Merry Christmas From La La Land
Yesterday afternoon, I read an article entitled “8 Serious Concerns about the People in Christmas Songs” in the Washington Post, and it was fucking hilarious.
Winter Wonderland
These people just built a snowman and asked him to marry them. Their relationship has some underlying problems that I think they should explore before committing “to face unafraid the plans that we made walking in a winter wonderland.
Immediately after reading it, I got extremely jealous that I hadn’t written it, and started to think about a Christmas diatribe I could write. My own top 10 concerns for people in Christmas songs? (I have none, except for I’m pretty sure that what Mariah Carey wants for Christmas is the liquid from 1,000 human embryos to make her skin look youthful, not “you.”)
A cranky diatribe about Christmas shopping, that included a list of twelve people to look out for? I didn’t have one in me. It surprised even me!
Because this year, I’m kind of excited about Christmas. In fact, I’m even ENJOYING shopping for Christmas. In the past, it was always like a mad scurry for me the day before Christmas Eve to pick out the type of present that looked the closest to the thing my family member had asked for, but cost the least. My dad wanted books? I gave him some from my bookshelf I had already read, and hoped he wouldn’t notice. My sister Blara wanted a dress? I re-gifted the one she had shoplifted for my own gift a few years ago. My baby sisters wanted a fucking cute little toy? I bought them one at Rite Aid.
Basically, I was poor, I was stingy, and I always left Christmas shopping until the very last minute. One year, my family received presents entirely bought at CVS at 2pm on Christmas Eve.
But this year, I’m doing ok financially. I’m actually saving a little bit of money. I’m also doing this new thing where instead of making lists, and just re-copying them from one week’s page to the next week’s page—for instance, for 8 months this year, the item “Update Resume” was the first on each page—I’m actually crossing shit off as it comes. So when I made a list earlier this week that included things like “picture frames,” “wrapping paper,” “high-top sneakers” and “Franke’s shock collar,” I made a concerted effort, during breaks in my work day, to get out of the house and purchase each one of those things.
And the weird thing about my neighborhood is that they make purchasing very easy! There’s a store for fucking everything. There’s a board game store. There’s a paper store. There’s a lingerie store. There’s a hoarder bookstore. There’s a pork store. There’s a fucking Christmas tree ornament store.
There’s Urban Outfitter’s, and Barney’s and American Apparel and even fucking Free People.
I’ve openly disliked living here because I find it to be so “Pleasantville,” but now that it’s Christmas, I’m absolutely fucking loving it! It’s kind of almost exactly what I imagined when I used to read 19th century novels set in London. If you were in the upper class, you could live in a jolly little town where you could find anything you needed just by walking down the main street. That’s exactly what it’s like here, only, as far as I know, no one shits in a chamber pot. Not so much the case in Park Slope, apparently.
I’m saved the hassle of going into big, horrible, bustling stores, where everything is hanging off the rack, and salespeople are rude, and no one helps you. I’m saved from the hassle of visiting the urban jungle that is Target in the Atlantic Center (clutch spot for buying presents in past years). When I walk into stores here, I bring Franke with me, and everyone knows her! They’re like, “Oh my god, it’s the adorable barking dog!” And they coo, and smile, and help me immediately.
When I go shopping here, adorable old ladies talk to me, and ask me if I’m pregnant. People help me with my packages. There’s even a fucking “home good” stores that has literally everything you need, including glue guns, including ribbons, including egg beaters, including spray paint, including moleskin notebooks, including reindeer ears, including candy canes. “There’s nothing you can’t find here!” an elderly man eagerly declared in the line earlier this week.
“Tell me about it!” I screamed next to him.
I’m not saying my Christmas shopping is almost done. But it’s getting there. And I still have three days! That’s a record for me.
Basically the solution to alleviate stress during Christmas is become white, get an attractive partner, buy a dog, and move here. Like seriously, there’s a French cafe a few blocks from me that looks exactly like the Tiffany’s ad above. See you strolling merrily along the streets!