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December
2002 | It's
friggin Christmas again
As
if we don't have enough problems here in the US of A in 2002,
I look up and damned if it isn't friggin Christmas, again.
Didn't
this just happen last year?
Every
year Christmas flares up like an old rash, and people clog the
malls to buy lavender scented gift soap sets that will mummify,
untouched beneath yellowing cellophane, in the bathrooms of thousands
of unappreciative grandmothers across the land. Pine trees are
hacked to the ground and stuffed into mesh bags by grumpy tree
lot attendants and strapped to the roofs of Subaru outbacks. Tense
families hand overtaxed Visa cards to Mervyn's shop clerks to
pay for violent video games to give to little boys with big attitudes.
Christmas cards arrive from friends or business associates you
haven't seen in years, featuring photos of children you didn't
know they had, underscoring the easy way people fade out of your
life.
And
did I neglect to mention, Gap commercials featuring angular, blank
faced fashion models singing Christmas songs and cavorting in
the re-tread Gap fashion du jour, be it stripes or spots, flare
legs or tapers, or whatever who-cares variation on their basic
crap.
Now
before anyone accuses me of kicking the symbolic puppy of Christmas
with this screed, last time I checked, corny lifestyle magazines
and web sites are utterly choked each year with guides on how
to survive the debt, stress, weight gain, and depression of the
holidays. The bottom line is, the whole thing is a mandatory circus,
and every one of us, a clown.
Get
on your rubber noses people, strap on your clown shoes, and dance,
fools, dance, or a bony, dead-eyed Gap model will come to choke
you with a striped scarf to the tune of "Love Train."
I don't care if you've been out of work for 11 months and maxed
out your credit cards on Top Ramen, or if slowly strolling, argumentative
families blocking all routes of escape at the mall cause you to
hyperventilate, or even if those creaky puppet-based Christmas
specials about Hermey the dentist elf and Yukon Cornelius make
you spew your egg nog and whiskey.
Christmas
is here.
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