Merry Christmas!
I have decided to skip it this year, though, so have a good one. It is by mere coincidence that John Grisham’s novel Skipping Christmas was turned into a box office bomb this year entitled Christmas With The Kranks. I, however, am skipping Christmas for more selfish reasons. I have no money and can not therefore fly home for Christmas.
A recent conversation between my mother and I went something like this:
Mom: “I’m sad that you’re not coming home for Christmas. I haven’t ever not had all of my boys home for Christmas.”
Myself: “Well I haven’t ever not been home for Christmas.”
If you weed your way through the purposeful double negatives, I believe I trumped her because while she will be missing one child, I will be missing the holiday festivities altogether. I instead decided to wallow in my apartment by curling up to a bottle of Jack, renting some strippers, and watching the wall in my apartment stay the same color and never move from the place it sits. Unfortunately, I have no money for alcohol, every stripper agency I called doesn’t work the holidays, and by some twist of fate the wall and I are at odds with each other and are taking time apart: I can’t even bear to look at it.
If I am going to skip Christmas then one thing is for sure: I am not watching television anytime soon. I have been pretty good about avoiding it lately. I have been able to get to this point without really having to watch too many crappy specials about how the reason for the season is buying your dying mother dancing shoes that she’ll never wear. It’s ok though because my mother cried when she watched that one. I can rest easy tonight knowing that some executive received a monetary bonus because they pulled on ol’ Ma’s heartstrings.
So if you can’t tell, I hate Christmas specials. Maybe I don’t hate them. Maybe I just detest them: hate after all is a pretty strong word. I am not exactly the biggest fan of tv specials anyway. If you really want, you can read about how my life is similar to a TV special, but that is a different story. This story is about my feelings for Christmas specials. I saw a Christmas special the other night about this reporter trying to figure out who was giving secret gifts to the needy folks of the town. I have no idea what it was called, but I can make an educated guess that it was called “Secret Santa” because they used the phrase “Secret Santa” up words of 4,375 times. I counted. I promise. That’s where I lost count.
Anyway, if you were planning on watching this gem of television production, it’s the black guy from Night Court: he’s the Secret Santa. Don’t say I never did anything for you because now you won’t have to endure the show. Yeah, so the movie: I found myself drooling as the show progressed and I thought it was numbing my brain, but it turns out it was just the Quaaludes I took to kill myself and end the whole debacle.
Why is it that every Made-for-TV Christmas movie has to be sappy. Don’t say, “Because that’s what sells,” or I will come to your house and kill your pets. I realize that’s why they’re always so sappy. I just want a Christmas movie for me once in a while. For once in my life I want the powers that be to forgo the sentimental feel good “safe” plotline, and give me something that really kicks ass like drunken Santas, serial rapists, and funny jokes about them both. Come on, when was the last time you heard a good joke about a serial rapist? I know for me it’s been at least three years. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever even heard one joke about a serial rapist. Someone needs to make one of those, but not me: I have a reputation to uphold.
Where is my bottle of Jack…
This is Life? Someone should have warned me before I came out of my mother that this is what it was going to be like. I would have stayed in there until she bloated and died and then gone with her to a far better place. Then again maybe I would have been reincarnated as a cat because I purposely missed my chance at being a human.
Where does this leave me?
1) Christmas specials suck, but I don’t really feel like writing anything better. I have my own apathy to blame for the breakdown of societal mores I guess.
2) My decision to skip Christmas induced by my poverty is affecting my psyche.
3) Christmas in NYC should be a rip snortin’ good time.
And so, as we go our separate ways, I just want to say:
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. And while you are sleeping I hope you dream about all the starving children in Africa that didn’t get to partake in such a feast as yourself because if I don’t get to enjoy your gluttony, then you sure as hell shouldn’t either.
Thanks for stopping by...I know I sure enjoyed it!
-Luke Snyder