I believe the spirit of Christmas lives in long lines, traffic, razor wire ... and family
File photo of shoppers passing by a huge Christmas tree at the Citadel Mall in Los Angeles in 2013.
And so we have Christmas. We need this Christmas.
Not all is right with the holidays, of course. There are those insipid Wham! songs, and somehow the Beatles couldn’t write a decent Christmas tune to save their lives.
I also sense in Christmas — I may not be the first to notice — a creeping commercialism. This should not be taken lightly. If such a thing ever got out of hand, it could really ruin an otherwise glorious season.
Till then, I insist on keeping to the core values of the holidays: overeating and oversleeping.
To be honest, I really enjoy the shopping. At the mall, there is a touch of anger in the air — smells like sulfur. Our mall is so insane that even the pickpockets won’t go there anymore. I’d shop online, but then what would I do for mayhem and rudeness?
The other day, I noticed that nobody holds the door — or even looks behind them — when they walk into a busy store. Wham. Bam. Thump. Merry Christmas to you too, pal.
Meanwhile, I’m surgically targeting my family’s gifts. I’ve been compiling lists since summer. Isn’t excellent gift-giving really a form of intimacy, an act of love? It means you’ve been paying attention, cataloging their interests, noticing the items they notice.
And the major conclusion? More than anything, my family needs heavy medication. Maybe Xanax — each pill individually wrapped, like expensive little chocolates.
Instead, I’ll probably just give what I usually do: giant bags of pennies and what’s left of my stack of Styx albums.
Merry Christmas, kids! It’s the hap-happiest season of all!
The other day, I asked our younger daughter what she’d like for Christmas, if she could have anything at all. She tilted her pretty head, thought about it a second, and said: “A sweater?â€
“OK,†I said.
“A sweater made of Justin Bieber’s hair,†my daughter explained. “Or world peace ... take your pick.â€
That seemed a little snarky, which is how I knew Christmas was at hand.
L.A. does not have warm and fuzzy Christmases. In L.A., Christmas means lines out the door at Porto’s Bakery at 6:30 in the morning and cool rain down your neck on the one day you have to shop. It’s strands of lights sparking dangerously in the Santa Ana winds and razor wire around the gritty little tree lot on the corner.
In L.A., Christmas is cheesy surfing Santas or the parking garage at the Grove knotted tight by 10 a.m., cars lined up like corpuscles for one space — any space — please, please, God, please ... .
And at Christmas, L.A.’s famed traffic grows even worse.
We race around, are late to parties, throw together last-minute gifts. On the way to the very first holiday party of the season, I drove up through Glendale and into a giant smog of skunk smell.
Normally, when I enter a big social situation, I smell of raw desperation and budget after-shave. But according to guests, the skunk was an improvement over my Hai Karate.
By the way, the best party conversation so far included this: “When it comes to dating, I’ve pretty much locked up the secular Republican Jews ...,†my friend Christie explained at our office potluck.
Yes, Christmas. We need this Christmas. If only to keep laughing.
As a nation, we don’t share many moments anymore. There are only a few movies we all like. TV is now made up of a million different shows with five fans each, on channels you can never find. If you see us huddled around a television, it probably means emergency lights; some pathetic zealot went crazy again.
Please, please, God, please ... .
Amid all those messes, Christmas is one of the few communal experiences we have left. Which is really why we need this Christmas.
Because this isn’t just a holiday, it’s further evidence that we’d do anything for the people we love, find ways to bring them joy, or surprise, or that new gizmo they crave that we only half understand.
Christmas is the ultimate compilation album. It quilts together our childhoods, our adulthoods, our sense of romance and happy endings, our financial status, our sense of altruism.
And, if we get lucky — and traffic clears a little — the nearness of an elusive God.
Twitter: @erskinetimes
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