known it was coming for a long time. You’ve got yours now, and I’ve got mine, and once we’re separated it’ll be much better. We both know it.
But. Right now, we’re still married. We still live together. I know that in six weeks, you’ll be outta here, at my request. But I still need you here now.
It’s the holiday. We haven’t even started the Christmas shopping. I know you don’t care for it, but you know I can’t drive right now. That means…you do it, or we go together. Seeing as how even though we’re divorcing, we do get along okay, going together seems like the most viable option.
But we can’t do it if you’re not here. I need you to be here on the nights you’re not gigging, so we can do this. We’ve got other stuff to discuss, too–my upcoming surgery, and divorce issues. That stuff surely does suck, but we have to talk about it.
So I’d really appreciate it if you’d stay home a night or two this week.
And tell me what you want for Christmas, dammit. You’re getting a gift from me regardless.
Dear Merchants: I realize that you count on the holiday season for something like 40% of your annual sales. I bear you no malice, but I’ve vowed not to buy one single thing the whole month of December other than groceries and gas and other non-seasonal consumables. Not one present, not one string of lights, not one single fucking candy cane. Even durable items I genuinely need – the bottom of my tea kettle burned through yesterday! – will not be bought until after January 1. My family and I have opted completely out of the holiday madness. You will no longer count us among the lemmings rushing over your cliffs.
This decision wasn’t due to harsh personal circumstances. Me and mine still have jobs and disposable income. We are dealing with no more than the ordinary run of sicknesses and strife and calamity. It’s just that we all got together Thanksgiving and talked, and discovered that one and all we are sick to death of the forced must-celebrate-in-lockstep nature of the entire holiday season. The ‘death march’ from Thanksgiving through New Years has become an ordeal we don’t enjoy. None of us really want to do all the things our society is pushing us towards. We don’t need to be told to buy and exchange presents – we already have houses full of more things than we have need of, and we have plenty of other occasions (and non-occasions) on which we can show and tell each other how we feel.
What we need is more time to spend on things we genuinely care about and less of the stress that comes from trying to keep up with the ‘gottas’ – gotta have a christmas tree, gotta decorate the house, gotta send cards, gotta do holiday baking, gotta buy presents, gotta go to office parties, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta!
And so the various subsets of our family are planning evenings of family activities throughout this month instead. Game nights and nights watching favorite videos and bowling nights and ‘drive around and make fun of horrible christmas decorations’ nights. We are getting together mid-January to swap stories of how our ‘non-Christmas’ has worked out.
My guess is that we will all have found it such a relief it becomes our traditional way of ‘celebrating’ Christmas from now on.
My in-alws are convinced that I had back surgery at the end of November just to ruin their holidays. We were planning on going to their place (a 4 hour drive) for Thanksgiving, but couldn’t because I was less than a week out of surgery. My Dr. says no long car trips (more than an hour) 'till at least 3 months after the surgery. My in-laws think it would be Ok if we came for Xmas as long as we stop the car every hour and let me walk around. Um, no.
My mother-in-law actually said in an e-mail to me that she can't understand why I "chose" to have this surgery so close to the holidays- after all, I've been struggling with the herniated disk for 6 months, I could have waited another few weeks. Nevermind that the pain had gotten so bad I hadn't been able to work for 6 weeks, couldn't stand up long enought to take a shower, and was risking permanent nerve damage if I waited much longer to have the surgery. I waited 3 weeks longer than my Dr. wanted me to, hoping that it would resolve itself. Oh, and my father-in-law had a herniated disk that went away by itself and he didn't need surgery, so she thinks I probably didn't either. I'm just being a baby for not sucking it up and waiting indefinitely for the herniation to go away on its own.
They are going to come and see us, but they refuse to stay for more than a couple of hours because they think our pets (2 cats and a well-behaved dog) are germy and icky, which is why we always have to go visit them.My grandmother was thrilled when I finally got married.
Proof positive, finally, that I wasn’t gay. She’d been rather worried about that, and had hinted about it.
Not only did I gain a wonderful wife, but my friggin’ grandmother was finally off my back…
Yeah, my stepbrother has been fighting the “are you gay?” questions for the past 10 years, about.
Poor guy. I told him to just bring a girl, any girl, dating or not, to a family function to get his dad off his back. Because if he was gay, our family would be the most accepting in the world, considering half the members happen to be gay.
For some reason, the phrase “no, I’m not gay” coming from my stepbrother is as difficult for my stepfather to understand as “but I am dating someone, you’ve met him” coming from me.
Isn’t family great?
:rolleyes:
Dear Coworker A: Holy crap, you mean Christmas is actually a co-opted pagan holiday?!? I never knew that! No, seriously, I did know that – I learned that in Catholic school in 1st grade. Do you really think this is something people don’t know? I bet you snuck into the Super Secret Vatican Library to get that information.
Dear Coworker B: Leapin’ lizards! Christmas is too commercial? How did that escape my notice? Geez, you should be working in a think tank somewhere. And it’s a tragedy, really, that someone dragged you under pain of death to see Bad Santa. Oh? You went of your own free will? Here’s a tip: figure out what you do like about Christmas, and go do those things. And … stay with me here, I know it’s complicated … if there are things you don’t like, try to avoid those. Yes, I realize it’s hard to avoid said stuff, but it doesn’t mean you have to purchase said stuff. It’s just sad when you hear an adult screaming “STOP ME BEFORE I BUY ANOTHER FREAKISH DANCING CHRISTMAS TREE THAT PLAYS JINGLE BELL ROCK!”
Dear Fine People at Reese’s: For the love of all that is holy and sacred about this festive season, why don’t regular Reeses taste as chocolate-covered-crackaliously good as the Christmas Trees? You give us this divine confection that would make the Baby Jesus weep tears of joy and forever more shun the gifts of the Three Wise Men, and then cruelly snatch it away. You are like Scrooge, if he ripped the Christmas goose right out of the hands of sad, pathetic little Tiny Tim instead of actually letting the miserable tyke gorge himself on greasy gamey goosey goodness. I beg of you, sirs, do not withhold the perfection of the Reeses Christmas tree from us year-round.
PS The Reeses Easter Egg and Reeses-whatever-shape-it-is Halloween thing are mere taunts, carefully designed to make us tremble on our little sheep hooves and bleat for more Reeses holiday candy.
Chicken pox. It’s 90 degrees here at 10 am with about 100% humidity and one kid has chicken pox and the other kid is cranky as all shit and better be coming down with chicken pox because if he isn’t, there’s no damned reason for him being this shitty.
I haven’t finished getting ready for Xmas or finished the Xmas shopping. How I am going to do this with two kids who need to stay home with their noxious pox is going to be interesting.
BLASPHEMER! Do you not know that Reese’s Easter Eggs are the pinnacle of peanut butter-chocolate creation? Why, those vile tree-shaped things only wish they could be as crack-addictingly good as the Easter Eggs. Fie on thee! FIE!
Bravo for you StarvingButStrong! What your family is trying this year sounds like heaven, but mine would never go along and I’d be labeled the wet blanket Grinch for eternity if I suggested it. Please let us know how your holiday season unfolds.
delphica, I have found the Easter Reeses Peanut Butter Egg to be the ultimate in the peanut buttery-chocolate nirvana that the fine company offers. I am in total agreement, however, about the relative lack of scrumptiousness available in the regular cup whether it’s in holiday foil or the usual gold.
My own mini holiday rants:
Five out of my seven preset car radio stations have gone “Christmas music 24/7.” Yeah, I liked Bruce Springsteen singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town the first time or two, but c’mon…play me some Dave Matthews, play me some Who or some Alanis…shit, even play me some classic Fleetwood fucking Mac! Don’t make me have to choose a CD to play!
Public Works: please plow the sidewalk on my block so that my hard-working letter carrier can deliver the mail. I shoveled my space but the rest of the block is still snowed in and the post office is holding my mail for pickup. I know you don’t have to do it, but you plowed the other side of the road last Monday, and you plowed our side every winter for the past seven years, so what is your issue now?
I hate to bitch…makes me feel all unappreciative for the blessings I have, but, please Planters Peanut Company, can’t you make some salted in the shell nuts that are not as addictive as crack cocaine? Or can’t you make them so prohibitavely expensive that I can’t buy them?
I know the last two rants aren’t strictly holiday related, but thanks for letting me get them off my chest.
Dear employer,
Thanks for insisting I want to work more hours. I do not. I do not want to work 14-17 hours a day. I like 8, hell 5 is fine. I do not need to work 65 hours a week. I only did it because I love my coworkers and I want to keep the store open for them. Thank you for not letting me use my vacation time this year. It seems like it is my problem that you fired a manager with out having a replacement. I guess I really don’t need to spend time with my family while hubby is on vacation from work and the kids are on winter break. It’s a good thing we had a snow storm this last week. I got to have a day off because of it. Had we not had the snow storm, I would have worked 9 days straight, averaging 13 hours a day. I like having dinner with my family. I have told you many times, I would like to have at least 3 days a week off, and only work 2 nights a weeks.
Dear Child care provider,
When I ask that you keep my kids inside because they have colds, please do that. When stormchaser arrived to pick up the misskids, misskid3 was out wondering around in the snow in the back yard. She was a farking freezing. You generally have common sense, but not that day. What were you thinking???
Dear Stupid Fucking Coworker,
What the hell goes through your mind before you open your mouth? Apparently nothing. Do you not realize that I have worked there for a long time and am very good friends with the other coworker you tried to talk about me to? Did you think that she would not tell me that you were asking if she thought I made up a story about my cousin dying in a car accident just so I could have the weekend after Thanksgiving off? I don’t know what kind of a person you are, thinking that people would make up shit like that just to have time off. Maybe you weren’t there when my mom called me and told me what happened, when I started crying, knowing that my cousin, whom I was close to when we were young, was dead. Oh, wait, you were there. You were pissed at me because I was leaving early to go be with my family, and I could not give you a ride home. FUCK YOU you stupid dumb bitch. I will never give you a ride to/from work again. I am not your personal taxi and quiet frankly I don’t want your skank ass in my car.
Damn, I feel much better having said that.
Thanks for starting this thread, BBJ.
Dear Cheap-Ass Bosses:
Okay, I appreciate that you’re tightwads and want to hang onto your money as long as possible. Which is why in this day and age we don’t have direct deposit and, if payday falls on a weekend or holiday, we get paid after the weekend or holiday. I mean, the multimillionnaire partners of this cheap-ass law firm really need to hang onto my generous $1.75 for 24 hours more to make an extra 3¢ off it.
And I appreciate that in spite of your overwhelming financial generosity, you actually give us Christmas bonuses. Of course, you don’t do like every other law firm in town and standardize the bonus based on length of service; oh, no, you keep us guessing as to both how much and whether we’ll get one at all. And, of course, I also understand that you take tax out of my meagre bonus; I realize that’s not really your choice.
But Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, do you have to wait until December 24 to give us the damned bonus? What on earth good will it do me for Christmas to get my check after the banks have closed for the holiday so that there is no way on earth I will be able to spend one penny of it on Christmas shopping???
Hey, God…
You just had to choose to let us lose Hurricane near the holidays, eh? He’s been gone for two days now and we can’t find him - and he’s never been gone that long before. I know he’s sick and life’s been rough for him, but we still love him and want to keep him around. Give me my cat back, would you? I miss him.
Ava
Hello Local Weatherman,
How 'bout some snow this year for Christmas? Just a little, an inch or so to make it pretty and white and feel like Christmas? I am so sick after twelve years of grey pissing drizzly rain at the holidays that I could scream.
Did you think it was funny to send it at Thanksgiving? That was a real laugh, huh. Yep.
Seriously, I feel like I’ve been faking Christmas for over a decade, and I could really use a little magic, here. Or even just a heavy frost. Please?
Oh, crap, I thought that was just an incredibly stupid local phenomenon. You mean to tell me that our local radio station that has gone to this <expletive deleted> format is just doing it because all the cool stations are doing it? My rage at this is incredibly strong - it just seems to epitomize everything I hate about Christmas and capitalism and…stuff.
Get this, featherlou – my favorite station, which became my favorite when they switched to a stupid 80s format, switched to soft rock a couple of months ago. Shortly after that, they went Christmas almost entirely 24/7. Somehow I don’t see them going back to stupid 80s.
Fuck.
I suspect that the radio stations that are doing the 24/7 Christmas thing because they’re all part of Evil Fucking Clear Channel Communcations. I’ve noticed since they’ve bought up effectively 95% of the media, the sameness of formatting between both local stations and stations around the country is truly frightening.
Clear Channel Communications deserves its own thread. Grrrrr.