For those of us who are neither religious nor addicted to the year-end frenzy of The Holidays during which the worship of all that is consumerism becomes pretty much mutually inclusive with all that is holy, the obligatory nature of gift-giving becomes even more burdensome. Although, were I to lose 98% of my independent-thinking brain cells and succumb to a religion, Consumerism would probably be the one of choice. In addition to this already-cumbersome celebration of a historically-challenged birth that most likely did not occur in December, my parents’ wedding anniversary falls in mid-December and their joint birthday falls in mid-January. This just so happens to be somewhat convenient for me. Despite that my family is more on the superstitious side than being remotely religious, they do, in fact, celebrate Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day [26th December for you non-heathens]. This falls in rather nicely with their AnniBirth gifts. Oh, sure, I let them think that I am acquiescing nicely to the Western traditions of celebrating a Middle Easterner’s inaccurately recorded birthday, but in reality I am secretly combining their anniversary and birthday! I know! I’m a freaken genius! Of course, I don’t actually label my combination present as such, instead I throw holiday propaganda into the mix to confuse the matter. Or would that be ‘the mater‘? Ah-ha ahahaha … ha. *throatclear* Right, so when I send my year-end gifts, I label them ‘Happy Kwanzaa!’ or ‘Feliz Hanukkah!’ or ‘Merry DecemJan!’ or ‘Thanks For Giving Birth To ME! No, really, I couldn’t have done it without you.’

Speaking of the blessed event of my conception, my sister happened to mention to me a while back — and I’m pretty sure we both experienced temporary blackouts moments later — that our Daddy had mentioned, quite casually in passing, that he and Mum … OK, I’m sorry for what I am about to do to your eyes … “still enjoy a cuddle”. I’ll give you a moment now in which to bleach your eyeballs. There, feel better? Excellent. I share this moment of extreme familial intimacy with you in order to scar your retinas for life share the following amusing anecdote that my parents kindly passed along to me. They were on this cruise, you see, not too long ago, and my father was decked out in his pyjamas and Mum was in her nightie preparing for … dear doG let’s hope sleep … and some of their chums knocked on their cabin door to surprise them. Apparently, said chums then went to much length to make fun of Daddy’s PJs. A night or two later there was a repeat occurrence of said surprise visit — really, can’t a 70-something couple expect a modicum of privacy on their 52nd honeymoon? This time, Daddy was prepared and he answered the door wearing . . . one of my Mum’s nighties. And you wonder where I get it from.

Which brings me to this year’s Year End Gift to my parents. Are you ready for this? I know this has been a challenging enough read thus far, but it gets even more so … I bought them His and Her … Snuggies. Shut.Up. Snuggies are awesome! At least, I suspect that they are. I don’t actually own one. And even if I happened to secretly order a free Snuggie recently that will arrive in approximately 8-10 weeks, I will deny it to the death. Which won’t change if I am found dead wearing my secret free Snuggie, assuming I actually receive one. Don’t judge, I’ll have you know that Snuggies are getting sexier by the minute. Did you know that they are now available in leopard skin and zebra skin patterns? Ha! You didn’t, did you! I was incredibly lucky to find them on sale at the local Wahhhlgreenz and even though they were totally not in my budget, I bought them for the folks. Unfortunately for my cross-dressing father, they were only available in plain colours.

What I didn’t take into account would be the cost of mailing said fabulous items. Back in the day of about a year or five ago, the U.S. postal service offered the Slow Boat to China shipping option. Sure, it took 4-6 weeks — or months — but it was cheap! In the infinite wisdom of a government-run, non-competitive, yet monopolised service, that option is no longer available. Apparently, it went the way of the dodo, or free ammunition with the purchase of a sheet of stamps, or Jennifer Aniston’s chances of keeping a man. I wrapped the two lightweight boxes in brown paper, slapped on the annoying customs form on which you have to legibly write the contents of the package in order to spoil the surprise for the recipient, and trundled off to the local post office. Where, after the requisite long wait in a queue, I was informed that my package, while beautifully and officially-approvedly wrapped, was 1.2-ounces overweight. Well, I am sorry, but not everybody survives middle age without gaining quite a few extra pounds!! How dare you publicly berate me for my weight problem!!! As if it’s not humiliating enough that . . . oh, sorry, got a little off-track there.

So, home I went to engage in an orgy of ripping off brown wrapping paper [makes a change from my clothes, I know, but see digression above]. I ripped, I swore, I sweated. I yanked the contents out and discarded the boxes. I wrestled with unruly sheets of paper and homicidal packing tape. I retrieved one box from where it had landed across the room and stuffed both Snuggies into it, I sat on the package until it cried ‘Uncle!’, I made up new swear words [not including 'pigfucker' which I routinely use in emails to certain unruly friends], I knelt on the package, I yelled at the package … and eventually the package, after giving me a sulky teenage sneer, capitulated and permitted me to straitjacket it into a fresh sheet of brown paper.

Even with the newer, slimmer, sexier look, much like a middle-ager trying to look a decade younger, the package cost me almost as much in postage as its contents. In fact, after forking over roughly $25 in postage to get the package there a month early rather than who-knows-how many weeks late, I was left with a whopping $0.02 for groceries to get me through the next month. Perhaps I, too, will come out of this looking slimmer and sexier than I do at present.

Either way, if anybody needs my opinion on anything, I have that tuppence at our mutual disposal and I am not afraid to spend it all at once!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under Humour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.