The Only Helpful Holiday Hints You Need

Watch me rip

Watch me fray fray

It’s not like I don’t know better. I know better. When wrapping presents, the scissors inevitably disappear. After you find the scissors, the tape will disappear, then your pen, the red curling ribbon, and then the scissors again. 

Anyway, when scissors go on hiatus while I’m wrapping presents, I look for them. I move shit around, but I’m not going to get up for fuck’s sake. It’s difficult to get up and down and I need to just get the wrapping shit over with.

But I digress.

I know that I should not attempt to tear the wrapping paper from the roll. That never ends well. It only ends with balled up wrapping paper and a card board tube will be available much sooner to be used as a trumpet or a weapon. Or maybe a telescope. But then I attempt to tear the wrapping paper anyway. Watch me fray fray.

The holidays are looming, you guys. It’s just days now. They are looming like a big toxic peppermint cloud laughing at how much remains for you to prepare.

I want to help you with that.

I decided to pass my helpful holiday hints along to you. Your holidays will be less stressful if you just do what I say. Seriously. Just fucking do what I say.

  • Onions make poor tree decorations, but they do get rid of that piney tree smell.
  • Mitigate family drunkenness by serving ipecac cocktails.
  • Encourage family to leave the festivities by cranking up Black Sabbath’s 33 most cherished holiday favorites.
  • If you find you cut a piece of wrapping paper too short and the bottom of the box will be exposed, just let that go man. Nobody cares. Nobody.
  • Just go ahead and drink all the booze. Don’t forget the cooking sherry!
  • Sneak out to the Chinese buffet in the middle of your family holiday party. Lie when great Aunt Agnes says she smells fortune cookie on your breath.
  • When you realize you’ve forgotten batteries on Christmas morning and every single goddamn toy your bought for your kids require batteries, tell them the elf on the shelf ate the batteries.
  • Clear your throat when sitting next to a family member who’s drinking eggnog. You’ll enhance their experience while they drink nutmeg flavored phlegm.
  • Keep calm. On Christmas morning, when your 15 year old daughter announces she’s quitting school, shaving her head, and taking up interpretive dance, don’t overreact. You don’t want to ruin the magic of Christmas. Just tie your daughter up with left over curling ribbon and sit her in the corner. Make a game out of decorating her. The younger kids will love it. I don’t suggest using strings of lights or tree hooks, though.
  • Make up for lost holidays from earlier in the year. Grill out, shoot off fireworks, dress up like Dracula, and visit grandpa at the cemetery on Christmas.
  • Gather the kids around for a heartwarming story about how all moms lose their shit over no one picking up the wrapping paper after the present opening frenzy.
  • Remind yourself that Santa returns to the North Pole fueled by the tears of children. Your kids aren’t ungrateful little snots who are melting down while surrounded by hundreds of dollars worth of stuff you couldn’t afford in the first place. Your sobbing children are doing their part to return Santa safely to his home.
  • Christmas ornaments make great last minute gifts. Just try to not let the recipient see you yank one off your tree before giving it to them.
  • When someone brings Christmas cookies to the office to share, claim you brought them. I mean, taste one first and make sure they don’t suck. Be proactive in this situation and start quietly saying to people “I don’t know why Alice is insisting she baked the cookies I brought in” before Alice even knows what is happening.
  • Make Irish coffee a Christmas morning tradition at your house.
  • If you steal peanut brittle, don’t hide it in your underwear.
  • Your Aunt Fran is going to get you a box of cherry cordials for Christmas, remember you have that when your neighbor brings you a gift and you have nothing to give in return.
  • Remember, time might fly by, but penguins don’t.
  • Reduce your chance of catching a dreaded Christmas cold by insisting all guests, under the age of 10, bathe in a tub filled with Purell.
  • Nothing says “I know absolutely nothing about you” like a gift from Bath and Body. Except maybe scented candles.

I made the holidays less stressful a few years ago by giving up on sending out Christmas cards, downsizing to a table top tree, and always making sure to stock up on bourbon before the big day. But really, I do that bourbon thing other times besides Christmas.

What’s your helpful holiday hint?

 

 

51 Thoughts.

  1. Mine would be to get your mother (who’s been recuperating at your house for weeks and weeks and weeks….) out before the adult children arrive – there’s only a finite number of bed to go around – and NOBODY wants to share with Nanna!

  2. These are funny, helpful and insightful tips I will keep in mind! I did not know tears of children is what propels Santa back home. Good to know.Now where are my scissors?

  3. I also gave up on sending cards (except for 4 lucky recipients) and now have an artificial, table-top tree. I serve cookies that other family members send me (heat a few in your oven for that baking smell). The menu is short and mostly store-bought. I buy very few gifts – perhaps the only advantage of living below the poverty line – at the last minute (nothing yet!). I did the whole crazy, exhausting deal for many years & also spent many-a-xmas with my over-achieving sisters. As long as I have sweets, alcohol, and dvds of my fav old holiday movies, I’m good. I like the idea of dressing as Dracula, eating Chinese food, and blasting Sabbath. I like that very much. Thanks M!

  4. The plus side of having lost all four parents (mine and Hubs’), cutting ties with some toxic relatives and not having children of my own is that our holidays are pretty drama/stress/aggravation-free. Getting older has its perks…and gift bags eliminate the need for wrapping paper, scissors and tape!

  5. “If you steal peanut brittle, don’t hide it in your underwear.”
    I’ve been doing it wrong.
    Make alcohol part of every meal is my go-to when the family is here. Champers and OJ at breakfast, Baileys coffee at lunch and wine-o’clock always comes earlier. I don’t drink much as a rule so this is the only way to stop from killing the lot of them.

  6. Michelle: The Twisted Martha Stewart! Haha! I have never been able to cut OR tear the paper to fit the boxes. I don’t care how careful and precise I try to be, it never works out. This is also why I’ve never been able to sew. I cut my fabric much the same way, even with a pattern! Stuffed animals are the best, though. You grab a huge ass piece of wrapping paper, drop the animal in the middle, gather all the paper together at the top and tie that sucker up with a ribbon! Voila! 😀

  7. This is like chapter 7 in your book, right?

    I hate to brag, but the ultimate ‘get through it alive’ is to schedule some reconstructive, yet necessary, surgery for December 21.

    Every criticism and all of the ‘I dare you to find fault with my decorating/wrapping/cooking/drunken state’ accusatory stares just get tangled up in the whispered ‘Sorry to hear that’ when you tell people you’ll be in the hospital, Oh drat.

    Highly recommended tactic, especially when I REALLY CAN’T FIND THE SCISSORS!!!

    (And, curling ribbon will hold a package without tape if you can get someone to put their finger ‘right here.’ :))

    ♪♪ ♪♪ I’m off to see the surgeon… ♪♪ ♪♪ (to the tune of, “We’re Off to See the Wizard!”)

    Good luck and warm Christmas blessings to the rest a y’all 🙂

    Michelle? Michelle? You can use my tape!

  8. My favorite holiday tradition: splurge on something extravagant for yourself then call up a friend or family member and say, “Thanks for getting me…” and name the thing you’ve bought.

    Then ask, “So what did I get you?”

  9. This one has just cracked me up! Ha ha ha ha, onions make poor tree decorations…almost spat my wine out! yes I’m drinking wine on a Monday, it’s that time of year!

  10. We also have that kind of aunt Agnes in our family, only her name is Faith (isn´t it ironic?); she is a hypochondriac too. I think she will have some hard time having my husband (a colombian guy with dreadlocks and a terrorist-like beard) and my sisters boyfriend (a guy from Nigeria, black as the night) sitting on her fancy couch this year, hehehe, amidst her formerly white family. Do I have to mention she hates Jews? I plan to have a lot of fun watching her face.

  11. Our current tradition is to not do anything !! No tree – this year, no presents unless you count the airtickets which I’m not wrapping or the presents for the animals which, again, I’m not wrapping and no big meal. Our tradition is to go out on Christmas Eve to a lovely restaurant on The Spit near Surfers Paradise, we walk in, eat, talk, drink and then walk out – no shopping, no food preparation, no cleaning up – it works a real treat for us !!
    Then Christmas and Boxing Day see us enjoying two public holidays, at home, doing whatever we please. And, if A is brave enough to tackle the Boxing Day sales, he is welcome to go by himself – I hate shopping at the best of times but when it’s the BD sales, no way will you catch me within 10km of the shops !!!!!
    Have a good one whatever you are doing !

    • That sounds lovely. We actually have Christmas day to ourselves. We’re going to my sister’s house for Christmas eve, but Christmas day will be quiet. We’re going to go see the new Star Wars movie. I think my sister and maybe both of my sons will join us. I am quite looking forward to it

  12. I don’t know how I ever made it through Christmas without this advice! I do that taking credit thing though. Every year my brother gets mom something extravagant while I end up buying a Snuggi at Walgreen’s on Christmas Eve. She has Alzheimer’s so I spend the next year telling her what a loser he is for only getting her a Snuggi! She actually believes it now!

  13. These are all excellent tips and are greatly appreciated. I think I’ll try the ipecac cocktails–there may be a lot of barf to clean up, but most of the guests will probably want to leave early, so it’s totally worth it.

    I read your story over on Knot So Subtle, and it’s one of the best of yours I’ve read!

  14. I kind of want to follow these rules even though I don’t have kids and will be at someone else’s home for Christmas. Would it be rude to ask them to employ the rule with the tub of Purell even though I’m a guest?

  15. Brilliant. I need to pin this list to my fridge. I have already:
    – Witnessed two tantrums over an inability to wrap presents without tearing the paper, or sticking the tape to himself- both from my husband.
    – Fought with family members over the rules of Secret Santa, even though we’re not even playing it until Christmas Day.
    – Been very vocal about regretting putting my hand up to make a gingerbread house (and bought a dinosaur toy incase I have to do that thing where you pretend you meant to make a house being destroyed by a dinosaur type scene)
    – Threatened to replace my strawberry with the dog’s prozac in my champagne on Christmas day
    – Had to replace my Secret Santa present (a pinata) after I thought it would be cute to make it follow my dog around. She sprang on it and wrecked its head.
    – Been seen putting plum pudding flavoured liqueur in my coffee at my desk on Monday morning.

    Only 8 days to go!

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