Your Very Own Personal Holiday Hell
“Hey dad, you’re making me sad,” my eighteen year-old, love of my life daughter said to me, yesterday. She’s home for the one month college winter break and has been feeling incredibly festive – baking cookies, singing carols, and watching her favorite Christmas movie, Elf, over and over and over.
Bottom line: she wanted to know why I hate Christmas. “How can anybody HATE Christmas?” she demanded to know from me.
“Honey, I don’t hate Christmas and I love the holiday season…really.”
The Grinch-like lie fooled the child, as I got her a drink, patted her on the head and sent her to bed.
I’ve talked about this openly for the last couple of years – about the debacle that this debt-inducing holiday has become. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ – not a celebration of $60,000 cars with giant red bows on them. Every time the wife tells the husband how much he loves him because he got her a Lexus, makes me want to hurl my morning Corn Flakes. Every time the two pretentious bitches get all loopey because “HE” went to Jared, I want to hit something with a bat. Every time I hear that “every kiss begins with Kay”, the response is always the same: KISS THIS!
They say that retailers rely on their sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas, typically doing half of their year’s business during that one-month period. But guess what? That’s not my friggin problem. I have to pay my mortgage and the brutally outrageous property taxes to enjoy life here in Jersey. Like most Americans, I’m in debt up to my colon and it is a very shitty feeling.
“Dad, I want a 16 gig Ipod Nano… Dad, I want to kill people in the realistic World War 2 war game… Dad, I want, I want, I want….”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
There is no doubt that getting older turns you into one slimey green, mother f@#king Grinch. There’s a reason that bastid hated all the Who’s down in Whoville – because their wild and carefree spending was driving the local Who economy into a recession. The First National Who Bank went belly up after giving loans for Pimplookas and Tatinkas that couldn’t be repaid. Who Motors took a hit and put a shit load of blue and orange people in the poor house. Now no one has even a goddamned nickel to buy a can of Who hash, and the corner market is stuck with 500 pounds of rotting roast beast.
The magic of Christmas was tremendous when I was my kid’s age. Movies like A Christmas Story, Rudolph, and It’s a Wonderful Life brought me such joy. But Grinches don’t care for that sort of fluffy mush any longer. Grinches know their wife would love the Lexus with the bow, but he wonders how he’s going to afford four new tires on the Sebring with the bald tires. And when those commercials air, the intention is to make us all feel like chumps and lousy providers. And of course, my wife always let’s out a “yeah right” when that asshole went to Jared.
“And so this is Christmas and what have you done?” Hey John Lennon, STFU already. I put food on my family’s table and keep the friggin mortgage company off my back by some miracle of God… and THAT’s what I’ve done. I don’t need some deceased Beatle busting my balls any longer. Capiche?
So, ho, ho, ho and all that good shit from the Zman. Make sure to pick out some cigars that will bring joy to all the little herfers in your life – including yourself. Eat lots of fattening shit and send your cholesterol level into orbit. And if you’ve got loving kids like mine, fake it the best you can and get to January first.
All kidding aside, be healthy, safe, and go for the merry. It can’t hurt.
Curmudgeonly yours,
Tommy Zman
JR CIGARS Blog with the Zman
December 21st, 2009 at 6:51 am
I want to know how in the world one goes out and buys / leases a $60K automobile WITHOUT the spouse’s consent. My wife would have a coniption if I spent that kind of money without first consulting her.
Not that she controls the money, but any MAJOR purchase sure does need to have BOTH of our stamps of approval.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:56 am
By the way, I went to the JETS game on Sunday, through the friggin’ blizzard that had just stopped prior to our leaving the Hudson Valley (7am). We tailgated like fiends, smoked some fantastic cigars, drank beer, ate like kings, and then watched my JETS fall apart (AGAIN) with only 2 minutes left.
This was my last football game, as I cannot afford the PSLs for the four seats that I have ($20K per seat), and the ticket prices for next year will jump from $80 per seat to just under $400 per seat. Yeah, I could move into the nosebleed section, but I would rather spend the money on stuff that really matters.
Damn JETS. I am beginning to understand my father-in-law’s pessimism about this friggin’ team.
December 21st, 2009 at 6:57 am
BWAHAAHAHAHA!!! (Busted.)
December 21st, 2009 at 7:06 am
FWIW, Ebenezer – I love Christmas! It’s a royal PITA getting everything ready for “the day” – all the food, the cleaning, the preparations, the gift wrapping, etc. But it’s a great day – good food, good times with family. Nothing like seeing the looks on the faces of the ones you love when they open that special gift. It doesn’t hafta be a Lexus. It’s the thought and personal connection that really is touching and uplifting.
The best part is the afterglow, IMO – after the presents are all opened and the kids have gone off to obsess with their latest whatever and it finally quiets down, and you spend a few minutes reflecting and basking in the good feelings of being loved and loving, with the warmth of the fire glowing beside you…
December 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am
You fruit.
December 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:08 pm
it took you way to long to post this drivel…
from now on, you WILL have it posted no later than 8am pst. if not i will have garfiend kick your little polish family jewels up aroung your tonsils, si?
December 21st, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Geez Z, ya Scrooge, you make sense.
Honestly, the economy has sucked and Kay, Jared and Lexy still think everyone has the cash to pony up for expensive, high-ticket luxury items. Here, inside the city, unemployment is nearly 50% and in the suburbs its close to 20%. Not many pieces of jewelry or cars showing up under the tree this year around here.
Brian — PSLs for 4 Jets seats are$20K per seat??? Ticket prices for next year will be almost $400 per seat? WHAT? Are you kidding me? Can people in NY/NJ actually afford that? I know here in Detroit they sure as hell can’t. I went to the Lions-Cardinals game last Sunday. I sat 29 rows from the field even with the goal line and paid $50 (which was $50 more than the Lions are worth, LOL). My buddy and I were the ONLY ones in the section. 50 years of bad football and the Matt Millen legacy ya know.
As for the holidays….I wish all of you heathens, sloths and generally good people a Merry Christmas. May it be spent in the love and company of good family and friends.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:37 pm
kicking Zman’s little Polish family jewels up around his neck would be fun!!!!
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:14 am
…”Eat lots of fattening shit and send your cholesterol level into orbit”…
You forgot the heavy drinking. That’s what helps me get through it.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 am
I’ll be you are happy with the ass whoopin’ the Giants gave the ’skins last night. The poor quarterback spent more time on his back than he did standing up.
And Eli looked good.
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:18 am
I need to go get my cholesterol blood tests today, before I start eating all the Christmas stuff. We’re having an old fashioned Cajun Christmas, with boneless chickens filled with rice and shrimp dressing. No calories and cholesterol there!
We still bought too much stuff for the kids (who are 27 & 28, plus a wife), but we’re taking it easy for each other. I’m getting some cigars, and I got the warden a small gold necklace on the jewelry channel. We kept it way under $100 each.
I hate all the decorating, it’s a pain, but fortunately, my daughter-in-law loves doing it, so all I’ve got to do is get the boxes down, and she takes over.
And I do agree that the heavy drinking DOES help me get through it all.
Bah Humbug to all.
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 am
Bah Humbug. I hate the holiday season. Too much greed, too much spending money that you don’t have. Too much family I don’t really want to be around. Bah Humbug.
If it was up to me, I’d ban all of the commercialization of the holiday season. Hell, you don’t see this type of hoohah for the 4th of July (which I think is more important).
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 am
BTW, where are the titties?
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:30 am
oh, and zman? lack of titties will get you a kick in the jewls…
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Z-Man…since you hate Christmas so much, this would have been a perfect opportunity for a tittie filled blog! Merry Christmas anyway!
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
and Zman couldn’t even figure that out?
December 24th, 2009 at 5:05 am
are you supprised at that, duckboy?
December 25th, 2009 at 12:45 am
MC to all my Christian buddies!
December 25th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Merry Christmas to you Z-Man and to all the blog regulars.
December 26th, 2009 at 1:32 am
And to all my Hebrew buddies… hope you enjoyed the movie and Chinese food!
December 28th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Ahem…
December 28th, 2009 at 3:47 am
3:46am = 2:30pm EST, mas o menos…
December 28th, 2009 at 6:11 am
It must be the beating the Giants took . . .