Drink your Christmas spirit
Christmas, 1972. Now there was a Christmas.
I was in the Air Force -- no where to go, nothing to do, no friends
to visit and no relatives to buy for.
My parents didn't mind. I told them I
was getting shot at in Viet Nam. I was stationed in Lompoc, California.
Lompoc sounds like a city in Viet Nam. If you're eighteen. And
lying your ass off. To your parents.
Me and a few other wingnuts spent the
holidays in an Air Force barracks listening to King Crimson,
drinking many beers and smoking killer weed (also from Viet Nam).
We turned on the TV occasionally, to watch the war. General Westmoreland
and his Air Force cronies bombed the living fuck out of Hanoi
that Christmas. All the way back to the Stone Age, they said.
"Check it out, man, they're bombing
again."
"Bummer."
"I thought the war was over."
"Yeah so did I."
Now that was a Christmas.
But these days, Christmas is more like
a part-time job. Buy the presents, wrap the presents, box the
presents, tape the boxes, look for the addresses, take a smoke
break, look for the addresses some more, get some coffee, where
in the hell are those fucking addresses? Do all of that and you're
ready for the worst part: going to the post office. This year,
I got to the post office just in time for some kid to throw-up
on my shoe. Timing's everything.
"Sorry, he's never done that before,"
the mom at the post office said.
"Yeah, well, he's never seen me before." I said. "It
happens a lot."
With all the commercialization and materialism,
people tend to forget the true meaning of Christmas -- to humiliate
Jewish Americans and me. I think some smug shit invented Christmas
so the organized and capable people of the world could show others
like me just how incompetent we are at day-to-day living. Things
that come easy to other people -- like leaving the house during
daylight hours -- are so hard for people like me, so hard. To
me, Christmas is like a late-breaking news story. I look up and
see December on the calendar and think, "What, this shit
again?"
This year, my girlfriend came up with
a great idea: Why don't I cook Christmas dinner?
"You want me to cook dinner?"
"You told me you'd like to do it sometime," she said.
"I've told you I wanted to kill people before. That doesn't
mean I'd really do it."
She threatened to vomit on my other shoe,
so I decided, sure, I'd cook dinner. Turkey, of course. It's
easy and you get a lot of credit for minimal effort.
Besides, I have a special stuffing for
turkey. You take two loaves of dark bread, chopped celery, chopped
onions, poultry seasoning and mix it with, oh, about three or
four pounds of butter. Can't miss with that much butter. Then
if you want to be creative you start scavenging through the refrigerator
for mushrooms, raisins, a little mayo, garlic (whole and unpeeled),
hot sauce, leftover cranberries from Thanksgiving, Cheerios --
whatever you can find. No need to be picky.
Then you put the turkey in the oven for
six hours, during which time you convince other people to make
the mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli, figgy pudding or whatever
else you eat, always emphasizing, "Hey, I'm cooking the
main part of the meal."
Finally, you take out the bird, carve
it, add arsenic and make other arrangements for dinner. (See?
I can cook AND kill people.)
The best thing about Christmas is getting
together with relatives, provided they aren't your relatives.
Your best friend's sister can be a good choice. A good-looking
mom always works for me.
Here's another Christmas tip: send your
Christmas cards the day AFTER Christmas. Then watch for the mail
as all your friends and relatives break their ass to dig up a
last minute card for you. They'll love you for it.
I know, I know. What about the kids? Isn't
Christmas really for kids? Of course it is. Every kid on my list
this year gets a bottle of Jack Daniels. I learned this trick
from my mom who used to buy me jeans every Christmas.
"You'll grow into them." Same
goes for Jack Daniels.
Sure, Christmas can be a drag. But when
it's all said and done, there's a lot to be thankful for. Whoops!
Wrong holiday. Still, when Christmas is over you have a new year
to look forward to, as well as the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl.
(The holidays aren't officially over till
the Super Bowl, by the way. With just a little effort, you can
string out a good holiday drunk from the last Thursday in November
to the day after the Super Bowl. Too bad my athletic days are
behind me.)
Christmas! Bah, blow me. Next year, I'm
not going through the hassles I did this year (did I tell you
about the kid at the post office?). Next year I'm ordering everything
over the Internet: cards, presents, tinsel, stuffing, relatives,
everything.
At least that's how I felt a couple of
days ago. I couldn't get into the Christmas spirit. I was stressed,
depressed and suffered from anxiety. It was like... April. Then
a miracle happened. Yesterday I turned on the TV and -- incredibly
enough -- I see the good old Air Force, bombing the fuck out
of Baghdad. For me? For Christmas again?
Ohhhhhhhhh, yeah. Nothing like nostalgia
to give you that warm holiday feeling. Pass that bottle of Jack,
Jack.
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STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything else into it, you're on your own. Copyright 1998 by Mike Jasper.
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