Mandatory Christmas Post.
It’s hard to get into the Christmas spirit when you live alone in a studio apartment and most of your family lives an 11 hour flight away. I haven’t heard any Christmas songs all month because I only listen to NPR. I haven’t been caught in any Black Friday stampedes because I’m gainfully unemployed and my family and friends understand that I don’t expect any gifts and they shouldn’t either. I haven’t even seen any Christmas commercials because I got my cable turned off. I am officially a Holiday Hermit.
My mom asked me what I wanted for stocking stuffers this year. I told her I wanted a carton of Camel Lights.
On Friday I’ll be picking up my aunt and uncle from LAX, which I’m sure will be a miserable clusterfuck of last minute traveler traffic. I will probably get a ticket in the LAX roundabout, I almost always do. If you have Facebook or Twitter, which I assume you do since you’re reading this, then I’m sure you’re timeline has been inundated with the fact that it is the second coming of the story of Noah’s Arc in Los Angeles right now. Not very Christmasy weather, but hopefully it will keep the ticket jockeys wanting to stay in their car.
After picking them up we’ll be driving to my grandmother’s house in Ojai for the Holiday festivities. This will undoubtedly include my mother panicking all weekend about what I’m going to do about money now that I’m unemployed, my uncle showing us new polka dances he and my aunt have made in their spare time, my aunt asking me my thoughts on “Return of the Mack” vs. “This Is How We Do It,” my grandmother mistaking my offhand statement that “I like applesauce” as her new life mission to go to the grocery store and buy every variation of the concoction that the market has to offer just to make sure she got the right kind, and my step-grandfather drinking a bit too much vino with our lasagna and reciting dirty limericks all night (sometimes he’ll do the really dirty ones twice).
This probably all sounds horrible to the average reader, and at one point it sounded horrible to me as well, but as I get older I appreciate the time I can spend with my nutty family as much as I can. By “as much as I can,” I mean three days tops. On the bright side, being that I am the oldest son of the oldest daughter, meaning the first (and favorite) grandson, I will probably get the shit spoiled out of me for those three days. The fact that I got canned right before the holidays will probably also lead to better revenue streams in my Christmas cards. Life has a means of checks and balances…during Christmas it’s mainly checks (sometimes cash).
As we get older Christmas loses that mysticism it had when we were kids. Sheeeeyit…looking back, Christmas was never really that mystical to begin with. Did I really want those stamp, nutcracker, or rock collections started for me? How come I never got a goddamn Power Wheel? How come when everyone else got the NES we only got an Atari? Why was I the one that alway had to put up the fake tree and take the fake tree down? Do you know how many blisters I used to get on my hands from that fucking tree?
I think when I finally find the woman of my dreams she won’t give a shit about Christmas trees. I know I don’t. But my mom does, and at this point the tables have turned for you and your parents. Christmas used to be a time for them to make you happy by pretending that there was magic in the air during the Christmas season. Now it’s your turn to do it for them. Go be a good son/daughter/nephew/bastard child for the weekend and pretend there is some magic in the air so that your family gets to remember that you were actually a cute kid at one point.
Happy Festivus.
