Usually about this time of year my thoughts return to the holidays of yore.
Of crisp winter days spent playing in snow or bundled up in front of the fire playing Tetris on the Gameboy. Of eating pounds of goodies until my stomach pained me and I had to run to the bathroom to adorn the porcelain throne in brightly colored diarrhea.
Of carefully unwrapping gifts in order to find out what I got and what I would eventually return back to the store for cash so I could buy cigarettes from the one guy in town who thought all kids were simply short adults who deserved a smoke after a hard day of school.
You know, holiday stuff.
But this year, things are different.
Instead of focusing on happy memories (like watching our dog Susie get drunk on wine because people at our annual holiday party would leave their glasses on the coffee table) I find myself indifferent to all the festivities going on around me.
It seems that I have finally reached that age where the holidays are as exciting as getting a pap smear and as sad as that may sound to some, it is almost a relief to me.
No longer am I spending countless time and money securing that perfect gift for a loved one when a can of dip tobacco and some lottery tickets will do the trick. Instead of trying to be like Martha Stewart and concoct a party platter of intricately carved vegetables that look like deer, I just throw a bowl of semi-stale pretzels on the table with a can of bean dip as an appetizer and order KFC for the main course.
I have forgone the holiday music pumping through the house (instead creating playlists that are conducive to napping on the couch while cradling a small dog in your arms) and have kept the decorations limited to those things that aren’t strictly holiday-ish in nature (i.e.-a menorah made from chipped egg cups and tea light candles and a fake hot pink tree with black ornaments).
While my neighbors whore up our street in a competition of whose house looks more like a demented carnival, my house is blank and serene and even though my neighbors are pissed that I don’t wish to add several hundred dollars to my electric bill so a lighted Jesus can fight the Devil on my lawn, they leave me alone, content to gaze at my dark house in an angry manner rather than upset the weird lady on the hill.
And you know what?
I’m glad.
Because even though the holidays are supposed to be a time of joy and merriment, they never are and I for one am done with them.
Instead, I plan on spending the next few weeks attending no parties (at long last, I won’t have to pretend I care about lawn maintenance during the small talk portion at the company Christmas party), wrapping no gifts (I’m throwing them in garbage bags and putting them under the tree), baking no cookies (now rum balls are a different story) and participating in no awkward gift exchange at work where I have to buy a $10 gift for someone I barely know and who will probably be insulted by whatever I pick out anyway.
And in the end I will instead use all the extra time that I have playing the new Zelda game, finishing up Deep Space 9 on DVD and drinking gallons of homemade egg nog until I soil myself quite thoroughly.
And that’s the best way to spend the holidays if you ask me.
