Tuesday, November 27, 2007

I don't think I want untrained eyes looking at me anyway.

I have no taste. There. I said it. I feel as clean as if I’d used something with the words “feminine" and "rain fresh” in it.

A large part of the year I can manage to fake having just enough class so that decent people will be seen speaking to me. I never blow my nose in restaurants, I wear at least one bra when in close proximity of impressionable children and if I have gotten drunk enough to be one half of a one night stand, I always promptly send a thank you note.

See what I mean? No taste. No couth. I shouldn’t be making jokes about having a one night stand. I’m a married woman, for gosh sake. I should be talking about rainbows and tea sets and how much I love the way my wedding band is round.

As I said, a large part of the year I walk around cloaked in pretend classiness so that to the untrained eye, or someone who lives in a single wide whose landscaping plan includes tires with flowers in them, I might actually look like an OK gal.

Until December.

Something happens to me in the twelfth month that compels me to begin decorating my small space on Earth with things that twinkle, glow, spin, and/or shimmer. If I can find something that does all those things PLUS makes a Christmas noise, I have a little seizure and must be revived by a candy cane.

Tacky? Perhaps. Necessary? Entirely.

This year I have been working way more than any good person should, so Mr. Man has been left in charge of the exterior illumination. Thankfully he and I share a genuine affection for embarrassing displays of holiday joy. He has spent many hours making sure my house can be seen from space. I figure if I’m going to celebrate Jesus’ birthday with twinkle lights, I should make sure He can see it.

I have to admit that even though I get a big thrill out of growing our electric bill, I do feel a little down in the dumper after seeing television commercials during this season. The spots they run this time of year seem to exist simply to point out that I am a loser who needs more money, more friends and more lights.

First of all, it’s always snowing on TV. Not any of that wet, nasty slush that’s been driven over by too many cars so that it’s turned black from the exhaust. It’s that pure white snow on which only Lexus SUV’s and horse drawn sleighs carrying romantic men and their insanely skinny wives are allowed to travel.

On the same street where it’s snowing perfect flakes cut out by angels who drop them from Heaven, there are only two-story houses with large yards and perfectly hung white lights across the front. On the door is a giant Christmas wreath flown in from the Martha Stewart Imported Swedish Wreath Collection and through the windows you can see the fireplace crackling and about twenty happy people drinking wassail.

(You drink that stuff, right? It's not some sort of ointment is it?)

On the snow covered front porch, ALWAYS, are well dressed, well groomed friends with their hands full of gifts just about to knock.

Sometimes they’re bringing Ferrero Rocher in a gold box, sometimes they’re bringing a bottle of wine and sometimes, if the hostess is very, very lucky, they are bringing a plush snowman from Hallmark that sings a fun Christmas song while its carrot nose wiggles.

That funny burning in the back of your throat is jealousy. Just do what I do and chew it back.

Never once in my life have I had a Christmas like that one. First of all, I’d have to move because my house doesn’t have a second floor and even if I could convince guests that the storage space over the garage is really our rumpus room, the dead mice and dusty copies of National Geographic’s might put a damper on gathering around the piano to sing carols.

Also, I don’t have a piano.

My Christmas wish this year is that I could have a commercial Christmas. I want my home made sugar cookies to look like I bought them in a bakery instead of like I was trying to make 8 dozen white blobs of holiday goo.

I want to walk outside to find my entire block has been covered by fresh, white snow that will stay perfect and white for at least the month of December. If I could get a nice man to move in next to me who smokes a pipe and has a son named Timmy who would shovel my sidewalk for a dollar and some hot chocolate, that would be super-dooper.

And more than anything else, I want some commercial friends who wear proper overcoats, have a nice supply of Ferrero Rocher and plush snowmen and want nothing more than to come to holiday gatherings in my attic.

In their Lexus SUV’s.

(Hear that Santa?)


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10 comments:

Suburban Correspondent said...

Oh, so cool! Me, too! I want that, too!

Sherri said...

I take it you don't have friends like that either, huh?

Where do those guys live anyway?

Anonymous said...

Your dreams will soon come true, you know about many of my redneck friends and their escapades (not to be confused with Escalade.) Hey, we have couth and class (Maybe with the exception of the "Chaw" incident) up the *** and we'll kick the **** out of anyone that say's we don't! .

Anonymous said...

How about a bag of Holiday M & M's and a Chevy Trailblazer?? I could even throw in a bottle of Boone's Farm if you want!!

Sherri said...

TSG,

I thought you might say that. We're truly a match made in the Trailer Park.

Bunn,

You're invited!!! Woo-hoo!

Karen said...

Me toooooo!! I want the house that Chevy Chase decorates in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...now that house can be seen from SPACE. I'd like the house too, 'cause mine is only one story. We have a space under the rafters, but if we tried to have a party in it, we'd have to offer tetanus shots as a parting gift because the nail points from the roof nails holding the roof on stick into the attic about 3 inches. Everywhere. Now that's FUN.

Jami said...

OH, YEAH!! Lights and lighted reindeer and lighted trees and lighted cutout figures of all kinds of wintery/Santa-y/Christmasy things and animals and lighted nativities and lighted candy canes and lighted lights! And a few more lights! Last year we blew TWO circuit breakers when we turned on our lights, and I swear that I was so happy that I screamed out loud in pleasure right there in the front yard. We don't have a 3-car garage; we have a carport, a driveway and a big Christmas decoration storage facility that conveniently happens to be attached to the house. And then we start inside. At our house, the Christmas decorating motto is "Why just do it when you can OVERdo it?"

Flutterby said...

Ok.. first off, snow that lasts at least a month is at least a foot and a half or MORE. Second... two feet of snow that hangs around for a month... or more.. SUCKS. Just trust me please. And it sucks even more when you don't have a 4WD Lexus to get you to the store because it NEVER snows more than two or three inches at a time here so you really don't think you need to go stock up on things just because the always stupid weatherman says *We might get some snow tonight*....

Sherri said...

Karen,

I loooooove that movie. The only Christmas movie that tops it is of course, "It's a Wonderful Life" which I have seen about a billion times.

Jami,

I want to see your house!!! How about some video blogging, chick?

Flutter,

I'm sorry Darlin. As a woman who lives in a place that does not typically get snow like that, I suffer from genuine snow envy.

Flutterby said...

LOL we don't typically get it like that either. But we did right after Christmas last year. I was ready to find the little shit that wished for it and bury him in it. By the time school had been delayed another week after the already two week holiday, because we couldn't get the parking lots cleared at the campuses, I had an army of moms with snow shovels ready to go. But we didn't have to because one of the local construction companies sent their bulldozers over instead. I bet they had kids.