Christmas: Classic or Dud?

Granted, I go to my sister's house, where there are FOUR sets of potential parents/step-parents that can show up & throw a wrench in the works. And everyone's so damn maudlin. No wonder I always have some egg nog.

It should be about togetherness & sharing & giving and all that stuff that's cliched and trite, but really isn't. Add a flurry of snow, and a Christmas tree decorated by the family (the WHOLE family, not with one member supervising and telling you where you're going wrong) and you have immaculate beauty.

_A Christmas Story_ = CLASSIC. (Damn - need to put that on my movie list.)

The holiday roolz for me. Helps that I have a stable family and no buried emotional bullshit, so hurrah for good fortune. And last Christmas my girlfriend came over from England to stay with me and my parents. Best gift *ever*. :-)

All this said i find midnight mass one of the most solemn and holy times in my year. The trudging through snow and cold at the exact moment of my saviours symbolic birth . The moon reflecting on the snow. The barrenness of it all. Then the church with its lights on. Warm and welcoming.The commadaire of the people . Trudging back in the coldness to a warm meal.

I got up early, phoned my Mum in Austrailia, phoned other folks and friends. Opened pressies - ACE! Had a cup of coffee half filled with whiskey - a Christmas Tradition. Watched The Simpsons on telly ('Marge, Be Not Proud'). Went on the .net and wished my .net friends (oh brother, that sounds wank) a happy Xmo. Listened to 'It's A Cool, Cool Christmas' CD on full blast. Had a Baileys and got the dinner ready. Scanned the sky for signs of snow, but no joy. Had a massive turkey dinner follwed by Xmas pud in Brandy butter (from Sainsbury's - damn good, actually). Watched more telly ('The Borrowers' I think). Went to the pub for half an hour, came back and spent the evening gorging on champagne, chocolate, fruit and nuts. Sweeet.

This year's a family do I think. Ah well.

Christmas then. Diagnosis: deeee-licious!

The other side is with my dad's very small family, grandparents, cousin, bro, sis, dad, uncle. Do the same things every year, at the same times.

I love the pagan idea of the big midwinter feast. Just before the hardest section of winter and while theres still some good stuff left to make a feast of. Kill the fatted calf and have a knees up to revive flagging spirits.

It seems a great shame that a great pagan tradition, and of course the christian message (which is essentially a good one whatever you feel about christianity) have been buried under a twisted orgie of consumption.

flick(the kid who stuck his tongue to a pole in 'a christmas story') is now in porn, i just read an interview with ralphie and he says 'if it(flick being porno) makes him happy then i am happy for him' or something like that, ralphie/messy marvin hangs with vince vaughn and jon favreau and is a producer now.

http:// us.imdb.com/Name?Billingsley,+Peter

As for Flick, aka Scott Schwartz and his, er, career refocus:

http:// us.imdb.com/Name?Schwartz,+Scott+(I)

Actually, didn't David Foster Wallace mention his situation in that psedonymous article he did for Premiere a couple of years back about the Adult Video Awards?

I like candy canes too, btw. In fact, I just love everything about Christmas.

I had a non-sucky Xmas for the first time in ages this past year. Jane (our bassist) had an "ex-pats stranded in London without their families" party. Paul is lying about being alone on Xmas, because he was there- I think it was about our second date or something. A grand time was had because there was no pressure about anything. And all the food was vegetarian, which made a big difference- Xmas at my house always involves the meat-eaters completely torturing the Vegetarians and refusing to make us any food we can eat. And big fights between family members. Especially my crazy brother. And just horribleness in general. Our worst fights are almost always on Xmas, because it's the time that we actually all have to be in a room together.

Between the ages of about 17 and 22 I used to run away to NYC for every Xmas. It was my then-best friend's birthday, and we'd all get together for a big party which had nothing to do with Christianity or commercialism, it was just about getting drunk and listening to music and enjoying each others company. That was good.

But Xmas with my family = dud dud DUD.

I am trying to affiliate myself with the male section of the family who are allowed to drink before, during and after meals without having to get involved in preparing, serving or clearing up the meal.

I swiftly changed my mind.

I'm not sure if that'll be odd or not; I was single for my last two Christmases, and I don't do the visiting-family-for-holidays thing. Still. I've got no one to cook Christmas dinner for! (Those two years when I was single, I made Christmas dinner for my ex and her boyfriend-now-husband.)

I'm going to get a lot of stuff done, though, and will probably revert back to my more sensible schedule of sleeping from three to ten.

No tree: there's just no room for it in the apartment, except in the bedroom, where it would be unguarded from cats for overlong stretches of time. I have an obviously-fake (it's quilted) mini-tree my mother gave me that's meant as a centerpiece, so I'll put that on the table, and string lights up.

The weirdest thing, actually, will be that after Christmas is over, it'll be ... you know, over. In Louisiana, Carnival season starts on Twelfth Night, so I'm used to watching everyone take down the red-and-green lights in order to put up the purple-gold-and-green lights.

I'll also be extremely happy not to have this job any more.

When I lived in Lousiana, we sun bathed on Christmas eve.

I would be okay with having snow on/around/near Christmas. Christmas snow without having to go to McDonald's! Neat. I'd fill a basin with it and bring it in to totally fuck with the cats (they've never seen snow, because I can't bring them to McDonald's).

(There's a McDonald's in Metairie that imports snow -- from the Rockies, I think -- every Christmas and fills their playground with it so local kids can play in snow. They report it on the news every eyar as though it's never been done before, but last year they also had a SNOWMAN TUTOR, who showed kids how to build a snowman.)

Oh god, that's right -- last year I had to do that miserable move-in-three-weeks madness. This December will be a lot more enjoyable!

Christmas works do = DUD.

Christmas Eve, sitting in my candlelit room listening to music and swigging down Baileys whilst wrapping presents = CLASSIC.

Christmas Day = pretty DUD, but I always go for a long walk during the day through the local woods = CLASSIC.

Did your family send out Christmas newsletters every year?

Ours were always VERY predictable. Middle child in soccer this year. Oldest (that's me) in ballet again. Youngest learning to walk. Dad is deacon at the church. Mom teaches sunday school. Happily ever after. And so on.

The best part was that we got to draw pictures around the newsletter. Then we'd go to Copy Cat and get them printed up on bright red and green paper.

*forces SMILE*

Mrs Nordic, being the uber-traditional Midwestern gal that she is, is ALL ABOUT christmas, Ned- I must surrender!

Just don't give yourself away. (Oh, and stop reading books by women too you English bender pansy.)

Err unless you're like Jewish or something, oops. Then you get a Hannukah.

Apple Macs
Restaurants with non-plastic cutlery
Books, films, and music by women
Air travel
Abstract art of any kind (obviously)
Japanese food
Scandinavia
Cities everywhere (except Indianapolis and maybe Chicago)
Napkins, place mats, and table plans
Banks
Dancing
Subtitles

Which is a shame, because all of these were on my Christmas list! :(

I think I might get a tree this year.

Perhaps, you could try and convince them that thinking things are gay is gay. Might work, would make for a nice Christmas dinner chat!

There's no convincing them of anything, jel. Though I suspect a quantum leap in reasoning like that might just make their fat little heads explode, Scanners-style.

Did you forget about Christmas?

the whole hyper consumerism seems extra gross at this point. like all we heard for months was "OMG supply chain is going to cancel Christmas! how will we get all this useless shit in time?" then this morning the cable news is giving Target's delivery hours telling me I can buy things on Christmas eve for same day deliveries.
The whole premise of whatever this holiday was supposed to be is surely unrecognizable.

...a holiday to get drunk and play games, which was dying out until Dickens revamped it as a family holiday.