We Longos certainly know how to have a good time when it comes to the holidays. Easter, of course, is no exception.

I have vague memories of my mother making a big deal out of Easter when my sister and I were really young. Mom would take us out shopping for new Easter dresses. Kim, always admittedly the more fashionable out of the two of us, would spend hours going through racks of dresses before finally settling on the perfect pink flowery frock. I, who would’ve spent that time sitting in the middle of the racks, hoping to scare the crap out of Kim by grabbing her arm when she reached for an outfit, would then promptly select the exact same outfit as my big sister. Good times.

Mom would dress us up in bonnets and gloves, and make us go to church. Here’s the thing: you never, ever, want to put my sister and me in the same church pew. We will inevitably get the giggles at the most inopportune time, like when the priest is describing the nails being pounded into Jesus’s wrists at the crucifixion. Once we were thrown out of church early, we would then head home, where we wouldn’t bother to change before playing outside. Within minutes, our pretty hats and gloves and new dresses would be splattered with cow manure and mud.

Once Mom gave up on the whole church thing, we really started appreciating Easter more. We’d wake up that morning and go through our baskets, then gorge ourselves on jellybeans and chocolate-covered coconut eggs. (Also important: don’t give a kid one of those pretty eggs made out of sugar and frosting with a diorama of bunnies ice-skating inside. If that kid is me, I’ll eat it.) Two things you should know about my mom before I continue: she likes to be warm, and she knows her chocolate. So our Easter egg hunts, which happened before breakfast, were always indoors (warmer) and consisted of searching for Cadbury Crème Eggs or Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs (quality chocolate).

Over breakfast, my sister and I would be too sluggish and nauseated to move, so our father would regale us with stories about how good rabbit tastes in stews, on toast, or lightly braised and served on a bun. Then he’d wonder aloud how many pounds of meat one could get off the Easter Bunny. Again, good times.

The rest of the holiday was spent sleeping off our sugar highs. Really, what else was there to do? Occasionally we got up to eat more, but we knew instinctively we needed to conserve energy. Because in our house, Easter came with a secondary holiday: The Post-Holiday Easter Candy Sale.

Mom would again get us up early the next day, and we’d dress quickly and head out the door before the stores opened. We’d wait outside for CVS to open, and then we’d hit the sales, hard. There were Peeps, Juju-bunnies, jellybeans, and marshmallow eggs to be had at 50% off or more. It’s also, incidentally, why nobody in my family starts a diet until at least a week after Easter has passed.

Sure, you might think we’re missing the point of the holiday. You would be wrong. We always remember to pray and count our blessings this time of year. Just the other day, my mother sent this text: Just found Cadbury mini-eggs on sale at Walgreens! Thank the Lord! 

See? We're religious.

Happy Easter, and/or Passover, everyone!

I am not of a romantic ilk. I was raised by a teacher and a farmer—both practical, sensible people. I do not believe in that ‘happily ever after’ or ‘soul mates’ garbage. If you want to make me swoon, do manual labor for me or buy me a book.

As a result, I tend to forget about things like Valentine’s Day. I mean, I’m aware that my dad always comes through mid-February with chocolates, and Jason will often take me out to dinner around that time, but it doesn’t always register as to why. For me, there are a million other things we could be celebrating besides a stupid Hallmark holiday. Here are twenty things we should be celebrating this month:

1. Shamrock shakes are back at McDonalds!
2. February is National Grapefruit Month. Notable for its contribution to an ill-thought-out diet plan, as well as an effective way to punish bad kids (by either making them eat one or throwing one at them), this fine fruit deserves its own month.
3. Only 77 days until the second Avengers movie comes out.
4. Soylent Green is still made out of people! And Saturday Night Live is now 40 years old. Thank you, Lorne Michaels.
5. February 16 is Do a Grouch a Favor Day. I expect many, many favors.
6. While this February has been positively miserable, it still remains the shortest month of the year.
7. Betty White just celebrated her 93rd birthday on January 17.
8. Stephen King’s second book in the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, Finders Keepers, is due out on June 2—only 109 days from now. Sounds like a great excuse to have a shamrock shake.
9. The five-day forecast for New England shows two whole days without snow. It’s practically spring!
10. The first Friday the 13th of the year (this year, Feb. 13) is Blame Someone Else Day. I blame my parents for my decidedly non-romantic opinion of Valentine’s Day.
11. Serial killer David Berkowitz believes he should be in prison for the rest of his life, and doesn’t bother attending his parole hearings. Let’s all have a shamrock shake to celebrate!
12. Dunkin’ Donuts now carries chocolate-filled croissants.
13. It has been 15 years since Survivor first introduced us to Richard Hatch. And the 30th season starts February 25.
14. Weight Watchers is currently running a fabulous deal: If you join and lose at least ten pounds in your first two months, you’ll be refunded two months’ worth of subscription fees. Something to consider, seeing as I’ve already consumed three shamrock shakes, a chocolate croissant, and maybe a bite of Soylent Green over the course of this list.
15. February 15 is astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei’s birthday. Without him, we’d all still be thinking that Earth was the center of the solar system.
16. Philly cheesesteaks exist.
17. The crocuses will start blooming in March. They might be blooming through snow, but they’re coming.
18. Eggs are good for us again! Or not. Who cares? It’s February, I’m cold, and I’m going to eat an egg if I want one. Specifically, I’m going to eat it raw in brownie batter.
19. According to this website, February 17 is Champion Crab Races Day. This led to my discovery that there is a National Crab Racing Association. Imagine: someone was passionate enough about professional hermit crab racing that they created a whole organization to celebrate it. I’m celebrating, too. With another shamrock shake.
20. The zombie apocalypse hasn’t happened. Yet.

There you have it. Twenty things to celebrate this weekend, and not one of them is mushy (though I’ll admit, I get a little emotional when I think about shamrock shakes). Happy Do a Grouch a Favor Day, everyone!

My next entry on this list might surprise you: "The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth." It's surprising because I hate both "The Little Drummer Boy" and Bing Crosby. But I am, at heart, a child of the eighties, and as such, one thing I really do like is some David Bowie. What makes this song even more enjoyable is that Bowie didn't want to do it. So he likes Bing about as much as I do.
Let me clarify. According to this article from the Huffington Post, Bowie was supposed to sing "The Little Drummer Boy" in tandem with Bing. Bowie didn't want to, because when you're Ziggy Stardust, you don't give a rat's patootie about offending a legendary crooner like Bing Crosby. Atta boy.
So at the last minute, the writers for Bing's holiday special wrote an accompanying piece ("Peace on Earth") and Bowie . . . agreed to sing it. The result? A bizarre duet that is so uncomfortable to watch, it'll put you right in the "I'd rather be anywhere else but here"  mood that's so common around the holidays.

Next up is a song that isn't traditionally considered a holiday classic, but I think it should be. It always takes me back to a happy time. Picture it: late November, 1994. I was a young, naive college student, buying a frozen Stouffer's microwave dinner at the corner UniMart. It was there that the creepy sales clerk told me the news: Jeffrey Dahmer had been murdered in prison.

In short, a Christmas miracle. Stacey's small grinch heart grew three sizes that day.

To this day, nothing gets me in the holiday spirit quite like the Violent Femmes' holiday ditty, "Dahmer Is Dead." Go on, have a listen. You can't tell me that doesn't evoke some sort of emotional reaction in you.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that old feel-good chestnut, "Teddy the Red-Nosed Senator." When I think about Christmas, I think "Sure, it's about the birth of the savior and all that, but how can I poke fun at Teddy Kennedy at the same time?" Because isn't that really what the holiday is about? Making fun of a dead Kennedy's addiction problems? Yes. Yes it is, in my book.

You may think I’m a grinch, and you know, you’re absolutely right about that. I make no bones about the fact that I can’t stand holiday music, movies, stories, or Bing Crosby. But surely I wouldn’t be so grinchy as to make fun of the most revered holiday classic, right? Not It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart, a man so impeccable in his conduct and reputation that he is still being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church? I wouldn’t dream of going there, would I? Well, buckle up, Jimmy, because your saccharine lump of stupid is going down.

It’s a Wonderful Life opens with a suicidal George Bailey getting ready to jump off a bridge. This movie would’ve been a whole lot shorter and potentially more enjoyable if the director had just let him do his thing, but no, a meddling angel named Clarence has to interfere. First we are shown flashbacks of George’s life. We see George as a pharmacist’s assistant, saving a kid’s life when the pharmacist fills the kid’s prescription with the wrong pills. Great, right? But does George tell anyone else that the pharmacist is losing it and might be doling out death to everyone  in town coming in for a harmless antibiotic? Heck, no. George goes on his merry way, never tipping off the cops as to the true identity of the mysterious Bedford Falls Poisoner.

After George’s father dies (because nothing says “feel good” like the death of a parent, you sicko freaks) George is forced to give up his dreams in order to run the family business. He doesn’t want to, but George is a bit of a doormat, so he just does it, settling into a life of misery and unfulfilled dreams. Personally, I can’t believe he waited as long as he did to try and kill himself. His brother Harry is supposed to take over the business after using George’s college money for his own purposes, but we can all see where that’s headed, can’t we? That’s right—Harry leaves George high and dry, taking a job instead with his father-in-law. Thanks, bro. You’re a peach.

George then marries Mary, a woman he has bickered and sniped with since they first met, always a great way to choose a mate. They have to use their honeymoon money to bail out the Bailey Building & Loan after a bank run nearly ruins them. World War II starts, because that’s cheery, and George and Mary continue to struggle, which is evidenced in the fact that they name their fourth kid Zuzu. Clearly they have both lost their minds.

$8,000 is stolen from the Building and Loan’s cash funds, George is about to be arrested, and he can’t get a loan to save his business. George decides to get drunk and off himself. Can you feel the uplifting holiday joy radiating off of this stinker yet?

Clarence swoops in and shows George what life would be like if he’d never been born. There’s a cemetery instead of Bailey Park (and I personally don’t understand why that’s worse: I’ve always enjoyed a nice cemetery) and the poisoning pharmacist is thrown in jail (again, why is this a problem?). His brother is dead, his uncle is crazy, and his mom is a bitter widow—all things that would’ve happened eventually anyway, methinks. Bedford Falls is now Pottersville, a thriving city filled with booming nightclubs and pawn shops. Looks good to me, but apparently this shocks George into wanting to live. He returns home, where a bunch of people have donated money to save his neck. A nice gesture, but who is going to save George’s behind the next time this happens? Then George’s kid with the dumb name lisps something about angels getting their wings, but since I have no patience for children or speech impediments, I had to turn it off.

This movie is depressing. The main message here, which I took to be “Hey George, it could be worse,” is the worst possible thing you can say to a depressed person. Trust me on this. When I hear “It could be worse,” I think “I don’t give a crap. This sucks for me right now.” You know what gets me down even faster than “It could be worse?” Having to sit through a nauseating and pointless holiday movie like this slop. No, I much prefer the Married with Children version, in which Al Bundy begs angel Sam Kinison to give him his life back, just so he can make his family miserable again. At least Al had a goal. Something to live for.

Now that’s a wonderful life.

I may have mentioned in the past that I do not enjoy Christmas specials. I find them insipid, and they perpetuate horrible lies that only set children up for a lifetime of disappointment. While I despise Frosty, and find Rudolph sorely lacking in decent nasal hygiene, today I’m skewering the big guy himself. That’s right: you’re going down, Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

A nauseating effort from Rankin & Bass, or as I like to call them, Ache In My As—never mind, you get the picture--Santa Claus is Coming to Town stars Fred Astaire as the narrator. Thanks, Fred, for teaching kids that even the most reputable of actors will prostitute themselves for a buck.

This holiday special starts with a little kid named Claus being discarded on the doorstep of Burgermeister Meisterburger. Meisterburger is portrayed as the villain here, simply because he doesn’t want to raise a baby, has probably spent his whole life actively avoiding having children, and yet some idiot too stupid to use birth control abandons her baby on this guy’s porch and he’s the “bad guy” for sending the kid away to an orphanage. Whatever, Ache In My As—just whatever. The baby never makes it to the orphanage, because he’s kidnapped by a bunch of scary woodland creatures and dumped in a village full of trolls (sure, call them Kringles if you want to cutesy them up, but you’re not fooling anyone). The trolls call the kid Kris and start teaching him how to make toys. Toys, you realize, are illegal in the nearest village, Sombertown. This is the equivalent of setting a child up with his or her own home meth lab. Don’t you stupid trolls understand what illegal means?

Since Kris has now been raised to blatantly ignore and flaunt the law, he volunteers to deliver toys to the kids in Sombertown. No, you didn’t read that wrong—he’s volunteering to hand out illegal contraband to young children. This does not make Meisterburger happy, since he was once viciously attacked by a toy duck, resulting in a sprained ankle that surely required physical therapy and probably still aches every time it snows. Meisterburger demands that Kris Kringle be arrested, but the outlaw gets away, birdnapping a penguin named Topper in the process. Kris also manages to seduce a teacher named Jessica before leaving town. Lessons learned: penguins make adorable pets, breaking the law is okay if you don’t agree with said law, and those schoolteachers sure do go for bad boys.

I really hate this Christmas special.

Kris meets the Winter Warlock, bribes him to be his friend by giving him a cheap toy train, and returns to Sombertown. (I should mention here that he returns to town to bring the kids more toys after Meisterburger was forced to burn all of the old ones for heat to keep warm. ABC no longer shows the toy-burning scene, because it's "too scary," which is the politically correct way to say they are a bunch of corporate wussies.) Kris, Topper, and the Winter Warlock are thrown in jail (and rightly so—you’re breaking the law!) and all seems lost. But wait! Old Man Winter there, a bit of a hippie, has some “magic corn” that can make reindeer “fly.” The reindeer get high and break Kris and company out of jail. Lessons learned: jailbreaks are fun, and when an aging hippie offers you drugs that will make you fly, by golly, take them.

Eventually Kris marries Jessica, they become Santa and Mrs. Claus, and the trolls become “elves.” The old stoned winter hippie makes it snow (har har, I’ll bet he does). Burgermeister Meisterburger, misunderstood his whole sad life, dies toyless and alone. Fred Astaire collects a sizeable paycheck, and they all live happily ever after.

Bah.

It's Thanksgiving. While you're enjoying your holiday, I'm going to enjoy mine--so here's a rerun from 2011. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was relatively calm for our family this year. Nothing caught on fire; nobody stuck the pilgrim candles full of sword-style appetizer skewers; nobody stabbed a mouse with a fork (these are all true stories in the annals of our family holiday memories. And no, I didn’t do any of them. But I did find the pilgrim with the plastic swords sticking out of his ears hilarious.) All in all, everything went well, and I gained seventeen pounds in one sitting, which I kind of regret, but not much. Thank goodness for Spanx!

The day after Thanksgiving, my mother, sister, and I loaded up in the car to elbow our way through the Black Friday crowds, another family tradition. We were all dressed in appropriate gear—soccer cleats, elbow pads, and giant purses with cross-swinging action—and armed with the sales ads. We were three women on a mission, and we weren't messing around.

We were able to hit the trifecta of doorbuster sales before they ended at 1 PM: Macy’s, Penney’s, and Sears. My sister was able to clear the Isotoner display by swinging her lead-lined purse like Thor’s hammer while Mom snatched up the remaining fleece-lined blue women’s gloves. I was on a fast jog to Penney’s, where Barbies and Fisher Price toys were flying off the shelves. It took some maneuvering—including sending a woman in a wheelchair flying on a fast roll down the escalator—but I was able to grab the last two Fisher Price Doodle Bears, which is really what the spirit of the holiday is all about, right? (Not the spirit of Christmas, you sap—the spirit of Black Friday, the holiest of holiest days for bargain hunters.) I used a billy club that I like to keep tucked in my waistband to take out three elderly ladies who were in line in front of me and were insisting on paying with exact change, which took forever, and voila! I was at the register before the sales ended.

One of the hardest things about Black Friday is keeping well hydrated. You don’t want to drink too much water, because you could lose out on the last iPod due to excessive potty breaks. We like to wait until one of us is ready to pass out, and then pop out a portable IV of Gatorade when one of us is showing signs of dehydration. Mom almost went down when we were in line at the Christmas Tree Shop, but Kim spotted Mom’s eyes rolling up into the back of her head, and popped open a bottle of Riptide Rush with moments to spare. Honestly, it warms my heart to see the three of us working so well together in tandem. Forget that Hoosiers crap—this is the kind of teamwork they should be making a movie about!

At the end of the day, I’d made three babies cry, given twelve shoppers black eyes with my elbow pads, and yelled at one woman who I’m hoping was just wearing the scarf on her bald head as a fashion statement. That’s right, I’m probably going to Hell—but at least my friends and family are going to receive fabulous gifts at unbelievable prices before I go!

Every year around this time, I find myself appalled by how many people seem to be unaware of the rules for eating Easter candy. Oh yes, there are rules. Let me enlighten you:

• Jelly Beans: When taking a handful of jelly beans, it is polite to select one (and only one) of each color from the bowl. They are then to be eaten in order from worst to best flavor. This order is: yellow, green, black, orange, white, pink, purple, red. It is debatable whether red or purple is the best flavor, but you must always finish with red or you will be unlucky in love.
• Peeps®: When Peeps® are purchased, the package is to be opened but the marshmallow treats inside are to be left untouched. This promotes "staling" of the Peeps®, which, as everybody knows, makes them chewier and more delicious. It is permissible to sample a Peep® about four days into the staling process to see if the appropriate level of chewiness has been attained yet. It will not have been, but it is impossible to have an opened package of Peeps® on the counter without sampling one. Always bite into the Peep® head first.
• Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs®: These delectable luxuries are to be consumed in a total of five bites—no more, no less. Consuming these eggs in fewer bites will cause the chocolate and peanut butter to smear across your teeth, which is disgusting to look at. Taking more bites to eat these will not give you the full flavor with each bite, and overall is just ridiculous.
• Brach's Marshmallow Chicks & Rabbits®: These circus-peanut-like goodies come already pre-staled, which means you can eat them right out of the bag without any preparation. They are to be eaten in this order: yellow chick, orange bunny, blue chick, yellow bunny, orange chick, blue bunny (and repeat). Always start at the head and work your way down (I cannot emphasize this enough. Any other way would be a crime against humanity and candy.)

• Chocolate Rabbits: The rule of thumb for any chocolate rabbit, whether solid or hollow, is to start with the ears. Solid rabbits can be broken into chunks and dipped in a jar of peanut butter, ears first. Hollow rabbits are to have the ears bitten off, leaving an open hole on the head of the rabbit that should then be filled with peanut butter and consumed.
• Cadbury Crème Eggs®: Listen, I'm not a strict, unbending traditionalist, people. Eat these however you'd like . . . as long as it's with a spoon.
  

On a completely unrelated note, I have OCD.

Happy Easter/Passover/Volunteer Recognition Day, everyone!

I have not had good luck on Valentine’s Day over the years. I’ve dated some real jerks, which I think these February 14ths of the past can attest to:

February 14, 1978: In kindergarten, on Valentine’s Day, someone’s mom made sugar cookies shaped like hearts with pink icing on it. One boy in my class (let’s call him “Brad”) put his thumb in my icing after using the bathroom without washing his hands. This was the first of my Valentine’s Days to end in tears.

February 14, 1983: In fifth grade, despite the fact that all of my classmates knew that I loved both chocolate and Duran Duran, not one person gave me chocolates shaped like Nick Rhodes’s synthesizer. I still haven’t gotten over the disappointment.

February 14, 1989: Possibly my first Valentine’s Day on which I had an actual boyfriend. Unfortunately, he decided on this day that he liked my friend Kelly more than me, and dumped me during 6th period study hall by handing me a note. The rotten jerk didn’t even have the decency to include some token pity chocolates with his stupid note. Still hate you, “Scott.”

February 14, 1994:  I was in college, dating a guy named “Tom,” who unfortunately was much more in love with me than I was with him. Call me fickle, but I can’t stand it when a guy worships the ground I walk on and thinks I can do no wrong. That’s a high standard to live up to, and it will ultimately end in disappointment (for him). He sent me a dozen roses, which the cat I illegally kept in my apartment promptly ate. Honestly, you can tell a man a million times that you prefer chocolates, and they still give you stupid red roses. It was inevitable that I would dump him. I wrote him a note, and neatly tucked it into a Whitman’s Sampler box. That’s the way to break someone’s heart on Valentine’s Day, Scott.

February 14, 2000: I lived on Block Island and was married to the most useless human being that ever stained the cushions of a couch by not moving off of it. My best friend and I went out for chocolate cake and chocolate martinis. I may have stayed over her house that night instead of facing the dreary misery that was my life. Good times.

February 14, 2007: Jason and I celebrated our first Valentine’s Day together by going to a movie. He gave me a book on movie monsters as a gift. I guess I could live without chocolates that year.

What I’ve learned over the years is that the only man I can count on to give me my heart’s desire on Valentine’s Day is my father. That’s right: every year, without fail, since I was a young’un, my dad has given my sister and me heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. Sometimes the boxes have pretty pink lace on them, other years, it’s been a plain, deep red. Doesn’t matter. They're always filled with chocolates, from coconut creams to caramels with dark chocolate coatings. It turns out that when it really matters, my father will always come through with the goods. Thanks, Dad.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

***
Be sure to visit me at Queen City Kamikaze on Sunday, February 16 in Manchester, NH! I'll be the only woman (not complaining) at the Books & Boos table with talented writers like Dale T. Phillips, Vlad Vaslyn, Gordon Bean, and T. T. Zuma! One of these four gentlemen has already promised me chocolate!

How I've celebrated New Year's has changed over the years, as I'm sure it has for you, too. We all get older, and as the years have passed, we've watched Dick Clark not age, then age, then have a stroke, then die. Depressing, right? Let's take a look at some New Year's Eves from my past:

1. December 31, 1985: In the Longo house, New Year's Eve was a night for eating chips and dip, playing Trivial Pursuit, and watching the ball drop. This is how I remember most of our New Year's Eves growing up. This particular year was memorable because we ran out of dip and had to bake up an emergency batch of cookies to keep the junk food coming. Also, I remember the newscaster breaking in on the Times Square footage to show us a shot of Ricky Nelson's plane crashing. My mom was sad. Happy New Year.

2.  December 31, 1986: Hoping for better things this time around, we invited friends over to ring in the New Year. My sister and I and our friends Jen and Chuckie watched movies. Our selections? Witchboard and Children of the Corn. I was 13. We had an Ouija board. We lived on a farm, with acres and acres of corn. It was all fun and games (and more chips and dip) that year, but I'll admit that it was no "accident" that the Ouija board wound up in the dumpster shortly thereafter. Also, I was terrified to walk in the corn for years, convinced I could feel Malachai's breath on the back of my neck. Totally psychologically damaging New Year's Eve fun.

3. December 31, 1993: Funny, I don't remember any New Year's Eve celebrations from my college years. Before my roommates from that era chime in and tell you I was a lush (I was, but that's not the point) I'm sure I was on winter break during these New Year's Eves. So I'm going to guess this was another evening of chips and dip at home.

4. December 31, 1999: I rang in the turn of the century on Block Island, at Sam Peckham's Tavern. I usually hated going out on the island on New Year's Eve (or, as we called it, Amateur Night) but made an exception this particular year. I remember a woman named Paula was playing a rousing rendition of "Blow Me (a Kiss as You're Leaving)" on the piano, which at the time I thought was brilliantly witty. I might have been drunk.

5. December 31, 2008: Fast forward a few years. At this point, Jason and I were newly married, and had both agreed that we didn't want to be out on New Year's Eve, as we were now mature enough to realize getting wasted with strangers was not particularly fun. We stayed home to play Trivial Pursuit, eat pizza, and watch the ball drop. This year was memorable because at approximately 11:42 PM, Jason was struck with a virulent stomach bug, and began power-vomiting into any receptacle he could find. At 12:07 AM, I followed suit. We barfed at least three times an hour for the next 48 hours, making for a memorable New Year's celebration together. Honestly, we were pushing each other out of the way to throw up in the toilet. I was so mad because I was sure nobody would believe we'd been home, sober, behaving like grownups.

6. December 31, 2013: This year, we plan on staying at home. I'll mention that it's been 28 years since Ricky Nelson died; we'll throw on some scary movies, like Children of the Corn. We won't order pizza, since now the thought of pizza on New Year's Eve makes us think of barfing, but I'll make chips and dip. We don't have TV anymore, so no watching the ball drop, but that's okay, because Dick Clark won't be there to count it down. There's a 50/50 chance that I won't stay awake 'til midnight anyway. 

I hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Year!

Guess who's now writing "B" horror movie reviews for Cinema Knife Fight? That's right, me! Check out my very first review, of a fine film starring Ron Jeremy. My mother will be so proud!

Sometimes, people ask me why I'm so grouchy around this time of year. These people are taking their lives into their own hands. However, I do have a simple explanation: others have made me this way.

Jason, for instance, would argue that he does everything he can to put me in the Christmas spirit. I can tell you that his methods are faulty. It's taken him a long time to realize that not only do I not find it funny when he puts on holiday videos that he knows I despise (i.e. all of them, with the exception of the outstanding A Wish For Wings That Work) but it's also a good way to get me to empty the contents of his underwear drawer, soak the whole lot in cold water, and dump everything in the freezer.

Just yesterday, he popped in a video of A Christmas Story. Now how could I possibly not enjoy this little tale of a boy who wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, you ask? This movie is full of terrible lessons and yes, I'll say it, racism. First of all, throughout the whole movie, all of the adults tell Ralphie he'll shoot his eye out with that dumb gun. So what does he do when he gets it? He practically shoots his eye out. Perhaps he should've taken the hint and saved up his allowance for safety goggles, and this wouldn't have happened. Then he lies to his mother about almost shooting his eye out. Clearly, this film encourages children to lie to their parents. That's a terrible lesson.
Also, I don't like that Ralphie beats up that redheaded kid for no other reason than he's a redhead. (I think. I wasn't really paying attention.) For centuries, gingers have been put to death simply because of the color of their hair. So this movie teaches kids to discriminate based on looks. Why would I want to watch this racist crap?

Perhaps you think I should try another activity, like decorating the tree. I'll admit this would have the potential to un-grinch my heart, but because I have two cats who are inclined to misbehave, this isn't as fun as it sounds. When I unpacked the blinking snowflake tree lights, I plugged them in and immediately electrocuted myself. It turns out Wednesday had been using them as kitty dental floss, and the wires had been stripped bare. Bad cat. Bad cat!
How the tree is decorated is also largely influenced by the cats. All of the nice ornaments have to go up top, and the cheap ones hang low, since the cats think the whole tree is their plaything. So the top foot of my tree is crammed full of adorable cow ornaments, and the bottom half is sparsely decorated with Jason's Coca-Cola ornaments. The cats manage to take down and destroy about three ornaments a day, and I'm certainly not going to let those little demons get their claws on my cute ice-skating cow with a scarf. (I should also mention that I had to decorate the tree myself. If you're not going to help, then you're not allowed to complain when your Coca-Cola Santa ornament becomes a casualty.) Plus we can't put silver icicles on the tree, because it could kill the cats if they eat it (and they will). I have at least two aunts that would never speak to me again if Wednesday died of silver icicle ingestion.
Finally, nobody in the house will cooperate with me at all when I do try to do something fun, like make a cute video of the cats in Christmas hats. (See epic failure below.)

So why am I a humbug? Because the people and animals in my house made me that way.