It's the Most Annoying Time of the Year

I had a fantasy last week that I was the Grinch. First, I went to Fashion Island in the middle of the night and pulled down that big Christmas tree. I stole all the lights at Roger’s Gardens, turning the Christmas trees back into the Canary Islands pines that they are. I went around town exposing all the Santas as frauds.

I admit it. This time of year, I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge before the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future scare him into being joyous and generous on Christmas. Not that I’m a miser. Au contraire. I love to give people gifts, though not any more in December than, say, June. It’s all the forced giving and gaity and traveling in traffic of the holidays that I object to. And the fact that we have to be reminded of its imminent arrival beginning in October and have to confront it until New Year’s Eve, another holiday which makes me want to hibernate until all those noise makers are swept away and all who have kissed at least 100 fellow revelers happy New Year have brushed their Champagne-stinking teeth.

And let’s face it: It’s hot here. I’m from a place where there’s three feet of snow covering the streets in December deep enough to make human snow angels and have snowball fights and make snowmen. Here, if you want to get into the spirit of a snowy Christmas (listen to the carolers – all they do is sing about riding through snow in one-horse open sleighs, walking in winter wonderlands and dreaming of white Christmases), you'll have to find a local community holiday carnival that brings in its own snow. Then there are those little white lights that get strung from the trees of local businesses just after Halloween to remind us, in case we forgot, that it's about time to start spending whatever money we may have saved this year on people we don’t really like. And then the tree farms filled with murdered evergreens, and the garlands and wreaths and Christmas walks and boat parades and A Christmas Carol. Arrrrgh.

Worst of all, though, it’s the family problem. If you’re like me, gathering together with your relatives for a hearty meal and day of gift giving is hardly a joyous occasion. We oooh and ahhh and give each other presents that end up being returned – like the socks with trolls attached to them I received last year – while we secretly count down to December 26 when everything is on sale.
    
My friend Fritz, now he and his family are wise to all this. They celebrate the end of the year at the end of the year and buy each other presents after December 25, when they can get great deals. Since they are all scientists, on December 25 itself, they celebrate the birthday of Isaac Newton with an apple-bobbing contest and spend the week at home, holding a Marx Brothers film festival for anyone who can't stand to watch another rerun of It’s a Wonderful Life.

For those of you who love the holidays (the politically correct term for a season that must embrace both Judaism and Christianity), I’m sure December will bring you tidings of comfort and joy, or other salutations only found on Christmas cards. For skinflints and other Scrooges like myself, take solace in knowing the carolers eventually go home.