Merry Christmas...Just Kidding, But Seriously

"Merry Christmas!"

Christmas has been around for quite some time now, something like two thousand and twelve years, roughly. And somehow it never gets old, just like bad jokes, ominous hairstyles, stale alcohol, too much make-up, and your mother-in-law, who methodically combines all of the above.

Just to humor me, let's dissect this phrase for just a second: merry. This word means gay, joyous, and happy. Much like the clerk at Walmart, after they just checked out a thousand dollars worth of lame Christmas gifts like socks for Sally and the 'Unconditional Surrender G.I. Joe' for Johnny, after you made a scene about making sure they applied all of your coupons, half of which were expired, changed your mind eleventy-two times on whether buying Uncle Marty that Big Mouth Billy Bass is a good idea or not, and then realized your card was in your car, and they still wished you a "Merry Christmas", filling societal holiday expectation #15098329. Which, is 'Merry Christmas' but kind of sounds like "find the nearest gun, point it at your head, and kindly pull the trigger, you neurotic bitch."

Allll in the name of professionalism. Yet we still wish everyone a Merry Christmas...kinda.

Person says: "May your Christmas be merry and bright"
Person means: "I hope your Christmas is so merry that you laugh so hard Christmas punch comes out your nose, and so bright your electric bill causes you to sell your plasma for 60 bucks and unattractive bruising"

Person says: "Happy Holidays"
Person means: "I am Jewish and the term 'Christmas' is offensive, do you happen to have Ashlee Simpson's plastic surgeon's number?"

Person says: "May the joys of the season bring you peace and happiness"
Person means: "Thank you for shopping at Hallmark, enjoy our shitty movies."

Person says: "Peace on Earth"
Person means: "My name is Sean Hannity, and Christmas is the one day of the year I can't justify thriving off of inducing fear into the lives of fellow Americans."

Person says: "Joy to the World"
Person means: "If you aren't a 'Three Dog Night' fan, feel free to go drown yourself in hot apple cider."

Person says: "Wishing you all the gifts of the holiday season"
Person means: "I'm not getting you diddalee-squat!"

Person says: "Best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year"
Person means: "God save us if you don't learn from the many mistakes you made last year"

Person says: "Deck the halls"
Person means: "If I see one more blow up Santa Claus, I'm going to deck myself."

Person says: "Merry f****** Christmas"
Person means: "Merry f****** Christmas"

On a serious note, I really do love Christmas, the smells, the decorations, family time, holiday cheer, blah blah blah yeah I realize I'm going soft, but I really do love it. This year I am going to be spending my first Christmas away from home, so all the traditions I've known for the last 21 years are not going to happen. (Now is the part where you feel bad for me and send me a bag of Brach's Jelly Bells because they're freaking delicious). Therefore, I am learning that not only is Christmas not about what we get, it's about what we give and in my case, not who we spend it with, but how we treat and appreciate those we'd like to spend it with the entire year round, not just the one month where it's easy. So since I am morphing into this workoholic crazy cat lady with no friends and now no family to spend the holidays with, I will indulge in none other than my FAVORITE  Christmas pastime to help me feel a little bit closer to home :)

And the Grinch, 
with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, 
how could it be so?
It came without ribbons.
It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled, 
till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something,
he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought,
doesn't come from a store?
What if Christmas, perhaps, 
means a little bit more?

Christmas...Ew.

The holidays are an incredibly difficult time. Mostly because you start anticipating the festivities of the season a good four weeks in advance, as the memories of last Christmas season begin to surface after being buried for almost a year. For example, it would appear that I have happy childhood memories of Christmas, as the charming picture of me in a pink onesie bounding down the stairs to open presents would suggest. Yes, this picture is just darling, because in it I'm five years old. However, my parents got the adorable idea that we should try to re-create this pose every year. I do not know where they found adult sized pink onesies, and I do not want to think about how I saw my grandmother in a similar-looking one the night before, nor that said onesie smelled like mothballs. Guess what my grandmother smells like? Anyways, the point is that my parents just recently realized that around age fourteen there was a mischievous sparkle in my eye each year, only to then notice that was when I began to subtly flick off the camera in each candid jewel. That really drove home and now the onesie tradition has ceased - praise baby Jesus.

To truly enjoy the holidays, you've got to get past the small stuff. Nevermind the story granny just told about how in her time they used to call skunks "wood pussies" for the fortieth time or that grandpa just peed on the couch - but you are too polite to say anything, mostly because grandpa is an ex-marine, and though he's feeble, you still suspect he could do you bodily harm. Forget all of that.

And herein lies the crux of the holidays: you are so happy that the entire family is together that you gloss over the main problem; that the entire family is together. 

There is this built-in expectation that this must be the most joyous and magical time. In fact, did you know that some have actually dubbed Christmas, "the most wonderful time of the year"? It's true. Absurd, I'm aware, but the build-up of an event being the best time of the year can only lead to disappointment. If it's not the best time you have ever had, you have somehow failed. If it is anything less than a pristine white Christmas with snow falling gently at the time you open a wobbly present and - SURPRISE! - a puppy jumps out with a beautiful Tiffany's 3 carat princess cut solitaire around it's collar, as your boyfriend emerges from behind the Christmas tree and asks for your hand in marriage in front of your weeping family, firmly shakes your fathers hand, and then you all enjoy a delicious ham dinner; then you have not had a perfect holiday and you should be vastly disappointed. 

When you inevitably fail at having the best Christmas ever, you will blame the people involved in making it less than perfect. For example, when I was eighteen I was convinced that I was being gifted the new Honda Pilot my dad had just bought "for my mother". My parents kept dropping clues like "you are going to have the keys to success" and "this will give you the drive to do well". And then the big day came and they presented me with the old family desktop, still plastered in "no fear" stickers that I thought were cool in the seventh grade. Then my parents had the nerve to pretend like they didn't know why I was angry, convincing themselves they had dropped great hints. (keys = keyboard; drive = hard drive) Get real! I was expecting to walk out into the driveway and find my new car wrapped in an obnoxiously large red ribbon - and since that didn't happen - I now hate you and this Christmas sucks!

So, I have compiled a list of a few things that you can do to make this holiday season just a little more tolerable:

1) Eggnog. Nog is the bomb dot com. Nuff said. 

2) Tobogganing. Nothing drowns out emotional stress quite like physical agony. So, aiming for trees is ideal. 

3) Mood lighting. Dimmer lights calm the senses, it also makes hiding in a dark corner slightly more attainable. 

4) Talking trash. No, not to each other. When things get heated, pick on someone outside the family. The Obama administration is always a by-and-large favorite in my family. When you channel all of your negative energy towards something else, you become a team, and there's no "I hate my family" in team. 

5) Balderdash. Have you ever played this board game? It's a game that has cards with definitions to words that no one knows. Everyone writes down what they think the real definition is, someone reads them all aloud and everyone else guesses which definition is the right one. Sound boring? It's not. For example, let's say the word is "acersecomic". The actual definition is "one who has never had a haircut", however, you do not know this, so you could write "a comedian that is not funny", and your spouse could write "I wish I was anywhere but here right now"... You know what? Don't play Balderdash.

Dear Mom and Dad...Love, Anonymous

If your family is one of those that chooses to celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with mass amounts of alcohol, this is for you. This is for you to anonymously mail to your parents for them to take a hint that you don't want them drinking with you, or to drink until they're blue in the face (or red and green as the case may be). 

Mom and Dad, if you want to drink with your kids this holiday season, there are a few things you must know. First and foremost, don't. Even though I am explicitly telling you that this is a bad idea, you're still going to so you may as well learn to play these popular drinking games correctly. 

BEER PONG:

EQUIPMENT: Two ping pong balls, a table, plastic Solo cups, beer, maybe a creative team shirt. (Suggestions: "Team We'll Regret This Tomorrow" or "Team We're Not Related". 

RULES: Two teams of two stand on opposite sides of the table, usually the size of a ping pong table if it isn't actually a ping pong table. In front of each team are ten plastic cups set up in a pyramid. Each cup is filled 1/4-1/2 full with beer, depending on how shitfaced you'd like to get. Cheap light beer like Natty Lite, Coors Lite, Beer:30, or Bud Lite is most acceptable, because it is easily chugged. (My personal favorite is Beer:30, obviously. {Now is the part where you say "I remember when I was a freshman..har, har, har.}) 

               Through a simple two-out-of-three rock-paper-scissors match, arm-wrestling contest, or cage fight until near death, one team is chosen to start the game with both ping pong balls. Each team member shoots the ball at the opposing team's cups, the object being to sink the ball in one of the cups. If a ball is sunk by a player, the opposing team must drink the contents of the cup while the other team does some kind of high-five hoot-n-holler ceremony. Each team gets two shots, unless both of the players on the same team both make a cup, in which case they get the balls back and the other team loses their turn. Each team shoots back and forth, the first team to sink all of the opposing team's cups wins, and the losing team must drink the other team's remaining unsunk cups. Then you will promptly vomit, or hit one of your child's friends. Seriously, don't play this game.

NEVER HAVE I EVER

This is possibly the worst game you could ever play with your kids, because it's sort-of like the truth portion of "truth or dare", but it involves heavy consumption of alcohol. Everyone sits in a circle and one person will say, "Never have I ever..." and say something they most likely know someone in the circle has done. If anyone has done that particular deed, they drink. If there is only one person that drinks, they must tell the entire story of the incident. So, for example, if someone says, "Never have I ever had a threesome with the neighbor and Javier, the Spanish foreign exchange student", and your child is the only one to drink, they have to tell the entire circle how in the summer of '97 they got drunk off of Javier's homemade Sangria and...you get the picture. Are you starting to see how this is a terrible idea? Again, never play this game with your child. Never ever.

CATEGORIES

The rules of Categories are simple, though  many. A deck of cards is spread face-down in a circle, and a beer is placed in the middle of the circle of cards. Everyone sits in a circle around the cards and, going clockwise, each person picks up a card and follows these rules, which are dictated by the number or face of said card chosen.

2 - You: The person who picked the card gives away a drink and says some variation of "you drink, bitch". 

3 - Me: The person who picked the card takes a drink.

4 - Whores: All women/gay males drink.

5 - Categories: Person who picked the card chooses a category. Each person, going counter-clockwise from the original person, has to say an item from that category within five seconds. For example:

Category: Different ways of saying "penis"

So, going around the circle, "dick", "cock", "Johnson", "Noodle", "Trouser Snake"...until someone repeats a name or can't think of one, and that person drinks. 

6 - Dicks: All males/gay females drink.

7 - Heaven: The person who picked the card points to heaven, or in a general up direction, and all follow in turn. The last person to do so, drinks. (This is because "seven" rhymes with "heaven", beginning to see a pattern? Pointless, but a pattern none-the-less.)

8 - Beer Me: The person who picks the card must chug the beer in the middle of the circle of cards, and replace it with a full, preferably cold, unless you're a total douche, beer for the next person who draws an 8 to enjoy.

9 - Rhyme: The person who picked the card must say a word other than "orange" or "flamingo" and the person to their left must say a word that rhymes. This continues on until someone repeats a word or can't think of one within five seconds. Loser drinks.

10 - Social: Everyone stands up, cheers, circles their beer around their head, and drinks. (I am unsure as to why the head-circling, I suppose it represents everyone in the circle.)

Jack - Back: The person to the right of the person who picked the card, drinks. This is because "jack" rhymes with "back". Is this sufficiently idiotic enough for you yet?

Queen - Question Master: The person who picked the card may ask anyone a question at anytime until the next queen is drawn or the game ends. If anyone responds with anything but a subsequent question, they drink. Example:

Card Picker: (to you) Who is your favorite singer/songwriter?

You: John Fogerty.

You: Drink.

King - Rule: The person who draws the card makes a rule. Like question master, this rule stands until another king is drawn or the game ends. An example of a rule is that no one may say "drink!" As people get progressively three sheets to the wind, the following is likely to happen:

Person who catches someone breaking a rule: 

"Drink!"

Person who catches other person saying "drink!":

"Ha! Drink!"

Person who catches other person who caught other person saying "drink!":

"You drink!"

Ace - Waterfall: Everyone stands up and begins to drink. When the person who picked the card sets their drink down, the person to their left may stop drinking, and so on and so forth. Therefore, the person directly to the right of the person who picked the card is the last to stop drinking and hence the most Hasselhoffed of the bunch.

(Crowd roars, someone yammies, two females make out with each other.)

Now, I realize that the rules to Categories vary, so, if you are someone that's reading this and shouting in vain at your computer/ipad/tablet-not-as-cool-as-an-ipad, "No! Ace is chugging contest not waterfall!", I say, shut up, idiot. This is how I play. Deal with it. If you want to try to tell your parents how to do something differently than they've just learned, be my guest.


Good gracious, am I glad that my parents don't drink, or approve of me drinking for that matter. They would be ashamed that I knew enough information to write this, let alone have experienced it. Hey, thanks for the new car, guys!