Holidays

Friends For The Holidays

Over the past couple of months, I’ve noticed a weird trend in my Facebook friend requests—they’re all coming from dudes with two first names. I don’t mean like Joe-Bob Smith; I mean I’m getting requests on the daily from guys called Andrew Mark, John Joseph, or Michael Steven. It’s like someone googled “most popular white man names” and started pairing them up. And before you think I’m stereotyping, ALL of these guys are white. And Christian. And widowed. And either doctors or in the military. Which begs the question, knowing me as you do—why the HELL would a white Christian widowed army doctor want to be MY friend?! But I began to suspect that it was just a scam and that none of these guys were actually real right at the very beginning (based on the fact that none of them had any followers and their pictures all looked like what you’d get if you asked Siri, “Find me a photograph of a generic middle-aged white man”) and I’ve been deleting at least two fake friend requests a day. And then came the icing on the cake last week when I got a friend request from a man named Harry. HARRY NUTZ. Seriously?! You couldn’t snare me with Robert David and you think I’m going to fall for hairy nuts? And Harry also identifies himself as a “Christian” and single (with a name like that, it’s no wonder). Slight tangent: I had a cousin in England whose actual name was Harry Dick. But nobody thought it was funny because back then, people in England didn’t refer to manparts as “dicks”. Now, if his name had been Harry Willy, he’d never have lived it down. At any rate, I deleted Harry Nutz’s request as well, on the grounds that his nuts were probably a front for some scam artist who didn’t know how to manscape.

In other news, we recently celebrated New Year’s Day and when I looked at my Google calendar, I noticed that New Year’s Day was highlighted, but that the 2nd was also highlighted as “Day After New Year’s Day (Quebec)” and I was very confused by this. Do the French need a special reminder that the 2nd comes directly after the 1st? But then I investigated further and became enraged. Apparently, if you live in Quebec, you get an EXTRA HOLIDAY on the day after New Year’s Day, and if you live in Ontario, like me, YOU DON’T. And I had to WORK on the 2nd while all the Quebecois were enjoying their extra day off eating poutine and whatnot. And then I investigated even FURTHER when I realized that my Google calendar highlighted all the different days off that each province in Canada gets and now I want to live in Newfoundland, where on top of all the holidays we get here, they get almost one extra day off every month, including St. Patrick’s Day, St. George’s Day, Orangeman’s Day, and a random holiday to celebrate a BOAT RACE called The Royal St. John’s Regatta. They literally have a holiday in June called JUNE DAY. And other provinces and territories have equally tenuous holidays, like in the Yukon, where they get to celebrate Discovery Day, which commemorates that time Yukon Cornelius discovered gold in a glacier after battling the Abominable Snowman. And I was going to do better research on the whole Yukon thing but then I went down a rabbit hole of holidays and discovered that January 7th is known for several interesting holidays including Distaff Day and National Pass Gas Day, so for the rest of this fine Sunday, I’ll be farting around at a spinning wheel.

Give And Let Give

If I had a dollar for every time someone that I know and love said to me, “I didn’t know what to get you—you’re so hard to buy for”, I’d have enough dollars to buy myself something that I really like. But I am NOT hard to buy for. Here are the things that I like: jewelry, perfume, make-up, clothes, fine leather goods, electronics, antiques, clocks, and alcohol. That’s a pretty comprehensive list. But Ken will tell you that within this list, there are only specific types of things that belong to each category, which is why he always approaches buying me gifts with a certain amount of dread. I think this is totally unfair, and it makes me feel really guilty. And I’m a very believable recipient—I always act terribly pleased, regardless of the gift, and no one but Ken ever knows if I’m not. This is part of the problem—I CAN’T FOOL KEN. He always knows when I’m not being sincere, because, unfortunately, Ken was my partner in crime when I taught Kate how to handle getting things she didn’t like, for example clothes instead of toys, which was to say “Thank you, it’s beautiful!” (this came out as “Tank you ids bootyful” when she was little and it was sooo adorable). Of course, now that Kate is much older, she doesn’t bother with the niceties. This was the conversation a couple of years ago on Christmas morning:

Kate: 2 more pairs of pajamas. Wow.
Me: But you said you needed pajamas.
Kate: No, YOU said I needed pajamas.
Me: Well, SOMEONE said you needed pajamas! Either way. Now you have lots of pajamas, and I don’t have to look at you in that pair you’re wearing right now with the knee ripped out.
Kate: Yes. Now I have a different pair for every day of the week. Thanks. Is there anything under the tree for me besides more pajamas?
Me: Um….
Kate: Again, wow.

While I might not be very imaginative when it comes to picking out gifts, the trouble with Ken is that he tries to be TOO imaginative. For example, one year right as we were about to open our stockings, Ken announced, “The gifts in your stocking this year are based on a THEME.” We all stopped what we were doing. Nobody spoke. Then Kate said, “I don’t see this ending well.” Because apparently the theme was “things you can use to cook my dinner with”.

The first stocking stuffer was a shaker of spices. I looked at it curiously, and Ken said, “You can use it to sprinkle on the potatoes when you roast them!” He was getting nervous. I smiled, and opened the next gift—a jar of pizza spice “for when you make homemade pizza.” This was followed by a grinder full of chipotle and pink Havana sea salt, and a selection of “peppercorns from around the world”. At this point the smiling kind of stopped. I didn’t know quite what to make of any of it, except that I had a lot of cooking ahead of me, and it was going to be very spicy. But that’s OK—I really like cooking, and in retrospect, they were pretty cool gifts with a lot of thought behind them (even if he did buy them all at Homesense on Christmas Eve). But the main point is that I don’t really care about presents all that much. At this time of year, I like to remember one of my favourite quotations: The best things in life aren’t things. The most awesome gift of all is having Ken and Kate (and her boyfriend) with me on Christmas morning. And like the Whos down in Whoville say, “Christmas day will always be/Just as long as we have we.” Plus this year, Ken got me the wine fridge that I asked for, two bottles of very good wine to go in it, and some other nice things, so I never once had to say “Thank you, it’s beautiful”.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Peaceful Solstice, and all the joy of the season to you and yours.