don we now our gay apparel

They were piping an Elvis Christmas album into the speakers throughout my local Kroger yesterday. A few of the baggers and check-out girls were wearing bright red Christmas sweaters with snowmen or reindeer, and the plastic pine tree was being set up next to the cigarette counter. The holiday season has begun, I suppose.

This always bothers me. Thanksgiving is its own day, and it should not be relegated to the position of Christmas' bitch. On Thanksgiving we get to eat much the same food as Christmas, but without all the pressure of buying gifts, going to church, or making conversation with family members we only see annually. The Lord provides us with the distraction of professional football on Thanksgiving to smooth the lulls in awkward conversation and provide a backdrop for our tryptophan fueled naps. We slumber until father Camino breaks out the Manheim Steamroller CDs, and then we eat more pie and go home with the majority of a four day weekend still before us. There will be a month until Christmas, and people will understand if we do a half-assed job of things in that time.

Hearing Elvis as I wander down the frozen waffle aisle in shorts and a T-shirt only makes me want to shift to that half-assed mode a few weeks early. Then again, it can be said that I already operate half-assedly, so I suppose that my holiday mode only employs a quarter-ass.

Perhaps I will someday have an assless Christmas.

Great. People will now show up here by googling "assless Christmas", and it is all because some of you couldn't wait a couple of weeks to start playing your holiday music.

I hope you're happy.