~Sarcasm De Jour
We have all heard this Christmas song and every time I hear it I want to scream. Now it isn't that I don't like Christmas because, in fact, I hate it; at least the season anyway.
First there is Christmas shopping. To me, shopping rivals such chores as going to the dentist and cutting the grass with a pair of scissors.
Fortunately I am married, which of course means I shop for my wife while she shops for my family and hers. But shopping is a pain whether it is for one person or for twenty. There is always the agony of trying to decide how much to spend. As everyone knows, you can't spend less on the gift for a person than they spent on you. So you overspend for that gift which will invariably sit on a shelf or in a closet somewhere until it mysteriously disappears just before that person has a garage sale.
But it isn't just the spending that bothers me. I hate going to the stores packed full of people fighting to get that last Tickle Me Elmo or whatever is the hot item that year. There is nothing like walking down the aisle having to dodge one shopper after another like Walter Payton dodged defenders.
And the kids! Apparently it is a rule that parents must take their young children Christmas shopping with them. I love walking through a store hearing kids screaming and crying wanting their parents to buy them this toy or that toy. Here is an idea. Maybe go Christmas shopping without your kids and give us all a more peaceful holiday.
And there is nothing I hate more than the people who have their Christmas shopping finished in July. To me, Christmas season is from the day after Thanksgiving to Christmas day. I guess I missed the memo telling me it starts sooner.
I don't know about you, but there is nothing like driving down the street in late October and looking at all the nice Christmas decorations hanging all over town. Pretty soon, we will be skipping Halloween and Thanksgiving all together and start Christmas sales just after Labor Day. Of course, there are also the people who leave their lights up all year. While I can sympathize with their procrastination, please spend a weekend taking down those thousands of lights that lit up three blocks.
Just don't take the lights down the day after Christmas because that is the time for the day after Christmas sales. Now you are already broke, but stores want you to go back and buy stuff that nobody wanted to start with, but at a cheaper price. Oh well, it is a good time to pick up those Christmas cards for next year that I will forget to send. Because nothing says I didn't buy you a gift better than a Christmas card from a box of 20. What is even worse than a boxed card is the card with the sender's photo. We know what they look like.
We have to see them once a year at the mandatory family function. So skip the picture and just send me money instead.
Inevitably Christmas day comes and I will get to open my presents, pull the coal out of my stocking and get ready for the worst holiday of all, Valentine's Day.