2003-12-22 - 12:05 p.m. Christmas Traditions: Part 1 Christmas Traditions: Part 1 Ahh�the holidays. Just when you think life can�t get any worse, the holidays come along. And I call them the holiday�s because I want to be politically correct. Not that anyone WOULD BE or SHOULD BE offended if I say Merry Christmas, or Happy Kwanza, or perhaps Chappy Chanukah. Call me old fashion, but wishing someone a Merry Christmas just seems like a non-offensive term. I mean, it�s not like wishing a �merry Christmas� allows them to not enjoy their pagan ritual. It�s not like I am mocking and spitting on their heathen God, values, and beliefs. I save that for Easter. Kerbang saw a sign that said, �X-mas is taking Christ of out Christmas� Does that mean X-tina is taking �Christ out of Miss Aguilera?� If that�s true, my world will be a little flipped upside down, cause I never thought that Jesus would give it up for assless chaps. Anyway, the holidays are the time of year where your misery is compounded by your relatives. Yes, the time of year where you look around at your inferior gene pool and wonder, �is suicide really as bad as it seems.� You have Uncle Ed and Aunt "girl of the week" who have just pissed away their life savings on a lifesavers farm near Berma. Ed, who you certainly know will be you in ten years, cries that he was gonna make it big. They were WINTERGREEN Gump, WINTERGREEN!!!!!!!!! You have little 8 year old cousin Tiffany who�s got a finger hallway to her brain, holding a teddy bear with one eye, and wearing what you can only describe as a �Winnie the Pooh Too-Too.� She, of course, is listening to the latest Pop CD, which she is belting for all to hear, �I�m not that innocent� or something to the extent of �It�s gettin hot in her� But of course you need to talk to her because you can�t figure out the coding for your most recent diaryland layout. She writes it in three minutes and then goes to play with her Finding Nemo wood burning kit. Actually I got a wood burning kit once for Christmas. For those of you that don�t know what this is, it�s a knife that heats up really hot and then you can make designs in the wood. You know, so you can be all creative. Like Bevis from MTV. Parents. It�s this simple. If you buy your kid a �wood burning� kit, you need to understand one thing: This is the equivalent to giving your child a finger-painting kit right in the middle of your nice new white carpet. �Burning wood� is not something you get your children to do in their spare time. Never buy this gift. This is a gift that you let your drunk burnout brother get your kid, and then you return it for a pokemon trading card pack. Then you throw that out to so your child can grow up to be a normal human, unharmed by the subliminal tribal sacrificing rituals of the pokemon cult. Anyway, I burned a lot of stuff with the wood burning kit. None of it was something I was supposed to sit on, let alone burn. And while we are at it, don�t get your kid a telescope either. We�ve seen much better pictures of stars on the internet and those are BOR-ING. The only thing we are going to use it for is to peep into Ms. Johnson�s house when the pool boy comes over. But these are the gifts we give on Christmas. Boxes of worthless crap. Certainly you must agree with me. Remember being a kid. I would say this is the breakdown of gifts. 30% Crap. Pure crap. Crap that isn�t worth thinking about. These items are things like: The paddle with the ball attached with a rubber string called �paddle ball,� anything with Garfield, socks, some sort of weird ornament (as a kid, an ornament is like getting a boiled egg in your stocking) rock candy (no one likes rock candy�get REAL candy), and a book that your parents think you will like called, �The Day the Buffalo Ran� or something like that. This is crap that isn�t worth shitting. 30% Good Reaction/ Really crap. This is stuff that you actually initially think is cool, but has no actual chance of being used. Example: Laser Tag, Pez, �slacks� (if your parents buy you slacks, there is no way they are any good), anything made by Tonka, One action figure from a show you like (good idea, but if you get me Agent K from men in black, and nothing else for him to interact with, Agent K is going in the closet for a long long time. 10% The Bad Video game or --for girls Teen Stacypants. Adults are nice, but they blow it about once every year. With mine, and my friends, sometimes they will get �the bad video game. For girls I imagine this is like the Barbie knockoff, like the Asian girl from Kip the Rockstar, who is the younger sister of Judy, or whatever you girls played with when I was blowing up alien robots. For guys this is what happens: Uncle Jim watches you open a present. Your excited cause you see it�s a video game before you open it, because lets face it, you are nobody�s fool. You open it. It�s Teen Wolf: The video game. Uncle Jim says, �You like Teen Wolf the movie right?� You feel the need to act excited, as you think about what the game could possibly be about. You decided it will be like a track and field set up where you are challenged to Surf on a Van, and Dunk over skinny white guys. You realize this game is gonna suck like hooker on speed. You feel like everyone�s fool. 15% The good gifts. At least for me these are good gifts that you get from people that you know, and know what you like or need. These are things like a new watch, a good movie, a nice article of clothing, or the video game, �Battletoads.� 10% The Gifts you asked for. This is simple. You wanted it, you got it. It�s usually the big gift, and you knew you were going to get it. The only surprise is that your parents actually followed directions. 5% The surprise: This is the gift that you like more than you knew you would and didn�t ask for. It doesn�t happen that often. This gift can be elaborate, or simple. Mine range from wicked ear muffs, to Celtics Tickets, to a power drill. This is what Christmas is all about. Actually it�s all about spending a lot of money for a bunch of crap, hoping that one of the 1000 things you�ve purchased will actually be a decent gift. In the end, we would probably be better off to not buy any gifts, keep the money, and pay those nasty bills. But wait, since you didn�t but anything, you wouldn�t have any. (my gift to you) I�ll be bitching more as the big day comes around. Don�t you worry. ~Gump | |||||||||||
