Friday, December 25, 2009
Happy Holidays
I have come to a shocking conclusion, and no, it’s not that thing about Lady Gaga having a penis. It’s that the holidays are a lot less fun in your thirties. Instead of running down the stairs to see if Santa brought you Knots Landing colorforms, you’re running down the hallway to try to stop your secretary from accidentally reformatting your appellate brief into Wingdings. Instead of plopping down in front of the TV for hours of holiday specials hosted by everyone from Martina Navritalova to the cranky old lady from 227 (but I repeat myself), you’re wondering who filled up all your DVR space with episodes of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover. And instead of loading up on candy canes and cookies, you’re stuck with the Raisin Bran you impulse bought in bulk at Sam’s Club and the fish oil pills your doctor prescribes for your cholesterol. Getting older is a lot like Dakota Fanning; it’s not like anybody really cares for it, but we’re going to have to learn to deal with it, because it seems like it’s here to stay.
Of course, there are some things that do get better with age, foremost among them access to alcohol. In retrospect, I do think playing a snowflake in my third grade Christmas program might have gone better if I’d been packing a flask. I also appreciate the fact that, at 31, it is unlikely that anyone is going to stuff me into a snowsuit and force me to sing carols to my elderly neighbors, many of whom have guns. It’s nice to have the financial wherewithal to give gifts that aren’t construction paper- or macaroni-based, and the bond you feel with family and friends is that much stronger when you know that they’ve stayed by your side through your two unfortunate attempts at being a deejay and that summer you decided for some reason that you would be blond. After all these years, I’ve come to the conclusion that my friends are either too loyal or too stupid to consider blackmail, and as there are several former Mathletes among them, I’m leaning towards the former.
And above all there is the delightful wisdom that comes with age. This year, for instance, I have learned that I had better eat before I go through security at LaGuardia, lest my choices be reduced to a sandwich apparently excavated somewhere in Peru or the fleshy underside of my own arm. I have learned that people will have very little sympathy for me when I describe the wounds I sustained tripping over my coffee table while playing Wii tennis as a "sports injury." I have learned that the landscaping of a strip of land barely large enough to park a Chevy Malibu can be the subject of a condo association debate that spans some thirty e-mails and includes comparisons to both Apartheid and the Holocaust. And I have learned that it is a bad idea to make a court appearance while passing a kidney stone. All of these are lessons you just can’t get from the University of Phoenix Online.
So in the end I guess that getting older doesn’t totally ruin the holidays; that’s your meth addict cousin Trevor’s job. As long as there are families to embarrass us with puffy painted poinsettia sweatshirts and seminude childhood photos, as long as there are friends to gift us with Mariah Carey’s Christmas album while barely suppressing their sarcastic laughter, as long as there are retailers looking to clear out their overstocked merchandise by slapping a coat of red and green lead paint on it and marking the price up six dollars, there will always be Christmas. It will always be wonderful to be home for the holidays, if only because it is so much harder for the process servers to find us there.
I have come to a shocking conclusion, and no, it’s not that thing about Lady Gaga having a penis. It’s that the holidays are a lot less fun in your thirties. Instead of running down the stairs to see if Santa brought you Knots Landing colorforms, you’re running down the hallway to try to stop your secretary from accidentally reformatting your appellate brief into Wingdings. Instead of plopping down in front of the TV for hours of holiday specials hosted by everyone from Martina Navritalova to the cranky old lady from 227 (but I repeat myself), you’re wondering who filled up all your DVR space with episodes of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover. And instead of loading up on candy canes and cookies, you’re stuck with the Raisin Bran you impulse bought in bulk at Sam’s Club and the fish oil pills your doctor prescribes for your cholesterol. Getting older is a lot like Dakota Fanning; it’s not like anybody really cares for it, but we’re going to have to learn to deal with it, because it seems like it’s here to stay.
Of course, there are some things that do get better with age, foremost among them access to alcohol. In retrospect, I do think playing a snowflake in my third grade Christmas program might have gone better if I’d been packing a flask. I also appreciate the fact that, at 31, it is unlikely that anyone is going to stuff me into a snowsuit and force me to sing carols to my elderly neighbors, many of whom have guns. It’s nice to have the financial wherewithal to give gifts that aren’t construction paper- or macaroni-based, and the bond you feel with family and friends is that much stronger when you know that they’ve stayed by your side through your two unfortunate attempts at being a deejay and that summer you decided for some reason that you would be blond. After all these years, I’ve come to the conclusion that my friends are either too loyal or too stupid to consider blackmail, and as there are several former Mathletes among them, I’m leaning towards the former.
And above all there is the delightful wisdom that comes with age. This year, for instance, I have learned that I had better eat before I go through security at LaGuardia, lest my choices be reduced to a sandwich apparently excavated somewhere in Peru or the fleshy underside of my own arm. I have learned that people will have very little sympathy for me when I describe the wounds I sustained tripping over my coffee table while playing Wii tennis as a "sports injury." I have learned that the landscaping of a strip of land barely large enough to park a Chevy Malibu can be the subject of a condo association debate that spans some thirty e-mails and includes comparisons to both Apartheid and the Holocaust. And I have learned that it is a bad idea to make a court appearance while passing a kidney stone. All of these are lessons you just can’t get from the University of Phoenix Online.
So in the end I guess that getting older doesn’t totally ruin the holidays; that’s your meth addict cousin Trevor’s job. As long as there are families to embarrass us with puffy painted poinsettia sweatshirts and seminude childhood photos, as long as there are friends to gift us with Mariah Carey’s Christmas album while barely suppressing their sarcastic laughter, as long as there are retailers looking to clear out their overstocked merchandise by slapping a coat of red and green lead paint on it and marking the price up six dollars, there will always be Christmas. It will always be wonderful to be home for the holidays, if only because it is so much harder for the process servers to find us there.
