Huh… it would seem that when I did that Christmas meme a few days ago, I somehow failed to copy over a number of the questions from SamuraiFrog’s blog, and then I failed to notice the omission. I just now saw that Jaquandor has also snagged the meme from SF, only his version is obviously much longer. So, obsessive-compulsive sort that I am and in the interest of completeness, here is the rest of the Christmas meme, presented for your edification and/or amusement, assuming you can find any of either in these silly things:
- Hardest person to buy for: My dad, without question. This is a man who doesn’t like anything. He doesn’t read, so books are out. He doesn’t like movies or music, so shiny silver discs are pointless. He doesn’t care about clothes, and in fact actively detests any of the usual sorts of nice clothing items that people frequently give as gifts (notably sweaters and ties — all he wears are jeans, pocket-Ts, and the occasional aloha shirt, of which he has about 20). He doesn’t like the sorts of little knick-knacks and doo-dads that many people collect. About all that really seems to fire him up are tools — he just loves getting some kind of specialized handtool designed to pry off the access plate over the tralfaz gear on a 1950 Buick Roadmaster (only the 1950 though, because they changed the design for ’51!). The problem is that when he realizes he needs one of these things, he runs out and buys it for himself. Honestly, I’m so gunshy about him hating every gift I ever give him that it’s very hard for me to even work up the enthusiasm to buy him anything…
- Easiest person to buy for: Probably my mom, the exact polar opposite of Dad when it comes to gifts. A DVD, a CD, a pair of ear-rings, a nifty little tchotchke for her curio cabinet… she likes it all.
(For the record, The Girlfriend probably falls somewhere in between these two. I generally know what she likes and/or needs, but I worry incessantly about whether she’s going to like whatever I choose for her…) - Worst Christmas gift you ever received: A friend of mine back in the third or fourth grade gave me a pair of tube socks. Practical and inexpensive (looking back, that was probably a big factor behind this choice; I don’t think the kid’s parents had a lot of money to spare on their son’s classmates), but at that age, not exactly number-one on the wish list. A stack of used comics would’ve been much cooler…
- When do you start shopping for Christmas: I usually start thinking about what I could get for various people about midway through October, and very occasionally I’ll pick something up around that time if I happen to run across a good deal, but for the most part I wait until after Thanksgiving. I have a real problem with the way the boundaries between our various holiday seasons have blurred because of the needs of the retail industry, and it really galls me that we no longer have clearly delineated times for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
- Have you ever recycled a Christmas present: No. That seems really wrong to me, somehow. Much better to take an item back to the store and exchange it if you don’t like it, then to pawn it off on somebody else.
- Travel at Christmas or stay home: I’ve always stayed home just because of circumstance and habit, but I would like to go to New York City during the Christmas season sometime, and also to Germany to check out the Christmas markets I’ve heard so much about.
- Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer: Um, no. And anyone who can scares me deeply.
- Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning: Presents from The Girlfriend on Christmas Eve (usually — this year is going to be a break from our pattern, but that’s ok). Presents from the family, Christmas morning. Why? I don’t know, that’s just The Way It’s Always Been Done.
- Most annoying thing about this time of year: Wow, there are so many things… the commercialization, the Bill O’Reilly acolytes who get all militant and bitchy if somebody doesn’t issue the proper holiday greeting, the crowds and traffic and cold weather… it all sucks hard. But I think what really gets to me more than anything is the music. The incessant, inescapable, systematic force-feeding of that synthetically cheerful, syrupy-sweet canon of the same 50 damn songs. Oh, yes, there are a lot of different versions of the holiday canon recorded by every artist you can think of from Sinatra to Twisted Sister (I’m not kidding about that one; check out A Twisted Christmas), but really you’ve got a very small selection of all the same old songs that everybody has been robotically carolling for the last 80 years, and it plays every place you turn for about six weeks straight. The “all-holiday hits” format used to turn up on the radio sometime during Thanksgiving Day weekend, but like the decorations that start appearing in Target and Costco in late summer, the music start-up seems to have been creeping into the light earlier and earlier each year. It starts in mid-November now. How long until it begins on All Saints’ Day (the day after Halloween)? And it’s not just the radio, which we can always turn off when we get sick of it… it’s in the stores, too! And oftentimes the mall PA will be playing different Christmas songs than the individual store PAs, so if you stand in just the right spot, you get a cacophonous mixture of two or more of those hateful earworms. And then you get the people on the train humming or even (god forbid!) singing the stuff! Arg! I truly think there is too much music in our society these days, blasting at you from all manner of sources in every environment and setting regardless of whether it’s appropriate or wanted — a little silence would be nice once in awhile — but it’s particularly egregious around this time of the year. If I had my way, the Christmas music would be strictly limited: only between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and only one song every 30 minutes, slipped into a rotation of non-holiday music. Anybody with me on that?
- What I love most about Christmas: This is going to sound terrible, but honestly? When it’s over. There is so much stress and unrealistic expectation built into the holidays these days, that it’s really hard to find anything resembling the joy that the songs and movies and television specials keep telling us we’re supposed to be feeling. Perhaps it’s not the times so much as the fact that I’m grown up now, and maybe it’s because I don’t have any kids around to help me get vicariously excited about it all, but for me Christmas is, in a lot of very real ways, a total drag.
One of my favorite holiday movies is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In the final scene in that film, Clark Griswald finds himself standing alone on the front porch; all the chaos has died down and he is finally able to say, with a real tone of satisfaction and contentment, “I did it.” That’s the feeling that I strive for around this time of year. That one brief moment when you know that you’ve survived another year, that you’ve managed to get your family and friends at least one gift that they kinda-sorta like, and now you’re able to just exhale and let go of all the pressure to be so damn happy.Can you tell the season is wearing on me a bit this afternoon?
That is exactly why I bought Christmas Vacation. Ugh, I was at Wally’s picking up wrapping paper yesterday, and I guess I had a pretty sour look on my face. This cute little lady in front of me turned around and said, “Honey, it’s almost over. You look exactly like I feel.” I could have hugged her.
I guess that’s one good thing about this time of year, those occasional random encounters with somebody who gives you an encouraging word or a little nod of sympathy. The community spirit does come out in the end, it’s just not quite the way the movies all said it was supposed to be…
Hey! I can name all of Santa’s reindeer. I even know it’s “Donder” and not “Donner”….
Then again, I AM scary.
And I love Christmas. I love the music (which, by the by, is why I know the names of all the reindeer), I love buying gifts for people, I love getting together with friends and family…. I even love the stress of trying to find the right gifts.
Christmas is a time when people open their wallets, and their hearts, and remember those who are less fortunate. And it’s a time when many make an honest attempt to be friendly and accommodating. Not all people, by any means. Some people act like they shoulder the weight of the world all year round. But nevertheless there is a more charitable, warmer attitude in general. I look forward to that all year.
It’s probably why I’ve started listening to Christmas music in July before….
So sue me. Every year I hear about how commercial Christmas is, how we’ve forgotten the true meaning. Sometimes I wonder how many people really know the history of the holiday…. But that aside, I don’t think people have forgotten what Christmas ultimately means. It’s a time to do right onto others, to look out for those less fortunate, to be thankful for what you have and try to give back, whether with food or money or presents for tots or simply by wearing a smile for all you encounter. And it’s a time to gather with friends and family and remember why, despite it all, you love those people and haven’t taken a gun to their heads yet—or to yours. >;)
It’s all good.
So there. 🙂 And this from Little Miss Cynical, too. Look what you made me go and do? My cover is so blown.
Is it like it is in the movies? No. But, then, what is? I’m still waiting for Prince Charming to ride up on his white horse. Not that I’m into the Prince Charming type, but you take my meaning. Romance is not what it is in the movies. Why do you think it typically ends at the wedding? Nobody wants to talk about what comes next. And what comes before generally isn’t like it is in the movies either. Because we live in the real world.
And what about technology? Where are all the cool gadgets sci-fi keeps trying to make us believe are right around the corner? Where are the groundbreaking discoveries of alien life and psychic abilities and whathaveyou and whatnot that would suddenly make this world a lot more interesting than it often seems?
Where is my Indiana Jones adventure? Heck, at this point, I’d settle for a trip to Europe, but I can’t even seem to swing that at this point in my life.
Which is not to say that I don’t love being alive. I do. But no, it’s not like it is in the movies. It’s up to you, to us, to make more out of it than it sometimes seems is there.
Wow… when you blow your cynicism shields, you really do go all mushy, don’t you? 🙂
I guess a lot of my problem with Christmas goes back to the crap that surrounded it during my adolescence (early teen years, specifically). Not to pull up the couch and start psychoanalyzing myself, but there were a LOT of issues in my family involving a crushing sense of obligation. I learned that the holidays are a time when you do the things you’re SUPPOSED to do, not the things you WANT to do, and the whole thing is wrapped up and bound in a nice thick layer of anxiety and guilt. The situation that generated those feelings has long since been resolved, but there’s a lot of residue that I don’t think will ever entirely go away. it’s simply very hard for me to feel happy around this time of year. My father doesn’t help by being the original grinch and making the entire process as miserable for everybody as possible.
I’m glad you find pleasure in this time of year. Sincerely, I am. I envy those who do, and have spent a lot of time wondering what’s wrong with me that I don’t so much. I’m not as sour on it as my curmudgeonly persona here on the blog makes it seem — I play the grouchiness up quite a bit for comic effect — but as I said, it’s just not a time of the year that I look forward to.
Jas, you wrote – “I learned that the holidays are a time when you do the things you’re SUPPOSED to do, not the things you WANT to do, and the whole thing is wrapped up and bound in a nice thick layer of anxiety and guilt.”
I’m going to play Devil’s advocate here (ironic since we’re talking about Christmas…) however Amber drove home your exact point –
“It’s a time to do right onto others, to look out for those less fortunate, to be thankful for what you have and try to give back, whether with food or money or presents for tots or simply by wearing a smile for all you encounter. And it’s a time to gather with friends and family and remember why, despite it all, you love those people and haven’t taken a gun to their heads yet—or to yours. >;)”
Christmas is not about US or ME, it’s a time when hopefully we put aside our wants and desires and focus on the needs of others. Call it obligation, call it duty, call it whatever… Hell, I want to sit and sleep all holiday long, but what does that get me in the long run? I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Wanna be happier around the holidays? Ya gotta spend less time thinking about it and more time doing other things to take your mind off of it. Go shovel someone’s walk or read to some old chap at Crossland’s who doesn’t have a family. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen. Get out and do stuff for others. In many cases and especially around the holidays, it gives you a renewed perspective of life and that things usually are not as bad as you make them out to be. Do I wanna go just donate my time? Not always, but it sure helps me take my mind off of my trivial things, on top of that it does a great deal of good for those you’re helping. WANT is what Christmas was when you were 10 – time to change the focus which will then change the meaning. You got no room to complain, my friend. You’re employed, have a roof over your head, heat, food and a car that runs. Why not take a little extra time this season and help someone else get to that place in their lives?
I can relate to that. I mean, so very much of who we are and how we feel about the world is wrapped up in where we came from. I’ve had this conversation with my brother myriad times–because, well, we are pretty screwed-up individuals, and we can definitely trace that back to the mess of a childhood we had.
That being said, like you, childhood also influenced my feelings on Christmas–but in a good way. There’s no question about that. My dad LOVED Christmas; still does, in fact. He could stand to love Christmas just a little less than he does, because he spends far too much on presents. (Unfortunately, that’s something else I learned from him….) But that’s because he just really gets into it–the giving, the getting together, the eating, the music…. For my family, it really always has been the most wonderful time of the year they’re always singing about. It’s still not like it is in the movies: we have as many issues as the next family, and more than some. But, nevertheless, it’s a pretty happy end of the year.
I’m not that kid buried under Christmas presents with stars in her eyes anymore, but if I put on the right Christmas album, string up the lights, fill the house with the smell of cookies, and start wrapping presents? In some ways, it’s all better than when I was a kid.
Cheno, with all due respect, you have no idea what I was referring to when I mentioned “supposed” vs. “want” — how could you, since I was deliberately being oblique instead of airing my family’s dirty laundry that no one much is interested in hearing about anyway? I still don’t want to air any of that stuff, so let’s just say I’ve got my reasons for not being overjoyed with this time of year, I’m not going to apologize for that, and I don’t need any lectures on changing my attitude, ok?
That said, I think you and Amber are both misreading a lot of this. Yeah, I was pretty bitter in some of these meme responses. I was in a downer mood when I wrote them up for reasons that don’t necessarily have anything to do with Christmas (but which were exacerbated by the time of year), and, like I said earlier, I tend to play up the curmudgeonly thing here on the blog for effect. I don’t hate the entire month of December, and there are a lot of aspects of “the season” that I do enjoy. I just feel that it’s all overblown and, ultimately, pretty wearisome.
Sheesh. Who knew that after months of peace and quiet around this place, a lousy meme would’ve touched so many nerves?
Que? It didn’t touch any nerves on my part. I was just expressing my opinion. True, sometimes I think that, if you like Christmas, there’s almost a price on your head. But I have no problem with people speaking their mind about a season fraught with pathos and annoyances that even I won’t pretend are not there.
“…sometimes I think that, if you like Christmas, there’s almost a price on your head.”
Funny… I often have the exact opposite feeling… 🙂
Probably the only nerves being touched are mine, by the way. I get touchy sometimes, often for no good reason. It’s been a rough couple of weeks…