Christmas Cheer

[Cornholio]

I'm thinking a pop-up window dictionary would be a better option.

How about an acid drop before reading each post?

[natty dread]

Op-Ed Columnist: Jingle Bell Schlock

December 5, 2004
By MAUREEN DOWD

If I hear "Frosty the Snowman" one more time, I'll rip his
frozen face off.

It's a scientific fact, or should be, that Christmas music
can turn you into a fruitcake. It either sends you into a
Pavlovian shopping trance, buying stupid things like the
Robosapien, or, if you hear repeated Clockwork-Orange
choruses of "Ring, Christmas Bells" drilling into your
brain with that slasher-movie staccato, makes you feel as
possessed with Christmas spirit as Norman Bates.

I've never said this out loud before, but I can't stand
Christmas.

Everyone in my family loves it except me, and they can't
fathom why I get the mullygrubs, as a Southern friend of
mine used to call a low-level depression, from Thanksgiving
straight through New Year.

"You're weird," my mom says. This from a woman who once
left up our Christmas tree until April 3, and who listens
to a radio station that plays carols 24/7 all month.

My equally demonic sister has a whole collection of rodents
dressed in holiday clothes that she puts up around her
house. There's a mouse Santa Claus and mouse Mrs. Claus and
mice elves and a miniature Christmas village with mice, and
some rat Cinderella coachmen in pink waistcoats and rats in
red velvet vests and more rats, wearing frilly
red-and-white nightshirts and nightcaps and holding little
candles, leading you up the steps to bed. It's beyond
creepy. I keep fretting that it's going to be like
"Willard" meets "The Nutcracker," where they come alive and
eat her like a Christmas pudding.

My mom and sister both blissfully sat through "It's a
Wonderful Life" again on Thanksgiving weekend, while even
hearing a mere snatch of that movie makes me want to scarf
down a fistful of antidepressants - and join all the other
women in America who are on a holiday high - except our
family doctor is a Scrooge about designer drugs, leaving me
to self-medicate as Clarence gets his wings with extra
brandy in the eggnog.

I've given a lot of thought to why others' season of joy is
my season of doom - besides the obvious fact that yuppies
have drenched the holidays in ever more absurd levels of
consumerism.

I think it has to do with how stressed out my mom and
sister would get on Christmas Day when I was little. I
remember them snapping at me; they seemed tense because of
all the aprons to be sashed and potatoes to be mashed. (In
our traditional Irish household, women slaved and men were
waited on.)

It might be exacerbated by the stress I feel when I think
of all the money I've spent on lavishing boyfriends with
presents over the years, guys who are now living with other
women who are enjoying my lovingly picked out presents
which I'm no doubt still paying for in credit card interest
charges.

I was embracing my Christmas black dog the other day when I
read a Times article so scary it made my hair - and my
genes - curl.

It was about how severe stress can make a woman age very
rapidly and prematurely, looking years older than her
chronological age, because the stress causes the DNA in our
cells to shrink, and sort of curl down on itself, until the
cells can no longer replicate. "When people are under
stress they look haggard, it's like they age before your
eyes, and here's something going on at a molecular level"
that reflects that impression, said one of the researchers,
Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California at
San Francisco.

So now, on top of all the stress related to having a
president and vice president who scared us to death about
terrorists to get re-elected, I have to be stressed about
the fact that my holiday stress might cause me to turn into
an old bat - instantly, just like it happened in Grimm's
fairy tales, when a girl would be cursed and suddenly
become a crone. Or just like this Christmas doll my sister
brought home once that had an apple for a head; her face
looked all juicy and white at the start of the week and
then by the end of the week, it was all discolored and
puckered.

I flipped through the hot new self-help book by Gordon
Livingston, a psychiatrist from Columbia, Md., "Too Soon
Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know
Now."

One of them is the cardinal rule of anxiety: Avoidance
makes it worse; confrontation gradually improves it.

Yep. I definitely need to rip Frosty's face off.

[Grange]

* Can be sunk into private lakes and ponds, where it provides refuge for fish.

This can also be a problem. We have some lakes that become too littered with Christmas trees by people whom think they are improving fishery habitat. Not too mention that some people do not take off all the decorations which can harm the fish. It's best to check with the local lake association or the area natural resource agency first.

Back on topic. I generally like Christmas because of family and the paid vacation from work. What I hate seems to be a common theme, traffic. People can be overly friendly when you pass them in the hall, but once behind the wheel or competing for a present watch out. Road Rage seems to be a byproduct of the holiday cheer.

[CaddyDaddy77]

Not feeling it this year. I came out to my car on Sunday morning to go to work, to find both the drivers and passengers side door locks hammerred from some jackass witha screwdriver. Not making my car undriveable, but forcing me to use the rear hatch to unlock the doors. Oh, and my deductible is, $250, the estimates I have recieved are around $300.

The one thing I'm allergic to in the world is pine trees, specifically fresh cut. Not as bad now as when I was a kid, but to appease the masses, I load up on Benedryl daily so we can have a X-mas tree.

I've only skied once and, probably won't go again until after x-mas.

X-mas sucks, this year.
Didn't the Vandals have a song "I'm going to hang myself from the christmas tree" ?

Ho-ho-ho.

[13]

Woodsy, I feel ya man.

I love the holidays, but when you're waiting tables and a few guests treat you like a piece of dirt on Christmas Eve when you're 2,500 miles from family, you start to wonder what "christmas cheer" is.

Last Christmas Eve, I had a guest berate me at his table for bringing his Sweet & Low after dropping off entrees at an adjoining table. I left the table stunned & speechless.

The next morning, a couple gave me a pair of ski socks as a Christmas present. It was a small gift but I was floored; it was the nicest thing hotel guests had ever done for me -- I was stunned and speechless once again.

[Hayduke]

2 days of work to go.......

http://www.tetongravity.com/usergall...rpics/yoda.jpg

[mr_gyptian]

Tell me you couldn't get your arms around this Christmas. Hell, hit these services, catch a smoker up to Taos and fire six shooters at the Puebla. good times, good times.


A Merry Christmas After All: Supreme Court Lifts Stay on Hallucinogenic Tea for Church's Christmas Celebration
CNN.com reports: "The U.S. Supreme Court sided Friday with a New Mexico church that wants to use hallucinogenic tea as part of its Christmas services, despite government objections that the tea is illegal and potentially dangerous. The high court lifted a temporary stay issued last week against using the hoasca tea while it decides whether the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal is permitted to make it a permanent part of its services. The legal battle began after federal agents seized 30 gallons of the tea in a 1999 raid on the Santa Fe home of the church's U.S. president, Jeffrey Bronfman. Bronfman sued the government for the right to use the tea and the church won a preliminary injunction, which was upheld by 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. The Bush administration then took the case to the Supreme Court." More . .