MERRY SHITSMAS!

Ever since Thanksgiving, I’ve been tip-toeing about the house hoping to avoid any conversation that might have anything to do with putting up Christmas lights. Most people who know me are well aware that I’m not a fan of December! Without getting into all the details, I’ll just say quickly that my twenty-five year career as a UPS man, working non-stop into the late hours of the evening from mid-October until December 24^th, destroyed any fondness I may have had at one time for the holiday. Having an inquisitive mind and asking endless questions about the origins of Christmas, and Christianity for that matter, has contributed greatly to my wanting to hibernate through the season.

Well here it was December 16^th and my luck had run out. While I was trying to enjoy the last few drops of my morning cup of coffee, my wife entered the kitchen and gently approached me asking if I was going to help her put up the Christmas lights. “Damn,” I thought, “One of these years I’m going to get away with not decorating!”

I didn’t really want her to think of me as a heartless, selfish bastard, so trying with the best of my ability not to show my annoyance, I answered affirmatively and as pleasantly as possible, “Sure honey, I’ll help you!”

“I’ll arrange the lights on the bushes,” she said compromisingly, “I just need you to hook them up to the electric!”

Putting up Christmas lights on my house can sometimes turn into a three day nightmare. Aside from the torturous ordeal of untwisting miles of tangled wire only to find yet another set has died completely, my wife is very particular on how the lights are displayed; symmetry is of extreme importance. There is perfect order to all she does; OCD runs in her family! My motto, “Fuck it, it’s good enough,” does not sit well with her. This year, however, she agreed to concede by not overdoing it; this year she promised not to light up the entire house and to decorate the front bushes only. Relieved by the comforting thought that the annual Christmas light ritual was going to be somewhat toned down this year, I offered my assistance, assuming the task would take up only ninety minutes of my time…tops! What do they say about the best laid plans?

There we were; me and Mrs. Claus, neatly draping lights from bush to bush. It was going along pretty smoothly, I had to say. We weren’t arguing; she wasn’t being overly fussy. We were almost done; there was just one bush remaining. She gave me an engaging smile that led me to believe she was pleased to know we weren’t bickering as she headed towards the front steps with plans to bring out the last two strings of lights. She stopped dead in her tracks just before pulling open the storm door. “Oh no!” she yelped with a horrified expression of dread and disgust. Her Santa-red cheeks turned ghostly white as she stomped her feet and grumbled, “I stepped in shit!”

My first thought was that it was probably mud she had mistaken for shit, but then the vile odor started to suddenly permeate the air alerting me to the fact that, as usual, she was right. There was no denying she had definitely stepped in shit, cat shit, in fact! One of our neighbors thought she was doing the humane thing several years ago by putting milk out for stray cats. Her backyard and garage are now havens for felines from all over Nassau County. Obviously, one of the many cats that seem to think they can drop their turds any old place they chose to, must have eaten something that wreaked havoc on its intestinal tract and relieved itself under our bush. Any ideas I may have entertained about getting our lights up in less than a couple of hours were over. I spent the remainder of the afternoon with the garden hose, a scrub brush, a bottle of ammonia, a rake, a shovel and a few plastic bags, courtesy of our local CVS. Not only did my wife get cat excrement on her sneakers, the front walkway and the steps leading to our front door, she got it on the bottom of her jeans. The day turned into an out and out shit-fiasco! Determined to finish the job, while I scrubbed and sprayed in repulsion, she returned to the scene wearing clean sweat pants and an old pair of flip-flops in an attempt to hang the last string of lights. As luck would have it, her foot found the one blob of cat shit I overlooked. Round two had begun.

Was there a lesson to be learned from this?  Was somebody trying to tell us something? I don’t know. Could her refraining from putting up Christmas lights to please me have prevented her from getting shit all over her shoes, clothes and front steps; or would my cooperating and going with the program to please her by putting up the lights myself have prevented me from having to clean the shit off her sneakers and scrub the front stoop with ammonia and freezing water on a cold December afternoon? Or did all of this occur simply because shit happens?  

  

HAPPY CHRISOLSTICHUWANZUKA

Thanksgiving is here and gone, and once again, Christmas is fast approaching. I’ve noticed many homeowners are taking advantage of the unusually mild weather by decorating their houses with lights and the larger-than-life blow-up displays that seem to get more over-the-top every year. The main streets of the village have already been lined with holiday trimmings and as I drive through the neighborhood, I snicker with ill-feelings towards the lunacy and hypocrisy of the season.    

As a kid, I loved Christmas. The months from June to December seemed to crawl as the joyful anticipation of the holiday grew more intense with each passing day. I think it was a combination of things that made Christmas so special for me. It goes without saying, receiving presents topped the list, but aside from that, it was the magical, dreamy feeling in the air. Somehow I was always taken over by an overwhelming, indescribable sense of security, peace and happiness. The people around me appeared to be curiously happy and friendly. Family gathered at each other’s homes to share meals, make conversation and exchange gifts, and maybe it was just my naïve, childlike way of looking at things, but love seemed to shine in everyone’s eyes. In my world, at Christmastime, everything ran smooth and each minute unfolded as if it had all been divinely planned.

Sitting tightly together in overcrowded pews, our family attended midnight Mass probably so we wouldn’t have to interrupt the Christmas Day festivities by having to attend church. To put it mildly, we got it out of the way! Year after year I listened to the choir sing the old familiar hymns about the little town of Bethlehem and the Savior being born to a virgin. It was hard to tell whether or not the congregation was sleeping or listening attentively to the repetitive sermons of the presiding priest as he recounted the heart wrenching tale of Mary and Joseph’s cold winter’s night. When the Mass was over, everyone greeted each other with hugs, handshakes and joyful exchanges of “Merry Christmas.” Looking back, it’s hard to tell if I really believed the far-fetched chronicles of the first Christmas. Everyone else seemed to, so how could I not have? Was it really such a far cry from the fable of Santa and the Flying Reindeer?

Today the world’s a much different place than it was fifty years ago. I don’t believe it’s at all necessary to rehash just how appallingly commercial Christmas has become. The complaints coming from Christians about how the real meaning of Christmas has been lost are unrelenting. My question is does Christmas even have a REAL meaning? It’s sad, but the older I become, the more I begin to realize NOTHING is real! As people evolve, technology advances, and information becomes readily available, if we choose to do so, we can easily discover where many, if not all, of our rituals and traditions originated. All of our practices, our belief systems and our holy days can be dated back and attributed to the miraculous synchronicity of the Universe, such as the placement of the moon, sun and stars, the timing of the tides and the harvest. Somehow, man wasn’t satisfied with his equal role among the wondrous workings of nature and in an egocentric effort to answer the unanswerable, decided to create religion, deeming him significantly more important than all living things and ultimately waging war upon all that has been designed to sustain him. Pretty sick and unfortunate if you ask me!         

I’m not going to expound upon why I don’t believe in celebrating Christmas or any other religious holiday. If anybody’s interested in broadening their minds or perhaps gaining some enlightenment, they can research the information for themselves. It’s right at their fingertips. What I am going to touch upon, however, is how tradition has enslaved us. The economy, after a few botched attempts at getting jump-started, is failing miserably. A vast amount of the population is unemployed and good-paying jobs are extremely hard to come by. Christmas, which has become the mother of all economy boosters, is once again right around the corner and the retailers are counting on the crumbling middle class to max out their high-interest credit cards in hopes of remaining in business. Parents will sink deeper into credit card debt not to disappoint their wide-eyed Santa believing children. Even though most people these days cannot afford to squander what little money they have, the guilt, obligation and pressure of having to make Christmas happen puts them in the poor house a little longer. When do we come to terms with the fact that all the stress and anxiety we put upon ourselves is nothing but illusion. We created it, we can eliminate it. If upcoming generations would bring up their children without feeding them the fairy tales that eventually lead to disappointment we can end this holiday stress! If upcoming generations raise their children without indoctrinating them with the guilt-ridden untruths of the religions of their ancestors, maybe we can put a stop to holiday lunacy.

Just for shits and giggles, why don’t we just admit to each other that none of us are sure about anything except death? Why don’t we just tell our kids the truth; humans have been on the earth for millions of years and we still haven’t figured out the meaning of life. Why not put an end to all the bullshit self-righteousness and encourage each other to simply love one another and enjoy the very limited amount of time we’ve got here. No one’s any better than anyone else. We all come and go through those revolving doors into eternity. If the answer is out there, one day each of us will find it. If it’s not, what does it matter?  Don’t stress, don’t worry and be happy! Happy Chrisolstichuwanzuka to all, and to all a good night!