Everyone who says, “It’s the thought that counts,” You are all a bunch of liars! I remember one year receiving a pack of socks and underwear for Christmas. That’s not a Christmas present. That’s a gag gift, especially to a 12 year old boy. A couple of years ago I got deodorant from my father’s then girlfriend. How insulting is that? I would have rather had the $3.99 to buy something I wanted. Here is my satirical view of a typical holiday season.
Everyone is always grumpy. You have to figure out who you are going to buy gifts for. You never know who is going to buy you something. You have to anticipate who might buy you something and add them to the list of people you are already going to buy things for. Then you have to figure out what to get for everyone on the list. You try to spend an even amount on everyone, but that never works out.
You go to the mall and realise you forgot your Christmas list at home. It’s taped to the back of your front door, right where you left it so you wouldn’t forget. Counting on your fingers, you mentally go through your list of the forgotten. While counting, you add more people to the original list that wasn’t there before. You still forgot some people from the original list and you can’t remember who.
Shuffling through the sheep, you roam from store to store trying to find gifts. “She wouldn’t like that,” you think to yourself. “This won’t fit him,” is what you say as you hold the item in the air measuring it against an invisible chest. “That’s too expensive, there are none in her size, that’s not the right colour,” are the thoughts that dance through your head during the day.
After finding everything that meets your minimum requirement to qualify as a gift, you head for the till. There’s a queue.
When you drop your bags in the front passage to lock your door, you turn to see the list waiting there mocking you. Skimming through the list, the names you forgot stand out. “Maybe I can rearrange the gifts so there is a gift for everyone on the list. The extras will just have to get a card this year.” On Christmas Day, you’ll find that you regret these thoughts. The ones you got cards for did get you a gift.
It’s Christmas Day. The family is gathered and the little ones are ripping open presents. To be helpful, you decide to lend a hand in dinner preparations. Everything you do in the eyes of your mother/ mother -in-law/ aunt/ cousin/ family member of your choice, is wrong! The carrots are supposed to be cut at an angle, not horizontally. There is too much salt in the stuffing. Someone else knocked the cranberry sauce on the ground, but it’s your fault. While slicing potatoes, Nana asks, “Why you don’t you have a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/ and children? Your sister has three!” The older ones are fighting over presents and the youngest left a stain over your right shoulder.
It’s now your job to watch ‘crazy uncle so and so.‘ He gets too friendly with the kids when he drinks too much. At dinner, while it never dawned on you as a child, you just realised why Aunt ‘bla bla bla’ always brought her ‘roommate’ to Christmas Dinner every year. Grandpa starts to talk about his aches and pains, not mention the size, shape and frequency of his bowel movements. He wants to know about yours for the sake of comparison.
Smile for the camera. It’s time for you to open your presents. Everyone wants to take pictures of you trying on the ugly sweater you just unwrapped. You know that’s going to appear on Facebook within minutes. You get everything you don’t want and exactly what you don’t need. There’s a bright flash and you wipe the drool off your face as you realise you have fallen asleep. That too will be on Facebook, along with several pictures of your nieces and nephews hanging their bums over your face as you sleep with your mouth open.
You finally make it home. You soak your your shirt in detergent and pray that the smell comes out. There’s no use trying to shower because the pipes are frozen over. Sanitary wipes will have to do. Warm and cosy in your bed, you lay back and sadly think, “I have to do this again next year.”