You Still Have Time People!

There are officially four days til X-mas, the fourth day being Christmas. That's still plenty of time to sit and look at the things you've purchased as Christmas gifts. You have time to sit and dwell and fret over whether you got person X the exact right Culture Club CD. You still have the time to change your mind and run back to the store to exchange said gift and go to ten others after in search of the perfect present.

Let's face it. Things sometimes are really adorable and wonderful in the store and you go all ga-ga and gush over them. Sometimes, these very things change on you once they're out of the store and sitting right in front of you for a couple days. Sometimes, you get them home and they just...suck. No one wants to get a sweater for Christmas and even fewer want to get a sweater one size too big with Santa's big, fucking face poofing out of it all 3D style, this also goes for sweaters that require batteries.

Is there a really spoiled kid in the family? Did you buy something for said child/children and now your sitting there thinking they just don't deserve to have anything else...ever. You will continue to buy this child/children gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. You can't help that. But this year and for all else, keep the gifts and play with the toys yourself.

Does queer uncle so-and-so really need that bird-watching equiptment you got on clearance at the second hand sporting goods store just because it seemed like it would be great and give him something to do with binoculars other than watch the always naked teenage girl across the alley? No he doesn't. In fact, so-and-so needs you to make a Christmas call to a good mental health facility, or perhaps even the police.

No matter what your mother says, she is NOT overjoyed with your renewing her subscription to Ladies Home Journal. It makes her feel old and she resents you for it and for the fact that you're so young. She's not even reading it. Cancel it immediately and head to the local porn store. The woman needs a vibrator and she'll stop wanting to kill herself...and make sure it's a really good one. It may seem gross or strange buying a vibrator for your mother, but it will keep her happy and off your back and you'll be a lot happier without her on your back. Get her a toy and she may never bother you about when you're gonna get married or have babies ever again.

I love my paternal grandfather. Every year he tells us exactly what he wants, nothing more, nothing less. It's basically the same every year as well as sometimes there's something new he sees or my grandmother has changed her mind about what he can eat. This is the list...

1. 2-Flannel Shirts, green pefered, nothing with blue. Grandpa hates blue.
2. Mixed nuts (Hazel nuts, Walnuts, etc.). Grandpa loves nuts...but grandma only lets him have them at Christmas.
3. Either 'Thin Mints' or 'Andies Candies'. These are things he only gets to have at Christmas as well. What can I say? Grandpa has a bad ticker and that turned grandma into a food Nazi.
4. 1-Tin Danish Butter Cookies. The small tin, not the huge Christmas tin with the chocolate dipped cookies.

He's a simple man of few words. He has simple needs and he's very direct.

Grandma on the other hand, I never know what the hell to get her, or my maternal grandmother for that matter. Paternal grandmother collects tiny spoons from strange places for the refridgerator. I have given her so many of these already from all my strange travels (tiny spoons from raves, tiny spoon from the strip club I spent a good amount of my honeymoon in, etc.) and she needs another one like I need my eyes stapled shut. She has a big fat ass from spending her entire life right up until retirement in a kitchen all day for work and in her home kitchen cooking for her husband and sometimes other family and friends...so I know she doesn't need any Danish Butter Cookies or Andies Candies. Someone already very laughably gave her a treadmill and Gramps bought her a stationary bike at some point, so I'm guessing a gym membership would be pretty goddamned futile. So, I have no fucking idea.

Maternal grandmother...also of the big fat ass and not in need of cookies and candy and she's a member or Weightwatchers or some shit like that. This one is also an evil bitch, but she's nice and sneaky about it. You never see the bitch until it's already reared it's ugly head. I try to avoid this one for the pure fact that since I was like 16 and dated a cuban boy she and I have not been able to spend more that twenty minutes in the same place without some kind of battle erupting. For some reason, I still feel obligated to by her something nice for Christmas. I imagine it's because if she wasn't ever here, I wouldn't be here. So, again, I have no thoughts.

BUT THERE'S STILL TIME PEOPLE!!!

There's still time run out and get your people gifts they actually want, keep the gifts you got for people you now think don't deserve them, buy crap gifts for people just because the thing made you think of them, and buy spiteful gifts for people you don't particulary like but feel obligated to give to.