Well, my roommates and I have just finished a wonderful little dinner party to celebrate the holidays, and also to celebrate the arrival of the first third of my book advance.
In a related story, the room is spinning. So bear with me.
Every year around the day after Thanksgiving, my mother would go into the attic and find the "Christmas stuff." It was a very exciting thing for my mom and dad, the hanging and assembling of the ornaments and endless &c of Christmastime. But I always thought the trees and the wreaths and so on sort of sucked. My affection for Christmas has always been of a singular nature: I do not terribly care when or how Jesus was born (I'm fond of the adult Jesus but sort of ambivalent about the infant, as indeed I am ambivalent about most infants). I like presents. Specifically, I like receiving them.
So no one was more surprised than me when I got all into Christmas shit this year. We bought a tree for our apartment. A real one. Then we bought some ornaments for it. And I'm not a genius or anything, but I'm able to make the following rudimentary calculations:
Calculation 1: I'm not going to throw away the ornaments I bought. Sure, I bought most of them at "Everything's A Dollar," where I was displeased to learn that "Everything's a Dollar--Except for Christmas Tree Ornaments, Which Are Considerably More."
Calculation 2: I have, therefore, become the sort of guy who has a semi-permanent collection of "Christmas Stuff."
Calculation 3: Ergo, I am a grown up. I can chew all the tobacco I want. I can have dinner parties and drink three glasses of champagne and become so intoxicated that it takes me fourteen attempts to correctly spell the words "three glasses." But the final calculation is inescapable: We have dinner parties, and they aren't ironic. We have Christmas stuff. We are not as young as we used to be.
Calculation 4: Old. I'm old. Old and drunk on four-dollar champagne. Lord Christ, whose birth I find suddenly meaningful, have mercy on me. Lord Christ, have mercy on this poor, wretched, old sinner.
Merry Christmas.
Well, my roommates and I have just finished a wonderful little dinner party to celebrate the holidays, and also to celebrate the arrival of the first third of my book advance.
In a related story, the room is spinning. So bear with me.
Every year around the day after Thanksgiving, my mother would go into the attic and find the "Christmas stuff." It was a very exciting thing for my mom and dad, the hanging and assembling of the ornaments and endless &c of Christmastime. But I always thought the trees and the wreaths and so on sort of sucked. My affection for Christmas has always been of a singular nature: I do not terribly care when or how Jesus was born (I'm fond of the adult Jesus but sort of ambivalent about the infant, as indeed I am ambivalent about most infants). I like presents. Specifically, I like receiving them.
So no one was more surprised than me when I got all into Christmas shit this year. We bought a tree for our apartment. A real one. Then we bought some ornaments for it. And I'm not a genius or anything, but I'm able to make the following rudimentary calculations:
Calculation 1: I'm not going to throw away the ornaments I bought. Sure, I bought most of them at "Everything's A Dollar," where I was displeased to learn that "Everything's a Dollar--Except for Christmas Tree Ornaments, Which Are Considerably More."
Calculation 2: I have, therefore, become the sort of guy who has a semi-permanent collection of "Christmas Stuff."
Calculation 3: Ergo, I am a grown up. I can chew all the tobacco I want. I can have dinner parties and drink three glasses of champagne and become so intoxicated that it takes me fourteen attempts to correctly spell the words "three glasses." But the final calculation is inescapable: We have dinner parties, and they aren't ironic. We have Christmas stuff. We are not as young as we used to be.
Calculation 4: Old. I'm old. Old and drunk on four-dollar champagne. Lord Christ, whose birth I find suddenly meaningful, have mercy on me. Lord Christ, have mercy on this poor, wretched, old sinner.
Merry Christmas.
posted by John Green @ Tuesday, December 23, 2003
1 Comments
1 Comments:
You weren't old then and you certainly not old now! That's a great narrative about how Christmas stuff=growing up.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home