A Holiday Cheer!

"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch you really are a heel, you're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel Mr. Grinch"

I hate this time of year! Yes, I said it, I hate Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and all of the cheep crass commercialism that comes with these holidays. From the turkey to the firecrackers I hate em all. I don't even know how I came to this. Maybe it's my cynical jaded mind, maybe it's the fact that I don't have children, and maybe I just hate waiting in line behind ten people to buy one fu*&%ng bottle of Faconnable cologne!

I realized all this of course while standing in line at Nordstrom to buy my aforementioned cologne. Watching all the hustle and bustle in the store, listening to the kids as they run from one store to another-in what I think is the second or third largest mall in the world, King of Prussia- and just the over all madness of the season, makes me which Valentines Day was already here.

Like what is it with Americans and Christmas holidays anyway? I mean we lose our f*&%*ng minds every year about this time. Did you hear all the stories about the fights, the shootings, and the people camping out over night for days at a time to get a freaking PlayStation 3 ? "Yes little Johnnie, I got you that PlayStation you wanted for Christmas, Daddy got shot, but it's just a flesh wound. How is your Mom? I haven't seen her in three days". Want to know why we are going to lose the war on terror? I will tell you why: Because while little Johnnie is losing his mind over a freaking play station game, little Ahmed is reading the Koran over and over in one of those madras schools in Saudi Arabia some damn where. Meanwhile, back at Nordstrom, I wait, and wait, and wait......

It wasn't always like this; as a child I loved Christmas, loved looking at the presents under the tree, loved listening to that Jackson 5 Christmas album over and over again, loved the smell of sorrel, and Jamaican rum cake cooking in my mother's kitchen. Heck, I will never forget the first time I saw snow, it was around the Christmas season and it was perfect! I thought I was really living in Santa's hometown, and he would come slaying down my block with a sled full of toys Christmas morning. So my disdain for these holidays has nothing to do with any child hood pathologies I might harbor, or some type of secret vile unexplained anger towards Jolly Old St. Nick.

I don't know, maybe it's the Thanksgiving part of the season I don't like. Because it's exclusively an American holiday, I did not experience Thanksgiving until my family moved to America. My parents got into it a because they did not want us to be left out. So I had my fair share of turkey, cranberry sauce, and the whole bit while growing up. But as I got older, and started to think about it, I started thinking about those poor Indians at Plymouth Colony back in 1621. Chief Massasoit and his Wampanoag tribe embracing the English settlers, and sharing that Thanksgiving meal with them after a wonderful harvest; only to have his tribe slaughtered some fifty years later during the Prince Phillip Wars by those same English settlers. Yeah, that's the cynic in me again, instead of thinking about how thankful I should be, I keep thinking about those damn Indians.

You're a monster Mr. Grinch, your heart's an empty hole. Your brain is full of spiders, you've got garlic in your soul Mr. Grinch"

After about 20 minutes -no kidding- of waiting I am thinking of just leaving the damn cologne and heading up I76; but then I would have wasted 20 minutes of my life in Nordstroms for nothing. Besides, this isn't a gift, it's for me, and I really want it. "Sir, I will take you now" Geez! About freaking time. "Will that be cash or credit sir?" Cash! "Have a happy holiday, and thanks for shopping at Nordstroms department store."

Yeah whatever!

"You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel."