Good Lord, I’m turning into a seasonal grouch, but let’s add these to the Christmas non-negotiable conditions:
Do not, dear spouse, bend over me as I am telephone ordering the gifts you requested to make sure I have gotten it right. Do not ask why I have ordered something that was not on your a-list.
Keep your mother the hell away from me. I do not need to be re-exposed to her judgment that we are all going to hell in a hand basket, especially your niece who has formed a sleeping relationship without benefit of clergy.
More importantly, do your best to keep my mother away from me. I have dealt with the old lady for neigh on to 60 years. I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate her insistence at being the ham in every sandwich, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral and the general center of attention without saying something that I will come to regret.
Keep your father away from my mother since your 84 year old mother is convinced that my 86 year old mother is out to seduce your 85 year old father. If she sees the old man even talking to the crazy old bat she will go into a three day hissy. That puts a real damper on the seasonal festivities.
Geez. All I’m asking for is a little polite wave to say “Thanks, but I’m not leaving. I’m dropping off packages at the car.”
Two weeks ago I went to the Tanger Outlet Center near my mom’s house on Long Island. The parking lots are huge, but on this particular day, there were no parking spots available. In order to snag a space, you had to follow a shopper to their car.
It’s kinda funny the first time you follow someone to their space and they bob and weave between rows of cars to try to “lose you.” After about 20 minutes, though, it gets really freaking irritating, particularly if you’ve been following someone across a lot and they don’t let you know that they’re not leaving.
Actually, they are fit for one thing. Usually the doe has her head bent down while the stag has his head held high. It isn’t too hard to sneak up position the stag such that it looks like he’s… er… “mounting” his good lady.
You mean, it isn’t about decorating the tree, and giving gifts to those you love, and going to office parties and getting drunk, and making little cakes, and baking a small plastic toy into one of them, and taking the person who gets the one with the small toy, and ritually sacrificing them and spreading the body parts all over the back yard so that the sun will come back and the plants will grow again and it will be warm?
Damn it, another holiday tradition shot. And now I’ll have to buy fertilizer.
I was picturing a different scenario there for a moment. One guaranteed to earn the SO a little something extra in her stocking.
Tenn. Ben: I don’t want to be the arbiter of a ‘chic’ Christmas. My demands are designed to allow me to fulfill my own humble vision of a modern Christmas painted with a Dickensian brush. The reality that my perspective is the only proper one does not make me a bad person; and don’t loose sight of the fact my demands are non-negotiable. The only way to get me to waiver is through liquor, sex appeal, or Christmas pudding.
Can I get a waiver, Waverly? I really like the multi-coloured Christmas lights. The way I look at it is, we have about 7 hours of daylight by the time Christmas rolls around, and we have 14 hours of blackness. We need all the colour we can get at this time of year. Your pudding’s in the mail.
JeffB, the user name, sir or madam, is pretty well self explanatory. You may regard it as a literal translation from the Low German of my family name. My people spring from the strong loins of some lame and castrated old horse. It’s whimsey, for Pete’s sake.
Features the Christmas Polka classics “Must be Santa” and “Santa’s Polka”
Notable other songs include a ska-based version of Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)”; the “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah” Hora; the Guaguanco rhythm-inspired “The Little Drummer Boy” (Absolutely the best version of this song ever.); and the “Buon Natale” waltz.
Awww, man, I don’t even like amber that much. Could I at least have green or red? And the hard sauce is being sent by overnight courier, I SWEAR! (And it’s good and hard - I put an extra couple of cups of Jack Daniels in it.)
Pundit, you really should come to my apartment - I own a 6’ tall aluminum christmas tree!. I found it at a flea market in Oakland, CA last December. Lacking a color wheel, I use all white lights - you could read by the damn thing, which is As It Should Be.
Now then, a few more rules:
Inebriation is to be expected, especially if there are my Dad’s Tom & Jerrys or my Mom’s egg nog in the offing. However, I do expect you to remain vertical at all times, yes, especially you, Cousin-Gray-with-your-wine-supply-in-your-trunk. Cleaning up after your messes has gotten Boring, and my father is threatening to call detox.
Step-uncle, you’re really a good-hearted soul, and your caring for other species is really quite touching. But get the damn gecko and the poisonous frogs off me. Now.
Darling sister, if you clean away another glass of mine before I’m done with it, I will donate all of the Christmas presents you were to receive (and which, because you’re such a nosy little Parker, you already have identified and catalogued and ruined the fun for those of us who like surprising you) to the Orphan’s Fund. And if you do not treat your boyfriend (who is the sweetest, nicest man you could ever have found) better, especially on Christmas, I will endeavor to find him a new girlfriend who would. Like, maybe, Blanche Dubois.
Dear neighbors with the brat from hell: in my parent’s basement, there is a wood-stove that heats half of their house. It is never less than 600 degrees. If you do not, for once in your custardspined lives, exercise a bit of discipline over him I will encourage him to play on - nay, in - it. You will learn the hard way exactly what Crispy Critters were named for.
Thank you.
(What does your username mean, BTW?)