The snow finally started about 7:30 this morning and the latest reports I read say that all the alarmist stuff about 4 inches of blizzard conditions is maybe not so much after all.
Sinatra HAD to go out and the first snowflake that hit his face and he is screaming to get back inside. Now, it’s my fault he’s wet.
I thought I had an agreement, perfectly reasonable, that if I ran into a must-have Christmas present for one of my children or grandchildren that Mom would share the cost and the present would be from both of us. I found out last night after 11 p.m. that my “agreement” is that I will do all of Mom’s Christmas shopping and tell her the amount of the bill. I was already frustrated with the holiday and now I’m a bit testy. In fact, this morning I had to apologize for snapping at her. Worse, it seems I sent an email intended for a certain woman to my friend Ultimate Fastpipe who had no idea why I was waxing eloquent about a scented scarf. Distracted? No, why?
I thought my daughter’s family — can we say “grandkids” boys and girls? Sure we can. — was going to stay with me over the holiday, but it turns out she plans to stay with her Mom again. I’m disappointed, I must say. Son Jack will be performing in New Orleans and won’t be coming home and will get his check in the mail Christmas.
I’ve got less money for shopping this year than normal and the bad weather put a crimp into the limited time I had.
I’m ready to just give up on the whole thing, to tell the truth.
The real problem isn’t with the weather or money or anything else except my expectations. My expectations rather reliably become my resentments. In fact, they seem more than anything else to be premeditated bad feelings. In a very MCARP sense, I’m attached to my expectations that the holiday will be picture perfect and the season will be filled with movie magic. Instead, it’s bad traffic, bad tempers and bad choices and my first instinct is to blame the world and those I love the most.
Even knowing all this, I still am ready to give up on the whole thing.
Here’s a little slice of the hell of Christmas:
Daughter, what does your husband want for Christmas?
A white shirt, Daddy.
A white shirt? OK, what kind of white shirt? Full sleeve, half sleeve, short sleeve? No pockets, one pocket, two pockets? Button down or spread collar? Silk weight, cotton weight or denim weight?
Nothing is simple at Christmas.
And, I still don’t know what kind of white shirt to buy.
What to get Mom for Christmas? She owns 3,000 square feet of stuff, every imaginable kind of stuff. What she needs is a train that left the station many, many years ago and anything she sees that she wants, she buys for herself. Impossible.
Hell, for that matter, I myself am a bitch to buy for. If you ask me what I want for Christmas, I’m stumped. Whirled Peas?
But, if you don’t get it right, I sulk.
So, now let’s talk about post-ice storm Christmas traffic at Penn Square. I live at 63d and May. My major east-west routes are 63d Street and N.W. Highway. Penn Square is at Pennsylvania. The traffic light is out at 63d and Penn, just north of the giant mall. Impassable intersection. Yesterday, traffic was backed up to Villa on 63d, squeezing through the Penn intersection one car at a time at the temporary four way stop. Two cars go through and everybody honk at the idiot who can’t figure it out, the lather rinse repeat. I’m losing my mind sitting in traffic and the LAST thing I want to do is go to the mall or otherwise participate in the Christmas consumerist madness.
If I could work my will, every idiot with Merry Christmas on his lips would be boiled in his own Christmas pudding and buried with a stake of holly in his heart.
Dogs barking the tune “Jingle Bells”. ‘Nuff said. I’ll turn my radio back on after New Year’s because I also don’t want to hear the countdowns of the Top 100 of 2007.
Speaking of New Year’s, I don’t have a date and I don’t have plans. Amateur drunk drivers dominate the streets and everyone gets sweaty trying too hard to have too much fun. YUK.
But I’ll miss out on that midnight kiss from When Harry Met Sally in which my long lost love is returned to my arms for a happily ever after. And that will make me bitter and cynical and … oh, no difference? Nevermind.
The 15th Marquis of Ennui
If there is such a thing as God, proof of Her existence lies in the fact that there is a World Wide Web.
John X’s Way of X-mas:
Order all gifts online via the Web. Have gifts sent to wherever they go.
Clickety-click-click-click. And….FINISHED.
Christmas cards: Immediate family and maybe a few friends.
I wouldn’t go to a mall anytime of the day or night, but especially during X-mas.
There’s also the $$$ option. “Here’s XXX dollars. Buy something nice for yourself.”
If your “thoughtfulness” comes into question, you can always suggest to the accuser that they search their hearts for examples of thoughtfulness you exhibit the rest of the (non X-mas) time.
Or tell them: “You’re right. I should be more thoughtful. My first thought is, next year, you’re not getting shit.”
Bah humbug, I remain, yours without light or heat since Sunday last,
John X, Iconoclast
I offered to stay with you and you pawned me off on your mother. It’s not the same. As it happens, we will be bringing Boris with us – not appropriate for either your home or Monnie’s. I’m sure Monnie would have been lovely about it, but we wouldn’t.
I answered every question you asked about the white shirt. I can resend the e-mail if you wish. It comes down to this. It’s a field shirt and will be torn to shreds and five kinds of dirty within seconds. In the end, it’s your gift. Get what ever you want or, if you feel like it, nothing. With fewer presents to unwrap, we’ll be better able to get off to see other family members who will give us shit about not fulfilling their fondest Christmas wishes.
Blame the world for all the crappy parts of your holiday, but like everything else the other fingers point right back to you. Feel bad if that’s what you want. We are all entitled to our pity parties. I prefer to be shot in the back though. I know it’s your blog, but you have invited me here and know I am your devoted reader. Maybe a heads up would be appropriate – unless you are hoping for my smart mouth, which you know I have because you gave it to me.
I feel your pain all the way around.