I’m One Of The Ones You Hate This Time Of Year

I feel I can finally write this now as Thanksgiving has passed. I like Christmas. There, I said it. I like Christmas so much that I was guilty of looking at Christmas lights earlier this week. Although, here’s food for thought: am I the one to be hated for starting to celebrate Christmas so early or should the real bottle of Hater-aide be saved for the folks who are putting up the lights and decorations early? Answer: don’t hate any of them. Hate should be saved for evil dictators, the rivals of our favorite sports teams and the high school quarterback and head cheerleader. Ok, and Richard Simmons. And Barney, depending on your age. Darth Vader was evil, but he was cool so that doesn’t count.

I actually put up my Christmas tree last weekend. However, I didn’t decorate it. I did that Wednesday night and I put up the house lights yesterday before Thanksgiving dinner. When one of our local radio stations in LA switched to 24/7 Christmas music (as they do every year) last Friday, I felt putting up the tree was OK. I tried to keep the erection of the tree (whoa, that sounds bad) on the down-low until after we all had consumed mass amounts of turkey, stuffing and holiday ads. The only problem with this is that Lucy and Ethel wanted to keep walking out into the front yard every night this week to see the lit tree through the front window. Doing this exposed our early tree erecting (sorry, can’t think of a better word) to the rest of our neighbors. I guess I didn’t help the situation when I took to quoting from perhaps my favorite movie (A Christmas Story) by yelling ‘You should see it from out here…’). For the record, I will be yelling the same thing Thanksgiving night when I get out my other Christmas necessity, my very own leg lamp replica from ‘A Christmas Story.’

Since I am baring my soul (or sole since I am barefoot while writing this) as a Christmas freak, I feel I should tell you that my birthday is Christmas Eve (did you get that, December 24th). You can email me for my address for those of you wishing to send cards…or gifts…or hate mail (I’m an equal opportunity blogger). I think this date predisposes me to an unnatural enjoyment of the holiday season. I also feel this is the appropriate time to tell everyone in blogsville that I have a Christmas t-shirt collection. Yep, you heard right. I have Rudolphs, Christmas Stories, Charlie Browns, Elf Tossing and a few others, including one for ‘hard, sticky candy canes’ (or something like that) that often makes me think I am wearing a huge double entendre on my chest.

So yeah, I think I have gotten off the point here with this post a bit, but I am one of those people that is more than willing to celebrate Christmas early. I am one of THOSE people. However, I know I do not suffer alone and I know there are others. I have always assumed I was not the only one afflicted but found out for sure when cruising THE street for Christmas light looking in our town. Every house goes way overboard so that you can hear power lines sparking and crackling for miles in every direction. I am waiting for Google Earth to post a satellite photo of it. At 9PM on a Monday night, some of these home owners were outside working on their displays and some of the houses were already done! I felt like stopping by to congratulate them but didn’t want to reveal myself as the true idiot I am looking at Christmas lights 4 days before Thanksgiving.

Though I have found a new business venture for me whenever my employer realizes how useless I am to them. Did you know that guys in trucks who own ladders are now letting people pay them to string up their Christmas lights? It would be the perfect job for me! Doing nothing but hanging Christmas lights for money? Seriously? I’m literally speechless and motionless at the possibilities. People, this is more exciting to me than my recent idea of writing a script for my latest TV show idea ‘Porta-Johnny’ about a guy named Johnny who time travels whenever he sits in a portapotty (well, the writers ARE on strike. I’m just trying to help them out). Let’s be honest, I would pay people to let me put up THEIR Christmas lights. But actually GETTING money for it? Holy cow, that rocks!!!

Since this is the first of my Christmas posts for the year, you are probably wondering what I want this Christmas. Well, let’s just say I have already started dropping hints ala Ralphie Parker and his Red Ryder BB Gun. I want a deep fryer this year.

‘You know, Wal-Mart is selling a great deep fryer’
‘I just saw an ad for a deep fryer at Target’
‘With all this counter space, I think the kitchen needs a deep fryer’
‘Well if we had a deep fryer, we could have had fried cheese sticks with dinner’
‘You want to know what a deep fried Snickers Bar tastes like? Well, if we had a deep fryer, you would know.’

You know, just subtle hints, nothing too over the top. Yep, the Christmas season is finally upon us. Let’s just see how many times I’ll hear the phrase ‘You’ll fry your eyes out' this year.

Yeah, I know. That was a crappy punch line, but hey, cut me some slack. I’m busy cutting out ads for deep fryers…