Note: This appears in the latest issue of Hooters Magazine. You're welcome. I just saved you from having to look at Hooters waitresses trying to do soft-core.
As 2010 winds down, we’ve seen Spring sprung itself out; Summer burn itself out; and now Autumn draw to a close as winter and 2011 approaches. However, before 2010 kicks the bucket, the Holidays will send out the year with a bang. As personal trainers cringe, Thanksgiving is nearly upon us with Hanukkah and Christmas following right behind. This is the best time of the year and with all due respect to Spring (allergies anyone?) and Summer (sunburns freaking HURT), the four weeks from Thanksgiving through Christmas and Boxing Day is simply tremendous. You should GIVE A HOOT about the Holiday Season and let me tell you why!
The four-day Thanksgiving weekend is clearly the best four-day stretch of the year. Not only do you get to miss work for FOUR days instead of the traditional Labor and Memorial Day “three,” but the entire Thanksgiving atmosphere is awesome. Think about it: you wake up late on a Thursday morning to head down stairs and turn on the TV when it hits you. BAM! FOOTBALL IS ON ALL DAY. You start watching the Lions or Cowboys play and you’re thinking, “How can this get any better?” Ummm, simple. YOU SMELL TURKEY!
You make a bee-line to the kitchen and there are the women of the manor standing around pretending to cook, but come on, you know that it isn’t hard to stuff a turkey in the oven and it is WAY too early to start mashing the potatoes. Don’t feel like you should help; there isn’t anything to help with just yet. So snag a bite of the honey-baked ham on the counter and head back to watch football. Feel like having a beer? DO IT! YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW!
Perhaps the best part of Thanksgiving is the adjustable interaction with family. If your brother is over and you actually like him, you can drink beer, tell jokes, fart and laugh while the food is being prepared. And if you don’t like the relatives that have come to mooch off of you, simply turn your attention to the football on TV and take a while to respond to questions your wife’s crazy uncle asked you. After a while he’ll catch on that you are enthralled in the Vikings/Lions game that is 41-7.
Now that dinner is ready, are you prepared to eat your weight in cranberry sauce and green beans, all drowned in gravy? Are you ready to consume massive amounts of turkey and ham? Are you prepared to give Jillian Michaels the shivers by eating the mashed potatoes from the bowl and slurping from the gravy-boat? Just blame the pilgrims. They made us do it! They started this whole thing in 1621 up in Plymouth, Massachusetts. And thank goodness they did.
After dinner is the only “bad” part of the weekend, but it isn’t that bad anymore. While the women, who conceivably “made dinner” retire to the living room, the men are left to cleanup. But honestly, who DOESN’T have a TV in the kitchen these days? Just flip on the college football game of the night and maybe even get into a sink fight or two before passing out in front of a fire.
The fun doesn’t stop with you passing out Thursday night at 8pm. Oh no! On the day after Thanksgiving leftovers rule! Ever hear of fresh turkey sandwiches? Oh, and you get more football. And more football that Saturday as well, as college football rivalries kick in. And that Sunday, you guessed it, more football. Thanksgiving is all about food, football and family and deserves anything but an F if you were grading the weekend. Like I said, the best four-day stretch of the year, and with adjustable family-time, how can you go wrong?
Next up in that four-week Holiday season is Hanukkah or “the Festival of Lights.” In case the only thing you know about Hanukkah comes from Adam Sandler’s music or his horrid cartoon-movie Eight Crazy Nights, let me enlighten you: Hanukkah is a Jewish Holiday that commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and its “miracle of the container of oil.” According to legend, the temple had just enough oil to keep the eternal flame burning for one night, but the flame burned on for eight days and nights, enough time for more oil to be made. The holiday is celebrated with children receiving presents on eight nights and the menorah being lit each night to honor tradition. Families join together to pray, sing and eat delicious foods. Children of course can play with the Dreidel, as made popular by the song. Overall Hanukkah is a very religious holiday that has seemingly not been commercialized like Christmas, whose meaning has nearly been completely forgotten.
The comedian Sandler gained popularity with his Hanukkah Songs listing famous Jewish actors and athletes. However Hanukkah was given another boost, as silly as it sounds when the Fox television show The OC combined it with Christmas to form the Super-Holiday Chrismukkah. As described by the show’s Seth Cohen, Chrismukkah is “eight nights of presents followed by one big day of presents.”
People love presents despite the fact that the gifts aren’t really the point of the Christmas holiday. In fact most folks think of the fat man in the red suit whenever Christmas is mentioned. And of course, I am talking about Santa Claus and not your uncle Phil who decided to wear a God-awful Christmas sweater with the bells on it for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas sweaters have been around since before cockroaches and they are getting new life with the youth of today wearing them simply to mock Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation. The best part about Christmas sweaters though has to be when you are in a mall and you walk by “Santa’s Workshop” to see the family of seven getting a picture taken with Santa and everyone is donning the same sweater. Typically the parents are thrilled while the kids under five are on the verge of wetting themselves as they are thisclose to Santa. The tweens and teens though, if they DO make eye contact with you, are clearly plotting your demise for your having witnessed them in this embarrassing predicament. Ah memories. Don’t they know that one day they’ll look back at that photo…and drink?
Christmas is also about more than just stupid sweaters though. Families get together, perhaps for the only time of the year and share hugs and presents and stories. Some families will remember the “reason for the season,” while others will just be glad to be together, which is REALLY what Christmas is about for me. Sharing love with family is my idea of Christmas and I’m like a lot of people when I look forward to being together, then I look forward to leaving and getting away from the crazy cousins.
Those four weeks are truly a blast of time spent with family, friends, and food. You will absolutely gain eight pounds if you do it correctly and none of those pants your grandmother gave you will fit, but that is what New Years resolutions are for. Enjoy the holidays and just make certain that the non-stop Christmas music doesn’t drive you insane. The holidays are truly the most wonderful time of the year and you should give a hoot about them!
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