"It's a Major Award!"

It is now officially one week until the end of the holiday season. Time to break out the ol' holiday traditions.

Ya'll may gather around the yule (what the frick is a yule, anyway?) in your fuzziest pajamas (the ones with the feet), and pass presents to cousins under the blinking glow and sweetly pungent pine sap of a tinseled tree. You may have families; families with fireplaces and large dogs who still think they can curl up in your lap.

You may not.

And that's why you should know that the Gold Cane in Upper Haight has always been open on Xmas day and the compassionate folx there will get you drunk for nearly free if you look like you need it. That tip is my 1st of two gifts to you this holiday season.

My holiday tradition is pretty well locked in place at this point in my life. Christmas shopping consists of Ketel, Kahlua and soy milk, sometimes with baby carrots tossed in so the cashier doesn't frown too worriedly as she takes my cash.

Christmas Day starts sometime after noon when I pour the first White Russian, turn on TNT TBS and watch at least 4 consecutive repetitions of A Christmas Story until I have every line of the movie memorized again, the White Russians have devolved into shots of vodka chased with shots of Kahlua, and I'm yelling at the TV, "Ralphie of you want a goddamn gun so bad just go out and buy one on the street like every other fricking kid in America."

Round 2 of Christmas Day festivities commences when True Romance slides into the DVD player, during which I write a drunken poetic ode to Alabama Worley on a paper towel, and burn it. I allow myself this abject melodrama once a year under the condition that no one else is ever witness to it.

However, there is a lighter side to these holiday traditions and this is my 2nd gift to you: For some always needed world perspective this David Sedaris anecdote is annual required listening.

In the immortal words of Krusty the Klown -- "Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Crazy Kwanzaa, and a Solemn and Dignified Ramadan."

Posted by jeffro at December 19, 2004 12:00 AM