LEFT BRAIN / RIGHT BRAIN

Christmas is coming...what're ya gonna get me? Overblow commercialism can never ruin the holidays, for underlying all the preparations and spending and glitter is a base of family tradition and, for some, religious fervor. Christmas, for most christians, is a time to celebrate the birth of their Savior, Jesus H. Christ. For Nordic shamanists, it is the time of Yule, a time to celebrate family. For pagans, it is the winter solstice, or Turning, when the days begin to grow longer and stretch towards spring. For others, it the Feast of Mistras, from where christians got the December 25 date.

True, retailers make a goodly portion of their yearly income from holiday season sales, but so does the Salvation Army and other charities. Toy producers, jewelers, tree sellers, and store Santas have been having difficulty keeping themselves from drooling as the season approaches. Even yours truly has been dragged under a little by the malls and anybody else with stuff to sell. Gimme that pair of slippers for Ma. How 'bout some art supplies for my neice and nephew. Pops could use some new jeans. And of course, the ultimate Dad gift...Old Spice!

I remember Christas mornings when I was a kid. They had the coolest toys back then. I got a giant plastic aircraft carrier one year that flung foam-rubber jets into the sky. Another year my brother and I got a pinball machine. Or slot-cars (cool!) or a train set (wicked cool!) or and air-hockey table(wicked tits!). It was a blast! It still is, if you keep a little bit of your psyche youthful.

You can't say it's not fun. The crowds, the cheer, the parties, the drinking, the presents, the mistletoe, the parties, the lights, the parties. For a month, you're flushed through and through with holiday messages. Many people have at least a cheery "Merry Christmas!" for you. People are in a more giving mood. Only a Scrooge would hate this time of year. You get to decorate your house...a nice big tree strung with lights and tinsel. Those cool holiday favorites are on T.V. like Charlie Brown, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, the Grinch who Stole Christmas (a Wolfie fave). On the radio, holiday songs ring out. If you're lucky, you'll get a white Christmas!

And it's not over on December 26. The New Year is coming. Party like it's the end of 1999. A new Millenium, man, and they only come once every...um, four hundr-...seventeen...well a long time. It's the 21st century...something most of us read about in science fiction novels. Techno-civ, here we come! First, let's get to the malls!

But it is a harried time, I grant you. But that is what it's all about. If you can, get your stuff done quick, then hit the pubs to relax. If you do it right - shop during the early part of the day in the middle of the week when there are fewer people in the stores, make your Yuletide dinner in stages before the big day and put it in the fridge to be reheated when needed, take the time needed for rest and relaxation, etc - you won't be worn down when it's all over.

And when it's all said and done, you can collapse. You've got a full year to recover.

So...what're ya gonna get me next year?

Holidays schmolidays! Bah, Humbug! Never has a holiday become more of a buying spree and turned capitalism into something bad. Alright, Valentine's day is up there too, but we all knew that that was a retail sector manufactured holiday. Christmas has become X-ma$. Buy buy buy...you insignificant sheep!

I remember Christmas. We'd go to my aunts' and uncles' houses and run around in a sugar-induced special-presentation delerium while the huge, nuclear blast bright light on top of my uncle Dennis' home movie camera(the kind that used film...back in the caveman days)made the rounds around the house. My bro used to wake me up at four a.m., Christmas morn and we'd go unwrap the plastic Jap-crap breaks-five-minutes-later thing I saw on T.V. the week before and delivered by that big phony Santa under our vinyl tree. Then it'd be over. A week later, we were back in school.

Today, Christmas begins before Halloween ends. The trees were in the store when I was out buying candy for the kids for crissake. And it's all expensive! It all has to be for the manufacturers to recoup the cost of the advertisements that run 24 hours a day, some for full half hours disguised as childrens' programming: Power Rangers Ho! Pokemon? If you don't 'get 'em all', your kid'll be stigmatized in the eyes of his classmates...a virtual marketing pariah. Boy, I wish I had a chunk of that hugely successful media blitz...I'd re-fucking-tire.

Goddamned Christmas...feh! Jammed malls...no place to park...why dontchalljuststaythefuckhome! At least crowded malls make it easier to pickpocket your way to financial independence. Think Internet shopping's gonna help? Add about ten percent to that five-hundred dollar DVD player for shipping, and hope that some ten-year-old Einstein hasn't put a jumper on your phone line and is right at this very minute deciphering your credit card number. "Just make presents...it's the thought that counts", you say? Lemme tell ya...it's the money that counts these days, Bubba. Give someone a homemade gift and be labeled a cheap bastid for the rest of your life. Your only hope is to become a Jehovah's Witness, where all holidays are just like all the other crappy days of the year. Of course, you'll have to shave your head and hand out flowers at the airport..oh wait...that's the Cathaholics!

And don't get me started about holiday travel. It seems like every Joe Blow gots his uguhly wive and screaming yard-apes in the car to go to gramma's house. The anti-smoking zealots say that smoking kills the equivalent of two fully loaded 747 jumbo jets every day. I fucking wish! I'd love to see those noisy, pollution-spewing jets crashing everywhere, full of terrified passengers knowing their doom is coming! And the presents they got for Unca Louie and Auntie Haggar get mangled in the crash too! Huzzah!

Happy New Year! Happy THIS pal! I hope Y2K takes all of civilization down the black hole, man. 3!..2!..1!!...KaBOOOM!!! AAAUUUGGGHHhhh..it burns!....blood....

So all you "Merry Christmas - Happy New Year - Joyous Holiday" types can just kiss my Yankee dick. Tell me when it's over and I can get to my normal life of booze, tramps and rock. And I hate fucking egg nog too! Yuck!...