I woke up this morning wondering how I can celebrate Christmas in word form. My original idea was quite daunting but brilliant nonetheless: I would rewrite the New Testament of the bible. Out are references to the Three Wise Men, the "No Vacancy" sign at the Inn and so forth. Instead, Santa Claus would fly into a Motel 6 parking lot and delivery the baby Jesus to Mary and Joseph along with some airport meal vouchers. And instead of Jesus getting crucified, he will sink the winning putt at a big golf match, partially thanks to nearby explosions originally intended to kill a charismatic rodent. The Savior's golf clubs will miraculously fly out of the golf bag on their own and Judas Iscariot will loudly proclaim, "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!"
Unfortunately, it was an undertaking fraught with many obstacles, mostly copyright related. So instead, I will write a few tiny blurbs about some of our beloved contemporary Christmas traditions and icons.
GIFT CARDS
Gift cards are an anomaly in the world of holiday generosity in that they can be a wonderful thing or a piece of plastic shit. It all depends on the context. Getting a gift card for someone whose tastes/passions are known but the specifics are not is guaranteed to be a winner. But buying some random gift card for someone with little regard to their personality just to fulfill some obligatory gift exchange is when the darker side of these gift cards rears it's ugly head. As both a perpetrator and a victim of the "Gift Card Roulette", I know how hard it is to avoid it's temptation. And the big businesses know this too. That's why establishments whose products have never been known for the "giftibility" are jumping on the gift card bandwagon. I mean, c'mon, "Arch Cards"?! Have you ever been shopping and thought to yourself, " I know what I could get Billy for his graduation - a Supersized number two with a Coke!"? There are people in trailer parks, all responsible for that whole "Singing Fish" craze years back by the way, who scoff at the prospect of giving McDonald's gift cards as presents.
Pretty much right up there in shittiness are Applebee's Gift Cards. An old employer of mine gave me one in lieu of a bonus once. "Thanks for your hard work this year Steve (note: my name is Dave). Have a barely edible meal on us. Intestinal worms give you character!" I was so incensed that I browsed the internet when I should have been working and sexually harassed a female colleague on the 16th minute of my 15-minute break. Take that, employee handbook!
Please note that many gift cards begin losing value the longer you take to spend it. It's just the retailers way of saying, "Thanks for the free money, loyal customer! Now piss off and die!"
HOLIDAY SONGS (AND SONGS THAT REALLY AREN'T)
What do "Jingle Bells", "Winter Wonderland" and the Pretenders' "2000 Miles" all have in common? They are not really Christmas songs. The first two are simply about the season of Winter, so technically you can listen to these during Groundhog's Day, Valentine's Day, the Superbowl and Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. The last one simply alludes to the holiday as a simile for something else.
Honestly, it's not really a big deal. If these songs make you think of Christmas, then have fun tossing eggnogs down to them. But as more and more radio stations across the country switch to 24/7 Holiday Music formats the minute the leftover Thanksgiving Turkey is wrapped up, many non-holiday songs have to be drafted into active yuletide duty to keep the repetition to a minimum. Songs like "My Favorite Things", "Baby, It's Cold Outside", and Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" become instant holiday songs since it's easier than... err, I don't know... writing decent new Christmas-centric tunes? There hasn't been a truly great, original Christmas song since the 80's. Instead, artists nowadays just remake the same traditional ones over and over (we don't need 15 versions of "Do They Know It's Christmas?", Sir Geldoff) or pen some heart-wrenching, manipulative pap (e.g. "Christmas Shoes").
Then again, I'm expecting too much from the same record industry that thinks an unnecessary remake of Jermaine Stewart's "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" is instant radio gold.
EXTERNAL ILLUMINATION
There are many schools of thought at work when it comes to festively adorning the outside of your abode with little festive twinkle lights. First we have the "Clark Griswold" types. These are the people who are totally into overkill. Every inch of their house has some sort of light, decoration, or shiny snowflake attached to it. You think I'm making fun of it, but it reality, I think it's pretty friggin' awesome!
Next we have the "color-blind/symmetrically-challenged" decorators. These are people who will decorate one half of their shrubbery with white lights and then, inexplicably, switch to multicolor lights halfway through. Some will blink, some will chase, some will not work, and some will be in colors that aren't even remotely connected to the holidays (pink?!). They have plenty of time to decorate, but not the five minutes it'd take to plan ahead.
Much worse is the "To Hell With It!" types. They want to be festive, but they don't want to spend more than 30 seconds working. These are the people who take a single strand of lights (half blinking, no less) and slap them randomly against the outside wall. Then they'll plug it in and make no attempts to hide their bright orange extension cord. If that's not bad enough, they usually leave it up until May. Beware of these types of people. They're the same ones who give "Arch Cards" as Christmas gifts.
Finally, we have the "Disney Whores". Don't get confused; the Disney part of the title does not imply that anything on these people's front lawn need be a proper Disney IP. The title comes from the large "cartoony" blow-up decorations that inhabit a majority of their lot. There's a Goddamned Macy's Parade on their lawn, complete with loud motors to keep the damn things inflated well into the middle-of-the-night. Some people love them; I think they're crap.
RANDOM "A CHRISTMAS STORY" REFERENCES
Whenever possible, make sure you read the word "Fragile" out loud as "Fra-Gee-Lay" during the month of December (or all year round, actually). Also, loudly proclaim that said package must be Italian. In failing to do so, you deprive yourself of winning a major award (it could be a bowling alley).
This is what happens to your brain when a certain cable network decides to run the movie 12 times in a 24-hour period and you watch every moment of it for no reason other than to kill time until New Year's Eve.
Have an eventful and non-melancholy holiday season all y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment