What is it about the holidays?...

Vicky and I are looking at this weekend… and our eyes are filled with dread!

Christmas is only about three weekends away. We haven’t sent out our Christmas cards, yet. I’ve offered but Vicky has this thing about the recipient being able to read the card. (You people and your “legibility”!) We haven’t finished decorating our tree. Our presents have yet to be wrapped. I think Vicky still has cookies to make. Our place is, to be blunt, a mother-fucking mess.

Now, I’m not going take all the blame, but I don’t think Vicky should, either. The thing is, Christmas isn’t a holiday, it’s an experience. (Someone make that a slogan! Quick!) It’s a month-long, soul-killing exercise in the belief that everything can be nice and happy and cheerful, while we’re killing ourselves to make it so. Is it any wonder that it’s followed with New Years Resolutions. This year, I’m going to resolve to start Christmas in September; hell, the malls do!

But that’s not going to help us much this year. The thing is, you might get your card a little late. You might also not get one – especially if we don’t know you! But if you open it in March, think of all those others who forgot to send you a Christmas card in March, the bastards. Now that Vicky and I have a fake tree, we can take as long as we want to decorate it! – dammit, I just lost Vicky. Oh well, I guess we’re still going to be going nuts, like it or not.

I love Christmas. I really do, atheist and all. I love that our insane, mercantile society, our greed-driven world has found a way, despite the Christians, to make a holiday that’s about love for all… um, occasionally… not at the mall, of course… but that’s how I look at it. People think I’m too much of a cynic but that’s just an optimist who has lost his sense of humor. Mine is still intact. I just have to think of a way to giftwrap Vicky’s new car…