Evil "ex-mas"

It's not sugar plums but evil thoughts that dance in my head as we head into the stretch for christmas. I keep returning to a sort of vengance fantasy (oh I just wrote "family" by accident, that's funny) about xmas. See, I don't like the holiday but during my time with my ex T___, I had to do way too much christmas reveling on demand for his family.

I recall liking christmas as a child. I recall wanting to continue liking it but feeling so, I don't know, overwrought about it all as a teen. By my 20s I was abashedly phobic about the season. Now I simply acknowledge that this holiday isn't for everyone, and I'm one of the not everyone. I don't generally wish to spoil it for the people who seem to enjoy it. I do even sometimes find myself wistfully smelling pine from wreaths outside the grocery store and nodding happily at twinkling lights on bare frosted branches outside the less garishly decorated houses. These bursts of pleasant sentiment come and go until about December 20th or so, by which point everything starts to look too much like broken promises, lost hope, and other sorts of politely inexpressable disappointment for me to feel unambivalently happy about any of it.

By the actual celebration, I want to avoid big social occasions since I feel like the jaded divorcee at a wedding (hey one year I got to combine both of those at once...that sure was swell!). By December 23rd, it's hard for me to keep my growing cynicism in check although I dislike the feeling that comes from inflicting it on others who are still waiting for their post christmas dinner drunkeness to unwrap the year's failed intentions.

Despite all this, for the last few years I found myself in the position of feeling I should make the most of it and try not to act on my desire to run and hide. I tried because my boyfriend T___ liked christmas. And I liked him. It's easy to find enjoyment in something that someone you love enjoys. I could enjoy the small private moments of the season with him, and that helped. T___'s family liked christmas. I supposed the artifice and materialism were not even remotely problematic for them. So although I disliked The Family in increasing degrees, because I cared for T___, I liked christmas by transitive circumstance. Further, attending at least some of his family's numerous christmas celebrations (including the swell christmas ski trip wedding, did I mention I hate skiing?) was required lest I bring the disapproval of his family down not just on me but on him as well, with repercussions throughout the year. So I did as much as I could stand* without feeling like I was massively betraying myself.

And now it's christmas time again! My then boyfriend T___ is now ex boyfriend T___. One nice perk that I remind myself of at least once a week is that I don't have to deal with The Family anymore. But, well, habits die hard I guess since I find myself really wanting to include T___ and his family in my holiday plans somehow. I have an urge to do something special that expresses the feelings the words "You suck" just can't totally convey. Yes, I know this is evil, rotten, and wrong. I do. Hence the title of this post. Please allow me to assure you that at least my vengance fantasies are not of a ghastly type. In fact, most of the time they are not even criminally tinged. Possibly a little vandalistic. I did wonder what would happen if I put some bread dough in my former landlady's mailbox during a hot day, for example**.

My "ex-mas" list:
- Making a donation to MADD in The Family's name and/or...

- Getting several dozen MADD bumpers stickers and slapping them on everyone's cars while they are inside getting plastered on whiskey sours during the christmas eve party (before they leave to drive all over the rural, unlit, icey countryside). Those people are going to kill someome someday.

- Sending T___ a butt plug. A little backstory here: T___ was one of those guys who liked to have a certain kind of, uh, stimulation during sex. I was going to buy him one for fun, 'cause like I said, things that make your lover happy....well, you know. Plus it would save me the wash up. A butt plug would be a reminder that I was not only one of the smartest, funniest, most romantic, loving, tolerant, and competent women he'll ever have the priviledge to have been involved with but I was also sexually active, willing, and very understanding. Women he'll date in the future might put up with his family's intrusions into their relationship with T__, but I'll wager real money that they wouldn't be the kind of women who would unflinchingly offer an obliging digit occasionally while being able to maintain a sense of dignity and allure afterwards.

- I told my sister about the butt plug. She had a brilliant idea: Get a family pack! Butt plugs all around!

- Go "nogging" on christmas night. "Nogging" is an idea my dear friend A___ and I came up with recently. It's like egging, except you use rancid egg nog. What to put it in, we wondered. Glass bottles seems too violent - big, heavy, and liable to not just break but break things. We've considered balloons and possibly plain red and green christmas ornaments. They shatter so nicely.

Other things that might make my christmas merry and bright:
- Give that whole "gay apparel" thing a linguistically modern interpretation. Do a fashion show/drag christmas parade down main street. Or a drag nativity scene. It's not like there isn't a precedent. Another girl and I were two of the three "kings" in the Sacred Heart christmas pageant. See what that sort of gender confusing catholic bullshit can do to a person? My sister was Mary. I'll bet she never stuck her finger up a guy's ass.

- Find the most ostentatious christmas decorations in the area. Get dressed up and go out for a photo shoot. Originally I was thinking of dressing in High Goth and pose in the yard holding a big glittery sign saying "Merry Fucking Christmas!" My most recent favorite involves a guy in a bell studded leather harness as my steed. If I were to do that, I would have to dress in some kind of old fashioned high collared christmas blouse and a knee length plaid skirt, like in the Sears christmas family portraits. Ho ho ho. I want pictures and I want to use them as my holiday cards next year.

- Host an "antichristmas" movie fest. Bad Santa, The Ref ("Connecticut is the fifth ring of hell"), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. This will actually happen I think.

- Go to Walmart with an audio recorder. Interview shoppers about the most violent or inhumane act they have witnessed or been a part of during their christmas shopping. Edit, mix into a traditional rendition of a christmas song, and play on the radio.

- Go to Walmart or the mall with a camcorder. Wait and videotape people verbally or physically attacking one another for parking spaces. Sell the footage to local news networks, or post it on the web with close ups of the license plates. These people need to be publicly shamed.

Any other unreasonable ideas will be accepted.

* = Christmas wedding ski trip was more than I could stand, but it was an extenuating circumstance. How can you not go to your live in boyfriend of three years' brother's wedding?
** = I didn't do it though. In fact, the worst thing I did was sign her up to get more info about one of those "dream vacation" things online.