Bah, humbug! It's Christmas

Once again, Christmastime is here. People are hanging lights from their houses, singing awful songs about snowmen and going crazy trying to find that perfect present that has been sold out for months. Ahhh, Christmas.

I know, I'm the Grinch or a Scrooge or whatever you want to call me. I don't mean to be, but as Christmas gets closer and closer I seem to hate it more and more. But I do try.

For instance, just the other night I watched "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" on television. I remembered watching "Rudolph" as a child and thought maybe it would get me in the Christmas mood. Umm, no.

First, have you ever noticed how chauvinistic the reindeer are? Rudolph may not get to play in any reindeer games but neither do any of the female deer. When Rudolph's mother wants to go help look for him his father distinctly states "no," like she was a dog. And have you noticed that female deer are called "does" which sounds a lot like, well, never mind.

And how about Rudolph's nose itself? Why does it whistle? It isn't the color of his nose that freaks out Santa, but the awful squawking and honking. If I were Santa I wouldn't want to put up with that for a night of delivering toys. I wouldn't have made it to Alaska before Rudolph would have mysteriously disappeared.

Oh well, I guess with the exception of "A Christmas Story" and "Christmas Vacation" there just aren't many quality Christmas movies. I just wish I would have come to that realization before watching a stupid show about reindeer instead of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Stupid Christmas.

While I have been a Scrooge, Grinch or whatever for years, my wife is starting to transform into Mrs. Scrooge. Sure, she still wears her idiotic Christmas sweatshirts but last year she didn't even put up any Christmas decorations and the tree stayed in the closet.

This year though, in my wife's attempt to regain the Christmas spirit, the tree was pulled out of the closet and put on a table in our living room. My wife carefully strung the lights around the tree and put the star on top before going to bed with plans of finishing the next day.

A few hours later I come home and don't even notice the tree. Maybe that is because our cat had knocked the tree off the table and it was laying in the floor. The star was nowhere to be found and there were little artificial needles all over our floor.

My wife, calmer than I would have been, put the tree back up and finished decorating it over the weekend. She even found the star after spending way too much time looking for it. Then I looked at the tree and asked her why the lights were going on and off in sections like that. With the look I got, something tells me we may not have a Christmas tree next year. If we do, it will have sections of lights blinking on and off, that I promise you.

Thinking my wife and I both needed a little Christmas spirit this year I decided I was going to put together some Christmas music for us to listen to while we are eating instead of watching television. The problem was, I had to find songs that weren't awful. So I started my search.

Do you know how many versions there are of "Silent Night"? If I had a dollar for every person who has an album with that song on it I could buy the North Pole, evict Santa along with his elves and flying deer and really put a kink in Christmas.

After searching for way too long, or about 10 minutes Grinch time, I remember my wife saying she liked a song called "The Christmas Shoes." Being the good husband that I am I decided to give it a listen to see if it would make our list. Big mistake. I can absolutely, positively say this is the worst song ever written and listening to it is like someone trying to pull your ear off of your head.

If you haven't heard it, let me explain the plot of the song. A boy is looking to buy a pair of shoes for his mother who is dying. Yes, dying. It has to be the most uplifting Christmas song of all-time. They should have just written an alternate version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" called "I Saw Mommy Holding Hands With the Grim Reaper." Or instead of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" maybe they should have written an alternate version, "I'm Going to Bury Mom on Christmas."

It was then I decided that once again I will be Scrooge or Grinch or whatever this year and if my wife wants to join me then I will welcome her. Maybe one day I will get the whole Christmas spirit thing but until then I will sit back and notice blinking Christmas lights while avoiding any and all Christmas songs and movies. Ahh, now that is a merry Christmas.