Worthless Week: The Christmas/New Year’s Gap

Here in the States, the days between December 24th and January 1st (or 2nd if New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday because then a lot of people get that Monday off from work) are pretty much the most worthless days of the calendar year in terms of being productive.  Sure, there’s Christmas Day, but you’re only really spending a few hours opening presents and pretending to enjoy dinner with your family.  After that’s all done, what is there to do with the rest of your day?  And New Year’s Eve?  Everything about that day is just set-up for whatever evening festivities you’re attending.  Do you remember what you did during the daylight hours of New Year’s Eve?  No, you don’t, and it’s not because you drank too much, it’s because it was likely very inconsequential.

People go to work this week – if they’re not burning their vacation time that doesn’t carry over to the next year – but nothing really gets done at the office, nothing of importance anyway, which might be its own reason to go in.  It’s like a sports team that has been eliminated from the playoffs: they’re just playing out the season and get to the off-season so they can try again next year when it matters.  They’re playing their bench players more, the starters are going through the motions, and no one bothers to check the damn scoreboard to see if they won or loss.  Everyone’s head is elsewhere and they just want the week to be done with so they can return to their pre-Christmas season lives.

I could have been in a coma from Christmas till today and I believe I would have been more productive.  Nothing happens in the news during that last week in the news, in entertainment, in anything.  The most exerting thing I did was play “Saints Row: The Third” on the Playstation all week, because it’s the closest thing any mortal will have experiencing a day in the life of Tag Larkin.  Shit, I spent a whole hour in the game beating pedestrians with a giant dildo bat just because I could.  Mikka says that’s a productive day, but I know I was only doing that because I had nothing else better to do during this wasted week.  I sure as hell wasn’t coming up with anything better to write about other than this topic, which has probably been covered before by someone not inclined to swear so much.  Well excuse the fuck out of me, Mr. Cock Washer Guy who doesn’t use profanity.

Is this week just for kids, to give them the opportunity to play with all the toys they got for Christmas before being throttled back to school?  Or for college students so they can catch up on all the sleep they didn’t get during exam week?  Even with those two examples, shit gets old pretty fast and then you’re just waiting for New Year’s to come along and put an end to this yearly lull.  I don’t recall the Christmas breaks of my childhood, save for that they were too short to get in all the nothing I wanted to do, but the Christmas breaks of my college years mainly were seen as an inconvenience, as something keeping me from the glory of campus life (though it gave me the chance to get temp work so I could by textbooks and copious amount of alcohol for the next semester).

I’d like to blame Christmas for this, or rather it’s placement on the calendar, but I don’t know if placing it earlier in December would do any good.  Would we now have a worthless fortnight instead of a week between Christmas and New Year’s? Would it fuck with Thanksgiving more than it already does?  Should we just combine the two, Thanksgiving and Christmas, or what that create too many fights between married couples who go to one spouse’s family for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas?  That could raise the divorce rate.

Okay, so what about bumping it up closer to New Year’s so that our worthless week gets reduced to two or three days.  It would certainly give us more shopping days.  We can do this.  December 25th was only chosen for its proximity to the Winter Solstice so Christians could have their own winter party.  We can certainly move this arbitrarily-decided day to a more beneficial place on the calendar.

So let’s put Christmas on the 29th. That way Boxing Day hits on the 30th, and we still have New Year’s Eve on the 31st. I just gave you three straight days to party and drink yourself oblivious.  You’re welcome.

Stop putting “Hope” on your Christmas List, you know damn well you’re not getting any of that

I was spending my afternoon charting where my life went horribly wrong when Samurai Cathy came knocking at my door.

“I’m having trouble finding something for Mikka for Christmas,” says Samurai Cathy, referring to her Finnish boyfriend.

“Just get him a video game or a hockey jersey,”  I say.  “You’ve been dating him for like four years, surely you should know his tastes by now.”

“He pretty much has every game and jersey he desires,” says Samurai Cathy.  “So I asked him what he wanted for Christmas and all he would say is ‘gainful employment.’”

Mikka, you may not remember, got fired from the lo mein  factory in October.  Rumor has it he had to go back to being Tag Larkin’s intern, which doesn’t pay well, or at all.

“He’s been real depressed lately,”  Samurai Cathy continues.

“Christmas will do that to people,” I say.  “From the end of Thanksgiving till New Year’s, this is a horrid time for people whose lives aren’t going so well.  And despite dating a samurai, Mikka’s life overall is kinda sucky.”

“But I still need to get him something for Christmas,”  says Samurai Cathy. “The Girlfriend Code demands it.”

“Get him a gift card to some place he likes,” I say.  “That’s usually my go-to gift for people.  It beats figuring out what they’d like… or asking them.”

“Gift cards go against my samurai code,” says Samurai Cathy.  “When a samurai gives you a gift, it is one that is thoughtful and one that they made an effort to procure.  A gift card shows neither thoughtfulness or effort, and would only serve to bring shame upon me.”

“True, but they are one of the few gifts that Ninja Vicki can’t give out because every gift she gives is stolen,” I say, playing on Samurai Cathy’s blood feud with my ninja neighbor. “And gift cards need to be activated by the store via a purchase.”

“I will not base my gift purchases on Victoria’s thieving limitations,”  says Samurai Cathy.  “I am better than her by leaps and bounds.”

“Okay, then you have to go my Plan C of gift-giving,” I say.  “Booze.”

“Is that the best thing to give someone who’s depressed?”  says Samurai Cathy.

“Probably not, but free booze allows him to spend his meager savings on things that aren’t booze,” I say.  “Like food.  Or rent.  Or lube.”

“That seems reasonable,” says Samurai Cathy.  “So what do you want for Christmas?”

“I want a boot-wearing Amazonian Valkyrie of War to ride with me as we set fire to this awful world before we make savage love,” I say.

*blink* *blink*

“I can get you a case of Samuel Adams Winter Collection,”  says Samurai Cathy.  “Will that do?”

“You’re on the right track,” I say.  Chocolate Bock.  Black and Brew. Winter Lager.  That should get me through December.

Now that it’s December 26th, I can stop caring about you for another year

I can hardly believe Wesley Willis has been dead for seven years…

Oh yeah, Christmas is a wonderful time… unless you’ve got families that your lifestyle is completely divergent from, such as the case with Tina the Lesbian (aka T. Lesbian) and Ninja Vicki.

Tina the Lesbian gets along fine with her sister Jennifer the Straight and her brother Patrick the Thrice-Divorced, but her parents haven’t figured out how to handle having a lesbian daughter.  Some times they deal with it like a novelty or trend, something she’d grow out of.  Other times they take on over-accepting airs of their daughter’s lesbianism, but the breadth of their homosexual knowledge is whatever they’ve seen on television so it comes across as patronizing.  And then there are the times when they try very, very hard to ignore the fact that their daughter is a lesbian, a facade that always cracks halfway through dinner with some comment from either Tina’s wine-drinking mom, whiskey-drinking dad, or NaNa who thinks Tina is going to burn in hell for munching box.

Ninja Vicki is an only child, and thus her parents are constantly wanting to know when she is going to get married and crank out a grandchild or two.  And while Ninja Vicki has explained to them on numerous occasions that her ninja vocation leaves her little time for courtship, marriage, and child bearing, they still inquire about her progress in those areas anyway.  Ninja Vicki finds her mom’s passive-aggressive methods more grating than her dad’s intermittent yet direct questions.  In the past, Vicki’s mom has left out dating articles on the coffee table for Vicki to read,  set Vicki up on a blind date,  and has bought Vicki a year’s membership to e-Harmony that Vicki let lapse.  Her dad, however, just comes out and asks her if she’s gay.

So this year, T. Lesbian and Ninja Vicki have used the excuse of impending inclement weather to forgo their family obligations and spent Christmas over at Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat and Marlie’s place.  Bernie has no family, having been constructed in a Portuguese Intelligence laboratory for reasons that have long been forgotten, and Marlie’s family in Ireland disowned her years ago because she married a cat.  Together they ordered out for Chinese food because no one could cook.  Well, Marlie can cook but she was too drunk to put together her usual Irish stew.  And finally, Tina the Lesbian and Ninja Vicki had a Christmas gathering that didn’t cause them infuriating stress because their families don’t understand the choices they’ve made in their lives… because Bernie and Marlie don’t give a shit whether Tina or Vicki get married or have kids.

On the brighter side, Mikka has the best time at Christmas because he brings Samurai Cathy with him to hang with his family and eat whatever Finnish people eat on Christmas.  Probably something fish-related.   Mikka’s mom and dad are so relieved that no only has he met someone but that they’ve been together for three years that they lavish Cathy with gifts and attention.  And Mikka’s younger sister Riikka is happy for that because it takes the attention off her for not being married yet.

The second-happiest Christmas is probably had by Tag Larkin who gets drunk off jug wine and goes stomping through the various Nativity scenes set up outside the churches in our town, declaring himself to be some sort of Biblical Godzilla.  “Rrrrarrr!  On this day a Savior is born… and crushed under the mighty heel of Tag Larkin!   No rest for you merry gentlemen, for Tag Larkin brings tidings of jug wine and ass-kicking to this little town of Bethlehem!”

Avonia the Wiccan Pimp celebrates Yule, so her holiday season ended on the Winter Solstice, whatever it is that pagans do for Yule.  I think it has something to do with getting drunk with the trees.

And no one knows what Anonymous Doug does for Christmas. Or who he does for that matter.