Tips for surviving the holidays

I hate the holidays. There. I said it. All the retail giants can drag me to the outskirts of town and stone me to death with their mother in-laws fruitcake. Society has removed the baby Jesus as the reason for the season and he has been replaced with a balding fat guy with a beard that smells like scotch and reindeer. And everyone knows the jolly fat man isn’t real, because his marriage to Mrs. Clause has lasted for far too long. No woman is going to put up with their husband flying around the world, playing with elves, and eating other women’s cookies and milk.
If Santa was real, I believe he would spend Christmas Eve lying in a recliner and scratching himself while he watched football like any other self-respecting man. Of course sometimes as a husband you have to take one for the team and spend time with the in-laws during the holidays. If you are one of these poor unfortunate souls I have a few tips on how to enjoy (or at least appear to enjoy) those awful holiday visits.

Tip 1- Create a buffer zone
The day before your visit you must prepare yourself physically for a preemptive strike on the family. I like to do this by stuffing myself with hard boiled eggs and refried beans. This deadly concoction will brew in your digestive tract overnight and will ensure better protection from your mother in-law than a restraining order. No one will come within 50 yards of you and your “buffer zone”.

Tip 2-Prepare yourself mentally 
The day of the visit you must prepare yourself mentally for what is coming. The one story that your dad tells every time you see him about the time during the war he saved an entire continent from annihilation with only a butter knife and a bag of cashews. There’s also the story granny tells about the time your dad got drunk and attacked a group of small children by pelting them with cashews and waving a butter knife screaming something about communism.

Tip 3-Eat before you visit
Hopefully your mother in-law is a good cook; otherwise the day is entirely wasted. There is nothing like undercooked turkey and burned rolls that lay in your gut like a rock to ensure you will be spending the afternoon in the crapper. This may not be such a bad option if you can get a TV in there to watch the game. My grandmother was a wonderful cook. Granny never had to measure anything when cooking, she always done a “pinch of this” or a “dash of that”. I still remember her in the 1000 degree kitchen, whipping mashed potatoes by hand with a cigarette dangling precariously from her mouth. I am sure from time to time ashes from the cigarette were falling into the potatoes, but no one cared. They were the best damn mashed potatoes available in the free world. Perhaps the cigarette ashes gave them that smoky flavor we all loved.

More Bah Humbugary
I hate getting Christmas cards. Is there any possible way to tell someone “I don’t give a damn about you at all” than to mail a crappy card. Indeed, nothing has ever said” I love you” more than a piece of cardboard with a mushy sentiment hastily signed and shoved into an envelope. At least that’s what Hallmark and the post office wants you to believe. One year I printed my own “bah humbug” cards complete with random rants about   how much I hated the commercialism of Christmas.  My plan backfired. Everyone I sent a humbug card to went to Hallmark and purchased a piece of cardboard with a mushy sentiment hastily signed and shoved into an envelope. If you want to wish me happy holidays do so by sending me a gift card. Nothing says “I love your fat ass” better than spending a $200 gift card at the cheesecake factory.

Decorating for the holidays should be reserved for those of us who have committed unspeakable acts of violence such as pepper spraying someone who cut in front of you in Wal-Mart on Black Friday and took the last Chia Pet. I don’t see the point. People string thousands of lights until their front porch looks like a runway at an airport, and then bitch and complain because their electric bill was $2000 in December. The Santa’s on the lawns, reindeer perched on roofs, and nutcrackers guarding the front porch are all part of the conspiracy. It is what the corporate fat cats need to see to have reassurance that you have drank the eggnog flavored Kool-Aid and are now one of them. 

The exchanging of gifts is one tolerable aspect of the holidays I can live with. I can never have too many bottles of cologne, pairs of socks, or enough shirts that are 6 sizes too small. I have always been a “well proportioned” man, and haven’t worn an adult extra-large shirt since kindergarten, however ever year without fail some well intending family member will send me a shirt that if I wore I would be arrested for indecent exposure. Then of course there is always the expectation that you will return the favor by giving a gift. Since I am tired of being insulted with shirts that I can’t wear, I have decided from now on I will give likewise. All females on my gift list will receive an athletic cup. All males on my gift list will receive a box of tampons. If they want to get together later and exchange them they can. The only exception to my gift giving policy will be if the receiver is over 65 years of age. In that case the females will receive a thong, and the males will receive a tube of icy hot disguised as hemorrhoid cream.  Merry freaking Christmas, happy holidays, and pass me some of them smoky mashed potatoes

Dignity of risk

All these risky behaviors. Why do we insist on risking life and limb for a phone call, email, text, cheesecake, cigarette, or anything else we need or want?  Because we want the dignity of risk. Sometimes we make informed choices based on information provided to us; sometimes we just go for the feel good. The quickest route to gratification possible. Immediate satisfaction, to hell with the consequences.  Health care officials tell us smoking can kill us? What do they know? Besides if I want to suck down a pack of smokes, three bags of Cheetos, six double cheeseburgers and top it off with a text and drive that’s my business! If I develop heart disease, cheesy fingers, man boobs and a rearview mirror through my forehead that’s my right. I can quit work and join the circus then.

Hang up, shut up and just DRIVE!

Enough about food…. I am getting hungry, and it is just too hard to get Cheetos dust out of my computer keyboard so let’s move on.  Cell phones. Wow, what a dangerous, risky contraption. No other invention in the world can get you hired, fired, married, buried, and arrested (not necessarily in that order) all before 10:30 a.m. And everyone has their “cell phone voice”. I believe I read a state law that when speaking on a cell phone you must speak in your loudest possible voice. If people fifty feet away cannot hear and accurately describe your conversation, stop embarrassing all of us and just hang up. Then there are those of us who choose to wander the city aimlessly on foot staring at the phone, praying that it will ring, email us, or text us. Then they are the few…the brave… the ones that choose to defy all common sense, decency, and ounce of morality and dare to pump gas while using this contraption. Haven’t you read the sign on the pump? The picture of a phone with a big red “no” bar through it? Wow. Talk about tempting fate. Oh yes, then  we have the geniuses that decide driving while using this marvelous invention is a good idea. Sure. Not a problem. Give me a five ton weapon in one hand, and a phone in the other. I can do both, texting on the phone helps me concentrate on the road. It heightens the awareness of my surroundings. I actually saw a lady crocheting while driving eighty miles an hour on the interstate. She had to be at least a thousand years old. How do I know she was that old? Because she had her breast laying on the gas pedal so her toes could be free for texting on the phone while her hands were busy crocheting. What skills.  Her grandchildren (I believe their names are Moses and Noah) must be very proud however I am pretty sure Noah used a Bluetooth while navigating his boat. Rumor has it that Moses tripped and dropped the 10 commandments because he was playing Words with Friends on Facebook and got distracted when he scored 200 points for the word Fornication. 

Pineapple rings

So I guess that’s enough on our dark overlord tobacco. We have put a saddle on that beaten to death horse and rode it out of town.  I traded tobacco for another vice. Food.  I have been known to block the doorway and/or sidewalk of many fine establishments with a Twinkie, a triple cheeseburger, a deep fried pickle and a barrel of diet soda. And don’t forget the fries. And cheese on the fries. And ranch dressing to dip the cheese fries in. Not to mention my big ass blocking entry into these fine establishments. I know the risk involved with not observing a “proper diet”. The waistline, sweat, and gastro-intestinal noises increase, the inability to get out of bed, the inability (or desire) to do things while in bed, social opportunities, as well as the will to live decreases.  You wake up one morning and suddenly all the clothing in your closets have been replaced with stretchy sweat pants (as if you don’t sweat enough) and with t-shirts three sizes too small that make your man boobs protrude from the shirt sleeves like two big hams. The only ring piercing my nipples would be a pineapple ring.