I Luvs Me Some Fakies

We put the ol’ Yule Stick up today –otherwise know as a Christmas tree. Its not that I’m a pagan. Its just that I understand that Jesus was most likely born in September, and the whole tree/gift thing is an entirely non-Christian tradition. So I’ve taken to calling it a Yule tree (which irritates the crap out of my wife, which in turn makes me look for reasons to mention the stupid thing).

This year we upgraded our fake tree to a much better fake tree. The old one was so ghetto Charlie Brown that I couldn’t take it anymore and I “accidentally” took it to the dump while I was moving to the attic for storage last year. I had intended to be smart and buy a fancy one over the summer when they are cheap. But who the hell thinks about holiday trees in August? So we bought it today.

I love it. It opens like a big three piece umbrella with the lights already on it. And it actually looks nice. Hell, if I hadn’t taken it out of the bubble wrap myself I’d swear it was real. I wonder if they make them with the ornaments already attached too? Because hanging all that junk is a drag.

Actually it was mostly fun. Even though I threw a public hissy-fit at the Christmas musak playing in the mall . . . on November 10^th, I do enjoy watching the Widget get spooled up for the holiday. Watching my control-freak wife, (and I mean that in only the most loving way), sort and organize the decorations and then hope for some sort of symmetrical distribution about the tree that met her OC definition of “aesthetically pleasing”, while Widget dropped glass ornaments, bumped the tree, or otherwise set Dorinda’s upper and lower teeth grind together in a most musical way, was a lot of fun. Toss in the three legged cat who is really curious about little metal hooks and tissue paper and it’s a recipe for pure entertainment.

Every year we go to Staten Island for Christmas to see my family. Every year we spend most of the drive arguing the merits of the “Season”. Pagan vs Christian, and Christ as Savior vs Christ as Carpenter. The short version is that I see the Christmas Season as something that brings out the utter worst in humanity. The conspicuous consumption aside, people’s stress levels go through the roof and most normal men and women turn into complete turds. Sitting around on Christmas at my parents house doing nothing but drink coffee and/or getting drunk only SEEMS like the best time of my life in comparison to say, going to the mall, or any public place of commerce, for one last gift. Dee sees the up side of it all. Bake sales, holiday fairs, one or two people actually being really nice and somehow that makes up for all the assbags.

It’s a very loud drive to NYC, but so far no one has ever fallen asleep at the wheel. So its all good.

But this year I’m not seeing that almost childlike sparkle in her eyes and it sort of bumming me out. So much so that *I* am compensating by getting excited about Christmas for the first time in a decade or two. The prospect of possibly getting an X-Box 360 has nothing to do with this, I assure you.

Okay fine, it has everything to do with it. Even though I know I won’t get it. But my brother will. Which will only make the disappointment that much more bitter.

Widget, on the other hand, is vibrating with greedy anticipation. I remember when she was born I was determined that she would learn Christmas as it should be (to my mind): a family thing, a winter equinox thing, and nice old folk tradition. I was determined to leave religion (mine or anyone else’s) out of it, along with Hasbro and Mattel.

That lasted about 30 seconds.

Tonight I helped her set up her little 12” tall tree in her room. Now brace yourselves: Its silver/purple, comes with a set of Disney Princess ornaments, and a hearts and “rubies” garland. The lights come pre-attached. I only vomited in my mouth a little while setting it up. But all that anger and disgust went out the window (as do most things I decide are set in stone) when I saw how much the Widget loved it.

Anyway. I got a page to draw. Enjoy this final holiday image from my friend Tetsubo . . .who I hope will not reprimand me for using his web-name, like he did when I used his real name several blogs and another website ago.