Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Holiday Greetings
The holidays almost didn't happen for me this year. I know I say that pretty much every year -- just like Lindsay Lohan always says she's cleaning up her act and our president always tells us he's found some wonderful new Middle Eastern country to bomb -- but this year I really mean it. Between work, my junior-high-style social life, and the shocking preponderance of America's Next Top Model marathons on MTV, I almost couldn't find time to hit the road for a week of sensory deprivation with my parents in Quincy.
But then I thought of all the sad-eyed, frail-looking orphans with rickets who are probably somehow depending on me to make their holidays bright. I imagined them trudging fifteen miles through a blizzard to visit me, only to be force fed ice cream bites by my mother and conned into a surprisingly emotive game of Guesstures. I could practically hear the death rattles of their tubercular coughs. And then I got angry. Who the hell did these damn orphans think they were to judge me? And didn't they get the memo about our nation having the Best Health Care System in the World, so long as the world is defined to include only the United States and Estonia? The whole thing just made me sick, and not the good kind of sick like Shannon Doherty. So I dutifully threw on my Midwesterner costume and hopped in the car for a week of Blue Light Specials and TGIFridays.
And so here we are again, wondering how it is that yet another year has gone by without us marrying Urkel, and indulging in hazy memories of holidays past, when grandpa used to take us sledding out by the old mill (in reality it was a cockfight behind the Lane Bryant, but same difference) and mom cooked up a turkey with all the trimmings (Lean Cuisine mac and cheese with a side of crack pipe). It's a truly magical time of year, and not just because it allows the networks to rerun the same maudlin specials the spent $5.99 on twenty years ago and still charge a hundred grand for a ten second Massengil spot. The fact is, everything looks better under a fresh layer of snow, whether it's the mailbox those damn neighborhood kids keep tagging with anatomically incorrect graffiti or the friendship you haven't really worked at since the cool kinds were still asking their hairstylists for "the Rachel." Years ago we learned that it's much easier to accept someone's faults when you have a sneaking suspicion they might be buying you some Transformers, and that lesson still holds today. For whatever reason, the holidays make us all love each other a little bit more, and that's not a bad thing.
Of course, it wouldn't be the holidays if I weren't trying to cram all the events of my past year into a few centimeters' space, so I'd better give it a go. I'm still working at the same law firm, realizing more and more each day that no one is ever going to confess on the stand like on Matlock, and still living in Wrigleyville, home of bad reggae bars and date rape. I'm still writing and performing sketch comedy, and I even graduated from the Second City Conservatory, which is a bit like graduating from Hamburger University, only less useful. It's been yet another wonderful year, and I know I owe that to the wonderful people like you who fill up my days. Thanks for being who you are, and happy holidays!
The holidays almost didn't happen for me this year. I know I say that pretty much every year -- just like Lindsay Lohan always says she's cleaning up her act and our president always tells us he's found some wonderful new Middle Eastern country to bomb -- but this year I really mean it. Between work, my junior-high-style social life, and the shocking preponderance of America's Next Top Model marathons on MTV, I almost couldn't find time to hit the road for a week of sensory deprivation with my parents in Quincy.
But then I thought of all the sad-eyed, frail-looking orphans with rickets who are probably somehow depending on me to make their holidays bright. I imagined them trudging fifteen miles through a blizzard to visit me, only to be force fed ice cream bites by my mother and conned into a surprisingly emotive game of Guesstures. I could practically hear the death rattles of their tubercular coughs. And then I got angry. Who the hell did these damn orphans think they were to judge me? And didn't they get the memo about our nation having the Best Health Care System in the World, so long as the world is defined to include only the United States and Estonia? The whole thing just made me sick, and not the good kind of sick like Shannon Doherty. So I dutifully threw on my Midwesterner costume and hopped in the car for a week of Blue Light Specials and TGIFridays.
And so here we are again, wondering how it is that yet another year has gone by without us marrying Urkel, and indulging in hazy memories of holidays past, when grandpa used to take us sledding out by the old mill (in reality it was a cockfight behind the Lane Bryant, but same difference) and mom cooked up a turkey with all the trimmings (Lean Cuisine mac and cheese with a side of crack pipe). It's a truly magical time of year, and not just because it allows the networks to rerun the same maudlin specials the spent $5.99 on twenty years ago and still charge a hundred grand for a ten second Massengil spot. The fact is, everything looks better under a fresh layer of snow, whether it's the mailbox those damn neighborhood kids keep tagging with anatomically incorrect graffiti or the friendship you haven't really worked at since the cool kinds were still asking their hairstylists for "the Rachel." Years ago we learned that it's much easier to accept someone's faults when you have a sneaking suspicion they might be buying you some Transformers, and that lesson still holds today. For whatever reason, the holidays make us all love each other a little bit more, and that's not a bad thing.
Of course, it wouldn't be the holidays if I weren't trying to cram all the events of my past year into a few centimeters' space, so I'd better give it a go. I'm still working at the same law firm, realizing more and more each day that no one is ever going to confess on the stand like on Matlock, and still living in Wrigleyville, home of bad reggae bars and date rape. I'm still writing and performing sketch comedy, and I even graduated from the Second City Conservatory, which is a bit like graduating from Hamburger University, only less useful. It's been yet another wonderful year, and I know I owe that to the wonderful people like you who fill up my days. Thanks for being who you are, and happy holidays!
