It’s Christmas time in Hollis, Queens. What the hell happened? It was just summer. I remember the day in August when my friend and I left work at noon and went up to Crane’s Beach for two glorious hours of lying in the haze, zoning out to the sound of the waves, and going to DQ for mint Oreo chocolate Blizzards. Soon enough we’ll be getting blizzards of a different sort. I have to put my Christmas tree up this weekend or it’s never going to sink in. I swear I could sleepwalk through the whole year and not notice any holidays. This year I feel like getting into the spirit. I want to do cheesy things like take a sleigh ride or walk around downtown in a light snowfall and then spin around under a streetlight.
I do not, however, want to go shopping. Fuck Christmas shopping, seriously. My family gives and receives like everyone else, but we only do it because we always have and because Christmas morning would feel weird if we didn’t. But we buy whatever we need and want all year long and getting any of us to make an actual list is torture. Every year we have the “What do you want?” discussion and every year our answers are the same:
Mom: “Oh, I don’t know, anything is fine. I don’t want you spending a lot of money on Dad and me.”
Dad: “[This really specific thing that you’ll never find because I’ve already been everywhere and I haven’t seen it]…or a gift card to Home Depot.”
Lauren: “To move out.”
Joe: “Well, [this thing] I was going to get anyway, I guess you could just wrap that.”
Ugh, that takes the fun right out of it. Giving is only fun when you find something the person will love. And that’s hard to do that when you go to the mall determined to find that something, when the selection is the same crap they always have, and there are a million other people with the same mission, some of whom are insane enough to get up at 4:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving just to be the first person at Wal-Mart. Joy is not found in $29.99 DVD players.
I’d much prefer to go out to dinner or plan a little getaway with my friends and family than shop for them, or be shopped for by them. I’d rather bake and decorate cookies together, or drive up to a ski resort and drink hot cocoa in front of the lodge fire, or bundle up and take a walk in the woods. And most people I know feel the same but none of us can escape finding an ends-of-the-earth parking spot at the mall, getting sweaty and pushed and frustrated and racking up huge debt, and swapping obligatory tchotchkes when what we really crave is togetherness. C’mon, let’s break the cycle! Merry fucking Christmas!
I do not, however, want to go shopping. Fuck Christmas shopping, seriously. My family gives and receives like everyone else, but we only do it because we always have and because Christmas morning would feel weird if we didn’t. But we buy whatever we need and want all year long and getting any of us to make an actual list is torture. Every year we have the “What do you want?” discussion and every year our answers are the same:
Mom: “Oh, I don’t know, anything is fine. I don’t want you spending a lot of money on Dad and me.”
Dad: “[This really specific thing that you’ll never find because I’ve already been everywhere and I haven’t seen it]…or a gift card to Home Depot.”
Lauren: “To move out.”
Joe: “Well, [this thing] I was going to get anyway, I guess you could just wrap that.”
Ugh, that takes the fun right out of it. Giving is only fun when you find something the person will love. And that’s hard to do that when you go to the mall determined to find that something, when the selection is the same crap they always have, and there are a million other people with the same mission, some of whom are insane enough to get up at 4:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving just to be the first person at Wal-Mart. Joy is not found in $29.99 DVD players.
I’d much prefer to go out to dinner or plan a little getaway with my friends and family than shop for them, or be shopped for by them. I’d rather bake and decorate cookies together, or drive up to a ski resort and drink hot cocoa in front of the lodge fire, or bundle up and take a walk in the woods. And most people I know feel the same but none of us can escape finding an ends-of-the-earth parking spot at the mall, getting sweaty and pushed and frustrated and racking up huge debt, and swapping obligatory tchotchkes when what we really crave is togetherness. C’mon, let’s break the cycle! Merry fucking Christmas!
1 Comments:
I happen to have a group of "friends" that I'm blowing off this year for the annual baking and decorating cookies. Would you like to take my place? :)
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