Here comes Christmas, o joy.
Just when you recover from a 40 course turkey dinner at Thanksgiving, crowding questionable relatives around a table, along comes another jolly fiasco.
You hope your Christmas is like Norman Rockwell, but it’s more like Norman Bates.
Merry Christmas, now there’s an oxymoron.
I won’t even start with sending presents, that is a whole other catastrophe that makes you want to move to Russia or Cuba where they don’t have Christmas.
After spending your life savings on presents, the day after Christmas comes the overdrawn notices from the bank. You’re in the red, how appropriate.
The day you buy presents is called Black Friday, that should tell you something.
The real pain is the Christmas cards and who to send them to. You got your sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, a few you’ve never met.
There’s three packs of cards right there at $18 bucks a pop, plus postage.
Then the friends, now there’s the rub. Which friends get cards? The close ones for sure, but then there’s the twilight zone of Christmas cards.
These are the ones you “should” send cards to, but it’s a strain. They consist of the mailman, the trashman, the neighbors, your old boss, and the guys down at the bar. That’s another $18 pack of cards, plus postage.
But for this group you use the Christmas cards you bought at the thrift store with red cardinals and the snow scenes.
You live in sunny Hawaii and sending them snow scenes. They won’t care, they sent you the same card.
And of course there’s the ones you hardly know who sent you a card, the obligatory card. You scramble to find one for them, then you misspell their name and forget the names of their kids.
Now comes the fun part, the post office. How you cringe when the traffic at the post office is backed up past the bank, clear across to KTA.
You make it into the post office and after standing in line for an hour, the lady in front of you has a stack of presents to the ceiling. And as you wait, everyone has to tell the post office guy their life story.
They waited in line, now it’s their turn to talk forever.
Presents are sent, they’ll get them sometime in January.
You make it back home and wonder if it’s all worth it. Slouching in your living room chair you gaze at the tree twinkling with lights, draped with silvery waterfalls of tinsel, the smiling angel looking down from the top.
Then you picture Christmas morning, you see your kids in pajamas running from the bedroom squealing with delight! Their eyes sparkling, grabbing at presents, yelling, “Look what Santa brought us!”
And you are now 8 years old on Christmas morning, running out laughing with joy at all the presents Santa Claus left you under the Christmas tree.
That’s why it’s all worth it.
Mele Kalikimaka!
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com