Tag Archives: holidaze

Helllloooo? Where are my chocolate-covered carbon offset credits? Don’t you love me?

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It’s almost “Christmas,” which we somehow celebrate even though we are not religious except for Festivus. On Christmas eve, we gather with the relations of Mr. H, and we exchange one gift per person under $25 based on names drawn out of a hat. There is frequently food I can’t eat, such as a platter of meat injected with hormones and dairy byproducts. At midnight, the animals talk. They say “Liiiiiiisa, why are you eaaaaating meeee?”

Our own nuclear family traditions include not buying each other anything. We buy things for other people, sometimes. But not predictably. Just enough to introduce stress for the other party as to whether or not they need to buy something for us next year. I love it!

And we generally buy whatever it occurs to us to buy throughout the year. We are Hard to Shop For, I’ve been told. The other day, I bought a ybab a poncho since it is cold now, and she acts like sleeves were invented by government torture squads. The pointed hood makes her look like an adorable little KKK Grand Wizard. Why would we need anything else?

Maybe we should try other holidays, but if we can’t even get it together for one gift under $25, I don’t think I could handle eight nights of gifts. We should start doing Diwali instead. I like those almond sweeties. Christmas is just not festive enough, unless a certain relative comes with a handle jug of Canadian Club. I can’t wait for the airing of grievances, though.

A holiday scourge

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Sorry it’s been so quiet around here. You’d think we’d gone and had a baby or something. But no, we’re recovering from colds and filing our hate mail related to our holiday card. A sample “deluted the tradition’s of Christ!!!! [sic, all of it]” SRSLY, you are no one until you are hated! I could do a dance. We were just being inclusive!

A ybab says “hi” and “da,” although in no particular context. The cat always gets a “hi,” although she could just be agreeing in Japanese.

All those year-end review shows on VH1 are catching me up on all the culture I blissfully missed. Fergie: what a scourge! London London London bridge. Can we deport her? She can move in to Madonna’s castle and grow an accent.

Mr. H owes me a guest blog on Fergie and Rachel Ray. He’s tentatively calling it “Hot? Or ugly chicks with haircuts?”

Holiday card theatre

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I am shamed beyond belief because there is a tracking error in the inner message in our holiday card. It jumps out at me like a thumb in the eye, and I quake to think of others noticing. But what the hell do you expect when the card was designed in an online software system in two minutes? If you want quality, do it your damn self! At least we spelled everything right, including the word “adequate.”

We receive a card each year that is always remarkable in its liberal massaging of the English language. This year’s installment, a positively uncomfortable Thai massage, reads:

Happy holiday’s from our house to your’s!!!!
Happy new year!!!!
Love [Name],[Name], [Kreatif Spelling Childname 1],[Kreatif Spelling Childname 2] [Kreatif Spelling Childname 3]….

The ellipsis at the end is so ominous, as if there may be an additional child lurking. The pictured children are all at or near the North Pole, judging by the sign post covered with plastic snow. Yet they aren’t really dressed for the weather. Puzzling!

And now for our own important message from a ybab.

Is this a parade or an actual emergency?

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Today A. Ybab and Mr. H and I went for a walk. I strapped her to my front and pulled my coat around her so only her foolishly be-hatted head stuck out. This deflects some of the alcoholics who live under the streets downtown, but not all of them. She continues to test well with that demographic, ideally with cross-over to chainsmokers. A few days ago, the lady with a nose ring and three teeth gave her the loving moniker “Sugar Booger.” I am familiar with the booger sugar, but I think that lady probably specializes in methamphetamines in the off-season.

Anyhoo, we ended up walking past lots of people with glow sticks, and then we realized it was time for the city’s annual Salute to Municipal Vehicles, a.k.a. the festival of lights or something like that. We shoved through the crowd and got our lattes, coming out just in time to hear “Ready to roll.” So we had to Frogger our way through a flotilla of police motorcycles, the bookmobile, a taxi cab, every single fire engine in town, a marching band, some Shriners, children dropping batons, the haz-mat team, and the local Rastafarians’ float.

A. Ybab became enraged by the time the cut-suspension Honda Civics and the public works sand truck glided by. We had to bust our way through the parade route to get home, which meant tangling with a postal worker wearing shorts (“Shorts every day. I’m a bachelor. We don’t iron!”) until we remembered we could just float down the canal on an abandoned shopping cart. Level-headed thinking saves the day again!

I’d like to build a value chain, in perfect harmony

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Bitches, this is the year I need to monetize all my channels. Because other bitches straight up do not pay on time, even bitches that are normally totally good for it because they have, I don’t know, comptrollers or CFOs or whatever. I do not know what the problem is. Everyone must be off making New Year’s Resolutions like “get organized!!!!” on little Post-It scraps. Mine is “I will bury you.” I had to cancel all charitable giving, and a guy is going to repossess my floors and key my car if you all don’t pay by the end of the month. So watch out, Big Content. I am going to “blog” every day, and I am going to put ads all over the place. You will like it. There will be mention of gumjobs. I might even start spellchecking for you.

All the folks in my life are mystified because Mr. H and I do not exchange Christmas presents. These are the same folks who will go on to ask me “Is he/she a good baby? Does he/she sleep?” And then I’ll have to say “Naw, he/she is a total douche bag of a baby.” I answered the “what did you get for Christmas” question by staring blankly. Sometimes I would grudgingly say “…a house? impregnated?” People. Honestly. We have no money, like orphans! Mr H. had to give the guy at Home Depot a reacharound in exchange for a laser level. I guess his Christmas present was when I explained what a “rusty trumpet” was. Don’t say I never told you nothing.

Clam Sandies

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I whipped up a batch of my famous clam sandies last night. That’s what you’re all getting for xxxmasxxx! Actually, you’re not getting anything. Someone is getting Star Wars legos, someone is getting a sweater, and someone else is getting a wooden push toy that looks like a crocodile. In order to receive a present from me, you must be a child under ten. The rest of you bastards are on your own. Well, if I catch you using “gift” as a verb, you will receive a sound drubbing. That goes for you too, iTunes Music Store. You were not “gifted” with anything. Someone might have given you something though (Chlamydia, ooh, that’s a pretty name). I do hate to burst your bubble, but you are not gifted at all. You never were. I’m sorry, but nearly everyone eventually learns to count to ten. If you did it early, or in French, good for you and Muzzy, but where did that get you in the long run? You are average in every way, maybe above average if you live in Lake Wobegone.

I am just bitter because I am no longer “good for my age” at anything. I can’t even write a blog post without ripping off Garrison Keillor multiple times.

I was going to tell you about my parking problems, but my heart’s just not in it. I’m going to go eat this candied seafood and enable the power of the powerful internet for filthy money that can’t buy happiness, although it can buy Ralph Lauren paint in a shade called “Old Violin.” Or maybe not even that since bitches never pay on time. American Express has to buy the paint. I blame my foul mood on the lonely old lady who came around and gave us a plate of Christmas cookies. Random acts of kindness can be so depressing!

Abnormal balls

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Silver balls, silver balls. With bells on.

I’m mixing my holiday anxiety and my work anxiety all together in my dreams. Today I woke up from one where a client had forced me to do some sort of brochure festooned with stock images of Christmas decorations, but she didn’t find them traditional enough, so I received an email with the subject “Abnormal Balls!”

We’ve all received that email. Don’t lie. Whatever. The squishing of the space-time continuum and all my vital organs continues apace. Moving to outer space was such a stupid decision. I should have sent the rest of you there instead.

Failure to thrive

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Overheard, stomach competition between two grandmothers. “Your pictures are AFTER UTERO, hers are better because they are IN UTERO.”

So, Thanksgiving, as we do in my family. A lot of deep breathing, counting to one hundred, drinking, and stepping out into the bracing cold, usually to find another family member out there, cradling his or her head in hand. For Christmas, I hope to be on a plane to a place with umbrella drinks and cabana boys. Or I will beat someone to death with a bottle of rum.

-xxoo