The Airing of Grievances: Christmas
Because I’ve decided that airing grievances is fun and want to spread some holiday cheer. Remember, I do this to entertain me . . . not you.
Timing: The holiday season apparently starts right after Labor Day. The stores put their Christmas stuff out in September. This has to stop. A full one third of the fucking calendar year is the Christmas season. That’s stupid. Hell, let’s just make every day a holiday.
More timing: Every year, I put out Christmas decorations earlier and earlier. I’ve always been a Day After Thanksgiving guy myself. But that was back when I was a bachelor and my only Christmas decoration was a festive basket with pine cones in it. After thanksgiving, I’d put it on my coffee table and I was done. Now, decoration day is a full two weeks before then. And it takes up a whole weekend. And that’s just stupid too. One good thing is that the new pad is on a sloped yard and the house has two floors. So, the sides of the house are a full 80 feet off the ground. Therefore, for safety’s sake, I don’t decorate that side. My annual work has been reduced by two thirds.
Santa: He’s a fat bitch. Seriously, can’t we have someone who can teach our children a healthy lifestyle bring them cheer and presents? And how about a haircut and a shave? Right now, it looks like we have an overweight hippie in his damn jammies spreading cheer. Is he joyous from smoking dope? I prefer a nice, clean cut dude who looks healthy spreading wonder and amazement. ‘Cause when a hippie spreads wonder and amazement, you blame the weed.
To the guy in my neighborhood: Sorry, but a 15 feet tall inflatable Scooby Doo wearing a toboggan is not a Christmas decoration. It’s a fucking eyesore. It may have a date with my Gamo 220 Hunter.
Toboggan: To the people commenting on this post on roadside survival kits, when a white boy from Tennessee says toboggan, he means a wool knit hat not a sled. You really think I keep a big ass sled in my truck?
December 15th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I don’t do the decorating thing. My first year in the new house I put up lights, but they ended up going out, so I decided that was too much work. There are some advantages to not being married or having kids I guess 🙂
December 15th, 2006 at 11:52 am
I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t for the wife. It’s a simple deduction:
Spend one weekend doing lights
or
Spend every day getting bitched at for not doing lights
I’d rather waste two days than 1.5 months.
Marriage math, it’s also why I go to church.
December 15th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
I’ll trade you the taller-than-a-house lighted pink (though I’m sure it was supposed to be red) Arkansas Razorback pig that’s currently down the street from me for the Scooby Doo w/ toboggan…
December 15th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
I start with the lights, etc, Thanksgiving weekend. This year, because of bad weather, it took me almost two weeks to get them all up.
And if you drive around with a big wood sled in your truck, you could burn it to keep warm.
December 15th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
I can honestly say I’ve never before heard anyone, irrespective of race or geography, use the word “toboggan” to mean “knit cap.”
And I agree on length of season. “Christmas Season” lasts from the day after Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day. Not a day longer, in either direction. You may shorten it if you wish.
December 15th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
[…] Is it that time of year again already? Apparently it is. Anyway, here goes: […]
December 15th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
well, you are from Tennessee…
(joke, joke! don’t hurt me, please!)
December 15th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
My favorite thing to do is when someone says, “Happy Holidays”, I say in a booming voice “Merry Christmas”. I say Merry Christmas to every Liberal friend I have. Only glitch is they expect it.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Wait, Santa is Jeffrey Lebowski?
December 16th, 2006 at 1:54 am
#9:
Funny, I kind of do the same thing in reverse. 🙂 The problem is, Merry Christmas used to be a pretty innocent and pleasant thing to say to people, even non-Christians. But thanks to the Bill O’Reillys and Sean Hannitys of the world (and, by your admission, you), I have to wonder now when someone says it to me if they’re just being nice, or if they’re really saying “I’m the kind of asshole who wants to turn ‘Merry Christmas’ into a political statement instead of a greeting!”
December 16th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I don’t know where tgirsch is from, but those knit hats are definitely toboggans. My mama says so. Now how they’re related to those discs you sled on, I don’t quite know, but that’s what’s so great about the English language.
December 16th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Oh, and incidentally, I do have not just one, but two sleds in the back of the car right now. No lie. You just never know when a sledding opportunity is going to present itself in Tennessee. Though I guess for the next five spring-like days, I could take them out.
December 16th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Tobbogans are more flat bottomed wood sleds where the front end is bent up to form a semi circle. I had a Swiss coworker who wanted to take them back to Switzerland, because surpsisingly they didn’t have them there, but he thought they were great fun.
This is a link showing a Toboggan sled
I have to admit, being from Pennsylvania, I never heard of the hat kind. So I was confused about the terminology as well. According to the Wiki, the hat’s official name is a Tuque, and it is Quebec’s national winter hat, much like the Ushanka is to Russia.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I am not Canadian or Russian.
The hat is a toboggan. A sled is a sled.
I don’t wear something on my head that has a “q” in the word for it. That could get a feller in a heap of trouble.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Oh, man, you should have seen the giant inflatable Winnie the Pooh Dracula my parents’ neighbors put up at Halloween this year.
December 16th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
Well, one windy December night in my town, the 8-foot-tall, grinning blowup snowman in front of Kroger broke loose from its tether and bounded across the parking lot and headed toward the heavy traffic on the Bypass. Momentarily stunned as a big white thing bounced over my car, but in an uncharacteristic burst of quick thinking, I took off after the flying snowman and tackled it as my elderly mother waved her arms and shouted, “No! Come back! You’re gonna get run over!!” I almost did get run over in the parking lot, and children screamed as I wrestled the snowman to the ground, preventing an untold number of wrecks on the Bypass, and hauled it back to the store even though it was 3 feet taller than I. The store manager repaid this rescue from liability with two free bags of frozen broccoli that my mother was buying for an annual broccoli casserole few of us ever eat. I was hoping for some free Purity boiled custard, which I had placed expectantly on the checkout counter. That is my ongoing Christmas grievance, of which I am reminded each year when I see the tethered grinning behemoth awaiting its next chance. Thank you for listening.
December 17th, 2006 at 2:22 am
Better toboggan image. And as Sebastian points out, a toboggan isn’t just a sled, but a particular kind of sled. Toboggan is to sled as 1911 is to gun. The former is a type of the latter.
Besides, there are all sorts of non-retarded names to call the hat besides “toque.” You can call it a “knit cap” or a “stocking cap” or just a “winter hat.”
I used to think that it had to have a tassle on top to be a “toque,” but that turns out not to be correct. (My parents always bought me the kind with the dorky tassle on top…)
December 17th, 2006 at 3:23 am
I always had the dorky tassel as a kid too. I grew up in Ridley Park, PA, which is where most of Boeing’s helicopter division is located. Most of the Chinooks you see were made in my home town. It would be a point of pride except for the Boeing sock hats they gave out with the tassel on top. I wore one of those for many a winter, until I got old enough to realize you could tear the thing off, and avoid getting harassed by friends for the fu fu hat.