Provided
By Trent Rosser
It is that time of year again. The time when stores start their special Black Friday sales. They decorate with snowflakes, presents and good ole jolly St. Nick. All the radio stations blaring Christmas carols and everyone is kind and courteous for the holiday season. Everybody except one person, and that one person is me! Don’t get me wrong, I loved the holidays as a kid, but as an adult, it is something that I can do without. Here are the reasons why:
Siblings and Family: Every year, families get together and celebrate Thanksgiving. You have to buy and make turkey and ham and all the fixings to go with it. You have family in and after cleaning the house all day and everyone finally leaves. NO ONE volunteered to help pick things back up. Unless they are taking a plate to go. Even then, you will never see that plate again!
Thanksgiving : When Thanksgiving is over with, immediately Black Friday is here. In fact, some stores have a special on Thanksgiving Day and not Black Friday. You end up standing in line for hours at end, just trying to get a good deal on a new television, computer, or even a new crock pot. I actually talked about how I was body slammed on a pallet of coffee pots once by an 80 year old lady. Not how I would like to spend my only 2 days with a full belly of a Thanksgiving meal.
Recurring expenses: Black Friday is also the start of the Christmas season on buying gifts for everyone that you know. You usually end up spending more money than you wanted to. You set an amount on the total that you can spend for presents and we usually blow it by 2 to 3 hundred dollars. Now you end up not having enough money for the bills until after the new year. One of the things that used to help was to send a check for the gas bill to the electric company and the check for the electric bill to the gas company. Sometimes that would buy you a little more time to get it paid off.
Extraordinary Gifts: What presents to get everyone? If you ask anyone, besides a child, you will usually get the same answer. “I don’t need anything. Don’t worry about getting me anything.” That answer makes everything more stressful. Sure enough, if you do not get them anything, you will feel horrible because they got you something. Even though you told them not to get you anything as well. But they lied and you received a present from them and you had nothing to give. That's when you make a quick trip to the store to buy lottery tickets.
Tacky Office Parties: Oh, what fun it is to see your co workers getting drunk and making fools of themselves. You spend countless hours with them working and now you have to drive back to work, after hours of course, and talk with them and their families. It is usually to feed them full of bologna and brag on them to their families. If it is a good Christmas party, then you will likely see, someone drop their drawers to take copies of their… um… backside.
Thoughtful gifts: Also known as, “the real gifts”. You know, the ones that really matter. The ones for your kids, grandkids and especially your wife. Of course the kids and grandkids are usually pretty easy. They will tell you what they want. We asked our grandson what he wants and his answer was real easy. “I want 2 real airplanes and a helicopter!” Sure, what 5 year old wouldn’t want a 3 flying aircraft parked in the driveway! My wife told me exactly what she wanted. Problem with both of them is the cash part. How do you do Christmas while strapped for cash all the time. You just recovered from Thanksgiving and Black Friday and now your broke. So you stress on how to get everyone what they want.
That is the whole part of everything that makes me a Grinch for the holidays. Of course there are quite a few more, like people trying to drive in the snow, replacing your favorite coffee with pumpkin spice latte, and putting the Christmas lights up to then find out that only half of them work. There is so much going on during the holiday season that it is hard to keep up. Trying to get everything done and keep your holiday spirit is very hard for me at this time of the year. Every year I get more and more stressed. So call me Grinch, scrooge, or just a jerk. That's how I am for about 2 weeks. Good news is that it don’t take me much to get out of my slump. Usually when I see Santa, sit on his lap, and tell him what I want for Christmas! What is it that I want for Christmas? Nothing, I don’t need anything! Or, I could use a much larger driveway in front of the house. I will need to store a couple of airplanes and a helicopter for the grandson!