2000-12-12 - Afternoon
As far as I�m concerned the holiday season doesn�t begin until A Charlie Brown Christmas airs. It first aired the year I was born, and if it ever disappears from holiday programming, that�s the year that I die. Which basically means that I�m going to live forever.
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Unlike a lot of people who turn into fanged, red-eyed stress-monsters this time of year, I don�t sweat Christmas all that much. My only truly stressful holidays were back in college--because finals week never ended till the 22nd or 23rd (giving me all of two days to shop), because wigging out over finals and going without sleep always resulted in my coming down with the flu, because I was living at home and had way too much disposable income, and because it was the �80s and Ronald Reagan said it was un-American not to spendspendspend on expensive presents for everyone I knew, even people I couldn�t stand. Well, eventually I just went, "To hell with this. I can spread peace and joy without shelling out big bucks and if my friends and loved ones don�t like it they can go fuck themselves." It helped that I�d quit my job and was flat broke by then.
Things are just a lot simpler now. I buy presents for only family and a couple of close friends, I buy them all through catalogues or over the web and stay as far away from the mall as I can, I don�t try to bake anything (mostly because my oven is really a kiln and carbonizes anything organic you put in it--if you ever want to see my friend Rob P. seethe with anger, ask him about the time he tried to make brownies at my house), and my friends all move too often for me to even try keeping my address book up to date so I gave up on sending Christmas cards years ago.
There was one year, early in my slacker phase, where I abjured gift-buying altogether and wrote poems for everyone instead. The less said about that, the better.
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