O Come All Ye Ambivalent

Christmas, to plagiarize a master, is the best of times and the worst of times, as many of us watch the season approach with a mixture of joy and dread. I don’t even know what sugarplums are, but there was a time when they danced joyfully in my head.  Now I wonder if they’re a good source of fiber. Only those who leave carrots for the reindeer with wide-eyed excitement have unambiguous feelings about the season. Make no mistake, a sweet rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” can still swell my heart;  but a brain-dead clerk who gets me humming “O Little Clown of Bloomingdale’s” can swell the veins in my neck. 

 

Christmas is not simply an excuse to go shopping, of course; it’s a mandate. Thus women tend to enjoy the season more than men, most of whom would rather be clubbed with a gift set of Old Spice. If men could start their long winter’s nap around the First Day of Christmas and regain consciousness just in time for the Rose Bowl, I think many would opt into the program. The whole business is just too complicated for most of us. Men tend to think that if they get a gift for everyone living under their roof, they’ve done their job, whereas women have lists as intricate as anything Homeland Security has compiled. It would never have occurred to me, for example, to give a gaily-wrapped cluster of goodies to all of our kids’ teachers, even if I could gaily wrap – which I can’t, lacking the gene. I can make a complete mess of a perfectly rectangular box, while my mother could wrap a live moose and make it look like it came from Macy’s. 

 

I once did a show for a Death Industry group – funeral directors, monument makers, casket dealers – and the weather was appropriately gloomy and funereal. I asked why they always had their annual conference in January, and an embalmer who bore a chilling resemblance to Lurch said it’s because they’re always in a good mood in January.  “The holidays,” he said in a hushed, sepulchral tone, “are very good for us.” Brrrr.

 

It’s no wonder, when you think about it. Given the sheer number of parties and rivers of good cheer consumed, it’s pretty much inevitable that scores of pickled revelers will end up completely embalmed, often taking teetotalers with them. Of course, Ho Ho Homicides tend to spike, too: “He gave me a Cuisinart and his ex-wife a diamond bracelet, Your Honor. I didn’t have a choice.” 

 

It’s no mystery to me why there are more suicides during the holidays. One frigid December night, I stood outside a store holding enough packages to give a reindeer a hernia, and while my bone marrow slowly crystallized, I waited for my wife to bring the car around. She had chosen a rendezvous spot ten feet from where a robotic Salvation Army volunteer rang his little bell with the painful regularity of the devil’s own jackhammer. I couldn’t move or my wife wouldn’t find me, and the bell was giving me violent tendencies and an unattractive tic. By the time my mild-mannered beloved battled her way through the Grinch swarm in the parking garage, she was ready to broadside an elf and I was asking passersby to please hit me in the temple with a tire iron to relieve my suffering. 

 

Okay, I didn’t actually ask, but I wanted to.  Which is why we’re dialing back our participation in the frenzy this year.  All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth – unbared and off the asphalt – and for you to have a very Merry Christmas.