The Three Phases of Christmas Celebration

There are three life phases of Christmas holiday observance. When you’re a child it’s all Elf on the Shelf. Santa’s demented NSA. The pixie version of a house arrest anklet. You’d better watch out, you’d better not pout. . . . I never liked a snitch, so the elf was thrown to the bird dogs as soon as I realized what its covert mission was. Shredded in seconds. Tell Santa about that, you tattle-tale weasel. The Elf never had a chance and would have known that if he’d bothered to talk to Barbie.  So really, he wasn’t much of an intelligence-gatherer.

I had a history of violence towards select toys. As much as my mother wanted me to be a girlie girl, I despised Barbie. Mama tried, bless her heart. I was given several Barbie dolls, and every one of them suffered the exact same fate. Within a week, I would buzz cut their hair, tattoo them with a ballpoint pen, then snap their head off and use it as a ball and their body as a bat. You don’t even want to know about my kitchen match torture, where I wrapped hundreds of kitchen matches around Barbie’s waist with masking tape and then lit them. Barbie’s unnaturally large boobs melted like ice cream on a summer’s day.

Imagine my Mama’s joy when my little sister turned out to be a Malibu Barbie addict. Half her room was littered with Pepto-Bismol pink Barbie accoutrements.   Beach houses, furniture, cars, dune buggies, clothing, Ken and Skipper, all strictly off limits to me per my mother. It’s like Barbie got a restraining order.

When I was in my twenties, there was no Elf on the Shelf. That phase of holiday revelry was more of a Whore in the Drawer. Finding my tribe of friends and celebrating heartily, boozily, excessively was all I wanted for the holidays. I had a blast. I learned how to drink without taking it to the point of becoming sloppy low-hanging fruit, although there were missteps along the way, mostly tequila-based.

I went through a serious phase of promiscuity and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yeah, I put the ho in ho-ho-ho but dodged all real consequences of bad behavior, so yeah me. If I had not stumbled my way through that phase I would not have learned many an important life lesson. Like, good looks mean less than nothing if they’re attached to an ugly heart. I must avoid tequila because it makes me dangerously stupid. When someone says something despicable, they’re not kidding but are showing you who they really are. Believe them.  Someone sporting designer clothes and a status car may just mean that they are in debt up to their rhinoplasty. Don’t look to another person for your happiness, that one is all on you. If you can’t stand to be alone, you’re not ready to be with someone else. Good lessons, all.

Now I’ve entered the last life phase of holiday revelry, the Grouch on the Couch phase. All I want for Christmas is a good meal, peace and quiet with no soundtrack save for the snoring of my pack, and a nice holiday nap. I hate that Christmas decorations are in stores before Halloween. I hate Muzak Christmas carols on an eternal loop for three months. I hate the screaming commercials for crap that is only trotted out during the holidays because people will desperately buy anything. I’m looking at you, Chia Pet. I would rather eat a bowl of dirt than leave my house on Black Friday. I am within a gnat’s eyelash of screaming “Humbug!” Too much, too much, too much!

The Danes have a word for what I want during the holidays: hygge (pronounced hYOOguh). It means cozy in both your surroundings and your emotions. It means all is right in your world even if briefly. It requires no more than a comfy chair, or a thick pair of socks, or cinnamon toast and tea. It really only requires a sense of gratitude. Isn’t that the truth of the season anyway? Simple kindness and gratitude?

I give you my very best wishes for a lovely holiday and a fabulous new year. Hygge, y’all.

 

Nine Times

 

I would rather go to the dentist than attend a wedding. That is the stand-on-my-mama’s-grave, honest truth. I know what you’re thinking. You’ve surmised that I’m single and therefore uncomfortable with everyone’s Aunt Stella coming up to me at the reception asking when it’s going to be my turn. Yeah, that would suck but that’s not it.

I’m married, for the second time even, so I’ve gotten my fair share of ceremony. Well, ceremony as I define it, which is kind of casual. I got married at home in front of the fireplace the first time and in the backseat of a pink Cadillac convertible the second. By the way, getting married in a drop-top pink Cadillac is the best thing ever. I highly recommend it. No stress, no procession, no family fights, no sloppy cousin kisses, and no sticky canapés. Of course, it is a lot more fun if you’ve chosen the right person to sit in the back seat with you. Botched it the first time, nailed it the second.

I’m just not a hoopla kind of girl. Weddings seem a silly waste of money to me when the cost could be such a nice down payment on a house. Having a comfortable home is very important to me. Having a photo of me in yards of tulle and taffeta is not. No, the reason that I hate weddings is that I was a bridesmaid nine times. Being a bridesmaid nine times is more than enough trauma to induce wedding PTSD for life.

Nine times I’ve slow-walked down the aisle in a ridiculously expensive dress whose sole purpose is to make the bride look better by comparison. This leaves deep emotional scars, particularly since there is embarrassing photographic evidence still floating around my social circle. Every so often, the very worst of the bunch will bob to the surface.

Someone will find a box of pictures while they’re moving and email me a photo of myself, a 200+ pound woman, in a Pepto-Bismol pink taffeta ball gown with puffed sleeves. There is a video tape somewhere of me in this horrific ensemble (shoes dyed to match, naturally) dancing the Bunny Hop. In case you’re wondering, this is how night terrors are born. If anyone ever puts that up on YouTube, I’ll have to kill them and I guarantee you, no jury with even just one female member will convict me.

Nine times I have helped brides tie thousands of pastel colored Jordan almonds into little net baskets as reception favors. I have a question. Does anyone buy Jordan almonds except for a wedding? Are any widows going to ask me to tie black almonds into little net baskets for a funeral? Note to self: start marketing funeral favors. The business potential is huge.

Nine times I’ve been videotaped dancing like a meth addict in a dress that could have been a costume for any Tim Burton film. Nine times I’ve had my ass grabbed by somebody’s drunk uncle at the reception. Nine times I’ve helped the bride back into the handicapped stall holding her ball gown up over her head so she could pee. Nine times I’ve pretended to be deaf when I heard the plaintive wail, “Hey, I can’t get around my skirt to wipe.”

Nine times I’ve thought that maybe the salute to newlyweds should be Molotov instead of Mazel tov. Nine times I wanted to rename the processional to “Here Comes the Snide.” Only once did I hear my most favorite wedding toast, delivered by the best man to honor his childhood buddy and what turned out to be a genuine, Junior League Bridezilla.

“May you always be as happy as your bride is charming and gracious today.”