Holiday Ramble
The radio at the bank I worked at last December only got reception for one station, which played Christmas music nonstop. I couldn’t take it, and brought CDs to listen to, instead. Even the dirty looks I received after playing gangster rap couldn’t pressure back to A Holly Jolly Christmas.
Contrary to popular belief about Jews, I really like the secular holiday Christmas. The candy is great, and the cheerful atmosphere is unrivaled throughout the year. I am most envious of the Christmas lights. JD and I used to have competitions to see who could count the most houses with lights. I couldn’t understand why every home didn’t participate.
One positive thing the shitty economy has brought is a less-hyped Christmas. The percentage of commercials related to the holiday has dropped from 100% to 97%—the perfect amount. Christmas is hyped as the biggest event of the year for one to two months, and then it’s over within a matter of hours. That seems like such a letdown, like crack cocaine. On the other hand, Hanukah lasts eight days. If only I could see more commercials with dreidels and potato latkes.
The Twelve Days of Christmas was created to outdo Hanukah. Around 95% of Americans celebrate Christmas and 2% celebrate Hanukah, but that isn’t enough, is it?
I know it is tradition, but how can parents in good conscience lie to their kids about Santa Claus? If we very conservatively assume there are .25 billion children around the world celebrating Christmas, and one day for Santa to slide his fat ass down all those chimneys, that’s 173,611 houses per minute and God knows how many cookies.
Today I’ll be at the movie theater with all the other Jews in Northern Virginia. Tonight I’ll eat a fantastic second Thanksgiving meal my mom prepares. JD and I joke that it’s our Christmas dinner, but my mom doesn't like that terminology. "It’s our special end-of-the-year meal,” she says, or, “Since everyone else is having a nice meal, we should, too.”
Zeke invites me to his family’s Christmas lunch every year. He used to make a delicious banana pudding for dessert until the year I had an allergic reaction to it. I thanked his family for assuring I wasn’t the lone Jew on Christmas, and then rushed home for my trusty Benadryl.
As if Barbara Streisand didn’t already suck enough, she sold out and made a Christmas album. She’s not the only Jew to be so greedy—Neil Diamond and Kenny G made one, as well. Jesus may have been Jewish, but he couldn’t touch G on the sax. We’ll pay your religion to take Streisand. Better yet, we’ll trade you Streisand for Megan Fox, straight up.
My Aunt Flojo went to high school with Streisand. Aunt Flojo’s daughter went to school with Chelsea Clinton. I went to school with The Stumbler.
Aunt Flojo bought me Brooks Brothers shirts and ties for Hanukah and my birthday. Those stingy old-timers in the government are blinded by my fancy New York stitching.
The top five holiday movies are as follows:
Honorable Mention:
Jack Frost. Michael Keaton is great. Snowmen are even better. Michael Keaton as a snowman…forget about it.
5.
Love Actually. Though I thoroughly enjoyed this, it made the list mostly so I look diversified. I wanted to use Definitely, Maybe instead, but as it turns out, that’s not even a holiday movie. It was just a better chick flick.
4.
Meet the Parents. This is more of a feel-bad flick than a feel-good one. Nevertheless, I laughed to the point where I couldn’t breathe.
3.
Die Hard. The perfect holiday movie, the perfect Mos Def look-alike, the perfect action movie, and an absolute classic. The only reason it isn’t higher on the list is the next two movies.
2.
Bad Santa. One of the funniest first-viewings in my life. I laughed every minute of Bad Santa to the point of tears, stomach pain, and wishing I could stop laughing. I let Mr. Mountain Dew borrow the DVD, and when he said he didn’t like the movie I was ashamed to be his friend.
1.
Home Alone. I’ve probably seen it over 100 times and still love it. I watched it in the clinic with JD five years ago and my nurse thought I simply had nothing else to watch. “Home Alone is timeless,” I told her. When I saw it in the theater at six years old, I laughed so hard I fell out of my seat. I had strep throat, and had trouble catching my breath, and went to an urgent clinic for a penicillin script right afterward, but it was worth it.
Palin pardoned a turkey. Will she also pardon a caribou?
My friend at work told me the holiday gift exchange was fun last year, so the morning of our party I bought a gift and wrapped it in four pieces of white paper. It was on the gift table, though most people didn’t realize it was a valid present. I likened it to the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
When my name was chosen, I stole chocolates from someone else instead of taking an unwrapped gift. I merely played the percentages: most gifts I had no use for, and in all likelihood I’d be stuck with something unusable. It turns out the chocolates were International flavors and contained crème. I was allergic.
I flossed the chocolates to everybody when their turn came up in hopes they’d take them, and I’d get to choose a different gift. I was looked over until the very last turn. One guy took someone else’s gift, who took another person’s, who then took my chocolates.
The maximum allowed number of trades was three, so I was forced to choose a wrapped gift from the table. There were two left: my ageless wonder and a long, skinny item. My curiosity led me to that one until a woman told me it was reserved for Lovely Suzie who wasn’t there, but surely wouldn’t want the item wrapped in white paper with hand-drawn pictures of a snowflake, menorah and stick figure Rudolph. I had to take my very own gift that I bought and wrapped that day that nobody else wanted or even realized was an option, on the final pick after finally getting my allergy-ridden International crème-filled chocolates off my hands, and not by choice.
Why am I complaining? It was the best gift there.
