Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Holidays

            Now I know what you’re thinking. This guy hates literally everything. But no, I don’t hate all holidays, only some of them. Thanksgiving and Christmas fucking rock. But when it comes to those holidays, there are certain things I really don’t like about them. But the general idea of eating as much as I can or getting presents, well how could anyone hate that?

            A holiday is generally a day that is designated as having  some sort of special significance that individuals, a government, or religious group have deemed that observation is warranted. With that said, there are eleven federal holidays recognized and then about 30 more holidays that are recognized by people as well. That’s literally over a month of celebrating, in some cases, stupid shit that most people don’t care about. Case in point…

            Earth day is stupid. It is the celebration of environmentalism. Great job making a holiday literally no one cares about but hippies. Like seriously, what do you do? Am I supposed to grow some green beans in my back yard on that day? Or is it everyone’s job to plant a tree on that day? Nope, that’s yet another dumb holiday called Arbor Day. So we now have two holidays that actual people celebrate that are literally the same fucking thing. Legitimately, what is the difference? I don’t see it. After researching it a bit more, I actually found the answer to my perplexing question. Apparently, on Earth day you are supposed to admire the earth’s beauty and it is also intended to create awareness and appreciation of the earth’s natural environment. So, I guess you are supposed to go on a picnic or something. But make sure you don’t liter, that’s the lesson, go green. And then Arbor Day is literally a day where you are supposed to go plant a tree. How sad is it that people actually stopped planting tress so there needed to be a holiday where you went out of your way to go plant one?

            Now this brings up the question of what actually makes a holiday one in which the United States recognizes it as an actual holiday. Like I said, out of the over 40 or so “holidays”, only 11 of them are recognized as one. Well, all but maybe one or two on the federal holiday list is stupid and shouldn’t be a holiday. That’s what the difference is. The one that I really think should be recognized is Easter. Easter, apparently, is not recognized as a federal holiday. Why? I don’t know really. Easter has religious and monetary ties to the nation, so I really don’t get it. I am not one who is big on religion, but being that Easter is supposed to be celebrated as the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, I think it should have some sort of recognition.

So how do we celebrate Easter ? By buying a shit ton of eggs and chocolate, that’s how. We buy a bunch of real eggs, vinegar, and dye. Then we make the house smell real nice by hard boiling the eggs, mixing these so called Easter colored dyes into vinegar, and then going to town. You dunk and dunk and mix the colors around. You take a white crayon and you write messages on the eggs for pep pep. You have a ball. Then apparently a gigantic bunny comes to your house and leaves baskets full of chocolate for the children. Sounds like a fun time. But I don’t know what this had to do with Jesus really. But let’s leave him out of this for now and focus more on the actual holiday activities. Of all the holidays, this one is the most active. You make those stupid eggs, you jump for joy when you get your basket of candy, and apparently you go on egg hunts. This is the part I really don’t get. Who came up with this idea? You hide these brightly colored plastic eggs with candy or some other prize in these really easily spotted places. Then you let 20 kids go running as fast and as dangerously as possible through the yard so they can to find the damn things. This is the true meaning of Easter. It’s obviously for the kids. But I have two beefs with this holiday. For one, being that it’s not a nationally credited holiday, why the hell does the White House hold a gigantic Easter egg hunt every year in its courtyard? Isn’t that a little condescending? And secondly, why did no one ever ask the question of how the hell the Easter Bunny gets in your house? These other mystical beings have a way in. The tooth fairy uses the window. Santa uses the chimney. How the crap does the Easter Bunny get in?? Well all I know is he always got in to our house and he knew what I liked. I never was a big candy kid. So this guy used to bring me awesome stuff like G.I Joes and Ninja Turtles. Well Easter, if the United States doesn’t recognize you, I sure do. I salute you. Thanks for all the awesome stuff. I mean what did something as lame as a nationally recognized holiday like Inauguration Day ever give me? For God sakes, it only happens every four years... the least it could do is give me some sort of present. Presidents don’t count.

There are other holidays, such as Arbor Day and Earth Day, in which they should basically be bunched together into one day or just eliminated completely. Things like Constitution Day and Flag Day could be bunched into something called No One Cares Day. I have never even heard of these freaking holidays until I looked up the actual list of holidays. Well, I lied. I heard of Flag Day, but not Constitution day. I mean, you could throw Patriot Day into this mix as well. Why don’t we just call it America Day and call it quits because these are obviously just another bad attempt to show patriotism. Everyone wears enough red white and blue to last them the year on the Fourth of July. Does anyone actually celebrate these days though? Are there actually festivities that go on during these days because if there are, I bet the party for Constitution Day is off the chain.

            But enough about the shitty holidays… I didn’t even talk about Washington's Birthday yet, but I am throwing in the towel on the shittyness of the idea. I’m only going with the big ones now. These are big for many reasons. These include and are not included to…

1)     Presents

2)     Food

3)     Cheap crap

4)     Food

5)     Presents

6)     Family

7)     Presents and

8)     Food

These are the big boys of the holidays and there is nothing you can tell me to otherwise disprove my reasoning. There are three big boys in my holiday trio. One of them is not recognized as a national holiday, but is widely celebrated by millions upon millions of people. There other two are quite obvious. These holidays have captured many emotions in my life and will continue to do that until the day that I die. But underneath it all, just like mostly everything else, there merely piss me off.  

Black Friday

I know I know, this technically isn’t a holiday. I mean, what do you celebrate? It’s quite obvious what you celebrate on this day, cheap crap. I would rather buy $2 DVD’s all day long than go outside and watch fireworks. Which before I get going on why I love and hate black Friday so much, let’s talk about the Fourth of July. I hate this day so much I want to punch it in the kidney and make it piss out bloody fireworks. I love the traditional picnic theme to the day, don’t get me wrong there, but if I didn’t have to see another damn firework in my life, I would die sort of a happy man. I don’t see everyone’s fascination with the firework. People come from miles around just to see some colorful explosions going off in the sky for sometimes up to and not limited to a freaking hour. If it wasn’t for the fact that my father and Uncle taught my four year old cousin to call fireworks “spermi’s” I don’t know if I could even stand them just a little bit. Even at freaking baseball games there is some kind of fascination with fireworks. I don’t understand it. If there is a guarantee of a fireworks show at the end of a game, by God it’s a given its going to be sold out. Anyways…

The months of November and December are an amazing time really. Not only was I born in November, which really should be a holiday in its own right, but it is just a magical time altogether. Black Friday is amazing. That’s really all that needs to be said about it, but I will go on.  Not only does it follow my favorite day of the year, it is filled to the brim with outrageous savings and the first day of Christmas music. People are nasty, people are pushy, and people are downright nasty during this day just because they have a shot at getting a TV at a discount price. Its absolute brutality and I love every second of it. Stores open at an outrageous hour, usually being about 4a.m, and people are in literal lines waiting in the cold to buy some shit

My brother Joel and I started doing this about six years ago. I never actually knew about until then and wondered why we hadn’t done it before. If you don’t know my brother or me, we are major consumers/collectors. My brother buys DVD’s, toys, and books where I buy DVD’s, video games, and cd’s. He is obviously more cultured than I am since he reads, but don’t let it fool you. He really only reads comic books. Most people are out there literally risking their own lives to fulfill their kid’s Christmas dreams with these spectacular deals while we are in their ways fulfilling our ridiculous need to collect them all. I know, it sounds awful, but it’s us.

I remember my first year of doing this insane adventure. We formulated a plan that we decided to follow for years to come. It was and still is flawless to bring closure to our every need. We always start at Best Buy, for obvious reasons, and then make our way to Toys R’ Us. We would then swing by the mall if needed for stores like Old Navy and JC Penny’s where then we would end the day with trips to Target and Wal Mart. What a plan. It has never failed us and I don’t think it ever will. I mean, what other stores would WE possibly need to go to? So we go to Best Buy to start out our day. First of all, it’s like 15 degrees out and it’s two in the freaking morning. So needless to say none of us were happy campers. Secondly, the Best Buy near our house is kind of on a hill. So when we pulled in there were already hundreds of people there and they were all lined up going up the hill. It was a little ridiculous actually but every year we do the same thing. We usually make it about half way up the hill and are in the first wave into the store. This is essential for our purchasing needs being that there are only a few of everything. I mean God forbid we leave without our discounted seasons of the Office. We do this every single year, just for a couple of pieces of media. It’s ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous, this past Black Friday was the epitome of it. We drive down there, this time including my pregnant sister in law Melissa, at about 2:30 in the morning. Its literally pouring down rain and like 35 degrees out. I swear it was on the border of freezing because it was damn cold out. Joel has the brilliant idea to drop him and Melissa off at the back of the line, or midway up the hill, while we run to a store that is already open and we buy some ponchos. Like no one else had this idea… So Justin and I go. Being that it’s almost three in the morning, we were kind of short on options, and actually almost out of gas. We manage to find some ponchos about 45 minutes later, find a gas station that’s actually open, and we make it back to the store to give Joel and Melissa their ponchos. Keep in mind, my sister in law is about four months pregnant at this point. Brilliant. But that’s beside the point.  We needed our seasons of Mad Men on Blu Ray. Not only is it basically sleet, the wind is also blowing at a ferociously. It literally felt like our ponchos were ripping off our bodies.

If that wasn’t annoying enough, in comes in the most annoying part of the Black Friday festivities, panhandlers. You see, some stores, such as Best Buy, have such good deals that they only have a couple of the items to give away. For example, if they have a really good deal on a laptop computer, they may only have five of them to give away. So it’s kind of like first come first serve. They give out these coupons to the people who arrived first to buy the product. Well, there are these asshole people who basically are waste of fucking life. They leave their houses literally right after they eat their turkey dinner to be first in line to get these tickets. Then, once all the people arrive to start the line hours later, they leave the line and try to actually sell the coupons to the other people. Are you fucking with me dude? You arrived at this store about ten hours ago because you wanted to sell those tickets for five bucks a pop. Wow. Not only did my hatred for these white trash pieces of shit grow and grow every time they asked me if I wanted to buy a digital camera, the people who were actually there for legitimate reasons hated them even more. This one man actually got physically violent with this group of assholes and actually grabbed a dude and called the police. It was absolutely amazing. But eventually, after everyone yelled curse words at them and they knew the police were called, the assholes finally left. But they keep doing this every freaking year, its absurd. I hope they get punched one of these times. They came close, why not finish the deal.

Thanksgiving

            There isn’t much about this holiday that makes me mad. There is nothing to really hate about it actually, unless you are afraid of birds or something. Well , if you were afraid of birds this should be your day of rejoice or something because there are thousands of damn birds being eaten. I guess you could be anorexic. God, that has to be the worst day for them. I would hate to that. There is literally nothing more satisfying than eating as much as you possibly can, watching football, and then letting the tryptophan do its work.

            Why does this make me mad per say? Well, let’s take into consideration one thing. This is one freaking day per year. One day per year where everyone says “fuck it” to their diets and their eating habits and literally lets it all hang out. I know for a fact for the next couple days, after it all passes, I have to wear my fat pants because I eat so much. But what I am suggesting is something very simple. Why not have a day like Thanksgiving all the time?

            I know I know. It’s a holiday based on something that happened a long time ago. It would ruin the meaning of the holiday and I understand this. But I love spending time with my family and eating very fatty foods. What can I say, its one of my vices. How hard would it be to have a day like this every month or two? It wouldn’t be hard at all. I think that would be awesome.

            Also, why the hell don’t people make pie more than like twice a year? Here is a simple fact of life. People love pie. It doesn’t even matter what kind of pie it is. My personal favorite you ask? Pumpkin. And it just so happens to be a seasonal pie that is made only really around Thanksgiving. This is my curse people. I can only have pumpkin pie once or twice a year. I honestly would eat it for a meal itself I love it so much. My pops loves it to, it just seems like he likes whipped cream a little more. He smacks that shit on like it’s going out of style. I always ask him if he wants some pie with that, but I digress. All I am saying is that people make pie more than once a freaking year. This also just may be a family thing. Hell, there may be people out there that make pie all the time. I have no idea. Apple pie is an American constitution like baseball and Rock and Roll, but I don’t see people making it like they make chocolate chip cookies or boring ass sugar cookies. God damn, my pallet wants to die from the boredom.

            Why do people have to eat the same things for Thanksgiving to. I know in my family we literally eat the same meals for every holiday get together. I will be you a million dollars I know exactly what we will have for both Thanksgiving and then Christmas. It’s almost identical. Thanksgiving meal consists of…

-Turkey, both white and dark meat

- Stuffing, three different kinds made by three different people

- Cheesy Broccoli

-Corn

-Dinner rolls

-Fried Mushrooms

- Mashed potatoes, with gravy of course

-Cheesy Potatoes

-Cranberry sauce

-Strawberry pretzel salad

-And a multitude of pies

            This is literally every Thanksgiving. It’s so deliciously stereotypical it hurts. All I am asking is to change it up a bit every couple of times around. What’s it going to hurt? Why not try a different type of meat; I would be down for that. I could never see my family switching up the bird to a pheasant or a duck or something like that. I don’t even know what the hell those birds taste like. They can’t be bad. I think people might cause a scene though.

Christmas

            Christmas is awesome. But some of the things about it annoy me. Christmas is supposed to be spent around loved ones celebrating the holiday. Well, as much as I love it, it annoys me in a way. I hate the superficial family crap that you have to do around the holiday really, I think that’s what annoys me the most. What I mean by this is mainly the gift giving that goes on within the gathering. There are literally hundreds of presents given out between everyone, which sounds awesome. But you really have to be there to understand. I love my family, don’t get me wrong, but holy shit do they go over bored on children.

            My family is made up of a lot of women. That’s not a bad thing, but for some reason women love babies more than anything on this earth. It is some God given animal instinct that women can’t stand but love and grab them and hold them. So, around Christmas time, what is the best way of showing how much they love those babies? By buying them ten or more gifts obviously. My family had five kids in a span of about four years so it was like the great baby boom within the Jackson family estates. This is by far the most annoying thing about the holiday. It takes a process of what should take no more than a half hour for everyone to open their gifts and jacks it up to literally over an hour. Why?  Why is that even an option? I am not exaggerating when I say that each and every kid in my family opens gifts for a solid 20 minutes each and they don’t give two shits what the hell they are opening, especially If its clothing. They just kind of stare into space while everyone around them is yelling at them to hold it up so they can take pictures. You could swear that some celebrity just walked in the room by how many flash bulbs go off when one of the children holds up a gift. My family loves to document literally everything. It’s sort of adorable.

This is generally how it goes on Christmas. The older people, such as myself and my brother, go into the other room where the presents are held and we take them all in and divvy them up. In my family, the rule is after you are married or have children, you don’t get gifts anymore. So at this present time I still get gifts. And for some reason the older people in my family like my grandmother when she was still with us got presents as well. About fifteen minutes passes and everyone has their presents. I have a four inch radius of gifts, obviously all gift cards, while my cousins have a literal mountain of the newest and trendiest toys and clothes on the market. These people go ape shit on the gift giving. I never really understood going all out for babies because they outgrow everything just days later anyways. And I am talking both clothes and toys too. We always go from youngest to oldest when opening gifts so, at this present time, am usually near the end of the rotation. You really cant get to excited about gift cards. Don’t get me wrong, I love them but what am I supposed to do, pump my fist in joy or something? I never really know how to react when receiving a present. Never really got that one down pat.

After the awkwardness of that whole situation dies down, its usually time to eat. Now if you remember what I said before, Christmas dinner at the Jackson residence is eerily similar to Thanksgiving. Let’s see if you can spot the differences…

- Ham

- Stuffing

- Cheesy Broccoli

-Corn

-Dinner rolls

-Fried Mushrooms

-Cheesy Potatoes

-Strawberry pretzel salad

-And a multitude of pies

Literally the only differences are we have pig instead of bird and we don’t have mashed potatoes. It’s really original. I don’t think they even plan it that way. It kind of just happens that way. It’s still freaking delicious, I just think it’s kind of funny that we almost have the same exact meal for both holidays.

            The whole gift giving process is a real pain in the ass to. Thank God for the invention of the Amazon.com wish list, because I have been saved by that for a few people. But other than them, I have a terrible time finding good gifts. I mean, it gets to the point where I start to stress about it and literally sweat when thinking about it. God that makes me sound like a giant fat man, but it’s true. The worst is buying for my parents. I never have any idea what to get them. And whatever I do buy them, it’s usually something gender generic. I usually end up buying my father some sort of manly tool and my mother perfume and some girly CD. I remember a few years back, talking about shitty gifts, I actually bought my father like three different kinds of crow bars. First off, why would you need three crowbars and secondly who knew they made different kinds. But no matter what, they seem to love the gifts so that’s awesome. Even if they didn’t, they are my parents. They wouldn’t tell me otherwise.

            Christmas music is probably the worst thing about the whole damn holiday. I sort of dig it when it first starts up, which I swear gets earlier and earlier every year. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if satellite radio made a permanent fixture of a Christmas music station because there are actual people who would listen to it all year. But like I said, I sort of dig it at the start. It really just gets old after about a week or so. There are only so many damn versions of Sleigh Ride I can hear before you sort of get upset about it. I mean for God sake, they all sound the frigin same. And why can’t people come out with new Christmas music? That’s my question. I never hear new Christmas music around the holiday season. But you know what does come out every holiday season, these stupid albums by popular artists. I swear ever girl my age owns Hanson’s Christmas CD. And if they don’t own that one, I would be willing to put some money on the fact that they own one of Mariah Carey’s 81 Christmas albums. Seriously, she needs to calm down on those suckers. It’s like every month she releases one.

            This brings me to my least favorite holiday of them all. It’s actually one that I am torn over whether I should like it or not. But really, the only reason I would like it is for all the wrong reasons. I kind of dig it, or at least participate in it, because women dress really sexily and prance around without a care in the world. I told you it was for all the wrong reasons. But other than that I never really understood Halloween. Being a kid who never really got that sugar tooth, and I still really don’t eat candy, I went out but really never ate any of it. I think it’s just one of those things that you have to do when you are a kid. I make it sound like I was forced to go out and trick or treat, but it’s quite the opposite. I went out because it was the thing to do. But when I started getting older, meaning around 13 or so, I realized it was time to leave it behind. I had some pretty awful costumes growing up too. By awful I mean terrible looking and also downright offensive. You are probably thinking to yourself “what could he have possibly worn that was offensive.” Well why don’t you take a look at this picture, and then be the judge.

I would like to thank my parents for allowing me to walk around public in this. Yes, that’s me dressed up as pop culture icon and Family Matters star Steve Urkel. Sorry about that picture being sort of crappy, but all the rest of them were taken by the NAACP after they questioned me and my family. Not really, but you get the point. As Weird Al would say, I was young, dumb, and ugly when I was five years old and I had no idea that wearing black face wasn’t really culturally accepted. You know what’s even more fucked up about that picture? That was taken during an actual parade in the town my grandparents used to live in. They used to have all the kids in town march down the street showing off their costumes. I guarantee all of the educated people in the town were either appalled by the idea that I was dressed like that, wanted to find my parents and tell them a piece of their minds, or were laughing about it. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s kind of funny. I did one of the most offensive and racist things anyone could ever do. But it was cute because I was five. Suck on that Michael Richards.

            To sum up this chapter is sort of hard. I love holidays because I love my family and the friends that I spend time with. But there are just certain things about them that really bother me. It’s one of the only things that I can really love but there are things about it that I really despise. Like my next chapter for example...