I love Christmas.

Just puttin that out there.

A little warning if you will.

For all you grinchy, scroogy people (Franky) who pull up their Christmas-Cranky-Pants at the close of November and cringe at the very thought of tinsel and circular foliage displays.

For those of you who rant on and on about Christmas being a religious gone consumer parade.

For those of you who want to drone on and on about Santa not being real, about coke-a-cola exploiting and commercializing jesus christ somebody’s lord and saviour, about the lack of insincerity and compassion, the slaughtered goats etc…

I don’t want to hear it. Christmas is whatever you want it to be. You don’t have to buy gifts or eat yule log or anything else you don’t want to do.

I don’t care if you think Good King Wenceslas was a self important pretentious douche-bag or if miniature nativities give you nightmares or about how severe your allergies have been ever since your first aerosol spray snow exposure or blah blah blah…

I don’t want to hear about. I’m not opening up the anti-Christmas forum so make yourself a hot cup of cocoa and a bowl of popcorn and sit this one out.

For all of you who are sent into a state by the scent of gingerbread and pine.

For the rest of you, the ones who can’t decide which theme to decorate the tree with this year,

the ones who have started making room in the freezer for cookie dough,

the ones who have already written the Christmas Card Lists and ordered their Turkeys…

I have a few words.

A few links.

A few suggestions

and A LOT of enthusiasm to share.

And I will.

I love baking cookies, wrapping gifts, sending cards and eating mountains of chocolate and candy canes.

I love Santa, elves, gingerbread and listening to jazz on the sofa while sipping hot rum under the Christmas lights.

I love watching the snow fall from inside the warm house, wrapped in my grandmother’s afghan and my toasty-comfy slippers.

What I don’t love is panicking like a wild woman because I didn’t get my shit together fast enough to finish making any of the 30 Christmas gifts I planned this summer.

What I don’t love is running to the grocery store on Christmas eve to buy all the ingredients needed to stuff 15 or 20 friends and family members, staying up all night baking pies, defrosting Tofurky, wrapping thoughtless overpriced gifts, stuffing stockings and waking up 3 hours later to rush the kids through their presents so I can start cleaning the house.

I don’t love that the floors are still drying when my guests arrive and that I’m in the shower, washing my hair with one hand and leaning out the tub to scrub the toilet at the same time.

I love having the house full of loved ones, laughter, shortbread and booze but I tend to get a little overwhelmed with Christmas craziness.

So this year I did something super cheesy and it might be the thing that keeps me sane this holiday season.
I signed up for an internet holiday planner.

Yep I did.

And if you want to know more about it, go HERE, where I explain it in all it’s cheesy glory.

In the meantime we’re going to be Noel-Buddies you and I.

I’m going to make you look at pictures of ornaments an wreaths and I’m going to share my cookie recipes and gift ideas with you and sing you Christmas carols and tell you bedtime stories and you’re going to do the same okay?

Yay!

I don’t want to be a jerk or anything and I get how maybe you didn’t think a pony was a good gift for an irresponsible 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 or 11 year old child living in a 2nd floor flat in Montreal city, good call. But I’m at a bit of a loss as to why you failed me all those years in a row re: Barbie’s dreamhouse.

Honestly Santa, was a Mr. T action figure or a Mork and Mindy T-Shirt really so much to ask? Silly Putty? Come on! It’s only a dollar at Dollarama today. How much could it possibly have cost in 1976?

The thing is Nick,
My therapist may insist that my fear of abandonment/paralyzing inability to trust /OCD/Oppositional Defiance Disorder etc… are stemmed from daddy issues or that I’m competing with my mother or burying a past trauma in the recesses of my subconscious but I think I’m pretty in touch with my feelings and the only one person that I can think of in my entire life who has been consistently absent from my life, filled my head with gross fantasies and empty promises and, for all intents and purposes, failed me, is…

Look, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, probably just a (repeated) oversight on your part, but this has been one hell of a year and I’m thinking that if ever you were to get the urge to redeem yourself, now would be a really great time to do it.

I have taken the liberty of making you a list so you really don’t have to put any thought into it at all.

1) A Sweater hand knit by somebody’s grandma, preferably with reindeer and holly on it but I will easily settle for snowflakes if that’s all you’ve got.

2) A state of the art 21.1-megapixel full-frame camera to capture the growth, brilliant smiles, cherished moments, exhilarating love and emotions of my beautiful daughters. And also so I can take naked poorly lit amateur photos of myself and text them to my boyfriend when he’s on tour.

3) A Tofurky. I can’t find one anywhere and I’ve been ridiculed over the phone by every grocery store in the city this week.

“Tof-what? What is it? We have Turkey”

“No, I’m sure I’ve bought it
there before. It’s called Tofurky, it’s made of Soy product and… ”

“We have Turkey sausages.”

“No, it’s a stuffed..”

“Oh! Stuffing! We have it in boxes and in tubs”

“No a stuffed…”

“We don’t have stuffed Turkeys m’am you have to stuff it yourself.”

Please, Mr. Kringle, don’t make us settle for faux tourtière again this year, I suck at making it and it tastes like ground cardboard, even with Ketchup on it.

4) Employment insurance (even on sick leave) doesn’t pay the rent let alone Christmas so I was thinking…
I’ve got their stocking stuffers covered, I keep a junk drawer full of them ( batteries, razors, condoms, pennies,twist ties etc…),
but I could really use enough money deposited into my bank account to buy some cool presents for the kids. It’s one thing to give a gift certificate for a massage or taking out the garbage to your husband (and even then…) but they never go over quite as well with the kids. I thought of making them clay ashtrays shaped as iPods but wondered if it might give the wrong message. Speaking of money and youth protection…

5) Rent paid for the next 6 months (or last two), so I can take my drinking and child neglect to the next level (finish writing my book, album and one woman show).
The world will be a much better place, I assure you.

6) My youth back. Preferably my 6 year old energy, 18-21 year old body with my 32 year old brain, if it can be arranged. If not, I’ll settle for that Mork and Mindy T-Shirt.

7) I have three kids, a dog and the neighbour’s cat (who refuses to go home). Without exaggeration, 3 1/2 hours is how long my dryer takes to dry one sock, a dishtowel and two cotton pillow cases. I’m not sure if we have a washing machine anymore because I cant reach the area it was once situated in, due to the mountain of wet mouldy laundry that has been waiting 6 months for it’s turn in the dryer. So please…Santy, be a pal

8 ) And last but not least, Sephora. Yes, the whole place. A whole Sephora, of my very own. That’s what I want.

9) UPDATE! Telus just disconnected my cell phone (again) because the bill is past due by ONLY 8 DAYS!! Please Father Christmas, please, please, please kill them (economically) PLEASE.

Alright Jultomten, I think that pretty much covers it. I thank you sincerely for your time and look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.

Love Jen (Jennie)

P.S. Thanks for the Slinky