1-5 years old
You're too young to understand the
concept of Christmas. Toddlers enjoy the pretty lights, the
gingerbread cookies and popcorn ball treats, the songs and carols and
everything fun about the holiday but they don't quite yet understand
the power of Xmas. To young kids, Christmas feels like a second
birthday except the gifts are doubled, there is no blowing out of
birthday candles or parties with ponies taking embarrassing dumps in
the backyard. At this age the toy or the box it came in is just as
fun to play with. Chewing on the Christmas light cords like the dog
does is also fun to do.
6-8 years old
This is the Christmas sweet spot. The
age when anything...any gift, magical event, or wish is possible
thanks to a fat man living up north in a house full of midgets making
toys strangely identical to major manufacturers (yet no one seems to
mind). The holiday also includes the greatest gift of all — a week
off from school and the constant torture of teachers, bullies and the
inability to take a dump for eight hours a day because no one would
dare use a bathroom at school...under any circumstances. This is also
the age where breaking your new toys can be fun too. This was hard
at one time because Tonka make their toys out of real metal. You kids
have it easy today!
9-12 years old
Santa was a lie! You had an idea a few
years earlier but now all signs point to your parents shoveling you
bullshit for the first decade of your life. What else have they been
lying about? Oh just tooth fairies, bunnies delivering chocolate and
your uncle who stopped coming by the house a few Thanksgivings ago.
He’s not in the Peace Corp, he’s in jail, but they won’t say
exactly what for. Maybe lying to his kids about a jolly fat dude with
a perverted sounding “naughty” list and a tooth collecting broad
with more singles than a main stage stripper on a busy Saturday night
to dole out. This is the age where you begin to play the same game
back to your parents by ever so deftly manipulating them into getting
the gifts you want. This is especially easy if your parents are
divorced. You can really haul it in!
13-20 years old
It’s not about asking for toys
anymore, you're a teen, it’s about getting gifts to elevate social
status. Designer clothes, expensive kicks, flashy tech gear and maybe
even a car if you’re old man is willing to finally give up his
beater of a ride, buy something built in the 2000s, and fork over the
keys. You also loathe yourself for getting so excited over a
Christmas gift basket filled with stuff you need at college. You just
kissed your parents for the thoughtful gift of bulk toilet paper and
rolls of quarters to do laundry. You also realize that getting any
clothing is a great gift because you didn't have to buy it yourself.
That sweater your GrandMom got you at a eleven years of age wasn't a
sucky gift after all.
21-25 years old
You’re out of college. You’ve got a
job. It’s now your responsibility to buy gifts for your entire
family. Thankfully, Jesus invented gift cards (it’s in the New
Testament) so gift buying is a cinch. Unfortunately, you spend the
day after Christmas in return lines because your family has no idea
what clothes you wear, your actual size, what music you like, and
that you haven’t read a book since Lit 101. And seriously, what the
fuck is a compact disc? You also discover that the Chinese are
heathens and don't celebrate Christmas and mercifully keep open their
restaurants on Christmas night so you can escape your family and go
get drunk with your other 20-Something friends. You won't feel like
a loser alcoholic because the place will be packed with others.
25-30 years old
You’re in a long term relationship
and you're already spending the Xmas you don't even have yet on
engagement rings and first homes. The holidays start feeling really
different, since you don’t spend them with your own family anymore,
but with her family, her friends, and maybe if there is time you can
swing by your parents house to visit your mom who’s pissed you’re
not spending the holiday with your family and an old man who has been
drunk since his work Christmas party in early December. Stopping by
with the right excuses may lessen the jealousy of your parents.
Remember to leave the girlfriend home at her parent's place. Realize
as well that come Decmeber 26th, Christmas never existed
nor happened as you are back to your regular workaday world and have
to spend most of your attention on that.
30-40 years old
This decade sucks one massive Yule
Log. You’re married, you’ve got kids, and those kids demand toys
considered “hot ticket items” which oddly get released the week
before Christmas that Hasbro has been hyping the shit out of all
season. So you're traveling in circles around the state just days
before Christmas, sometimes even across a couple state borders, to
find one stupid Hatchanimal. As you frantically search each store
hoping for a miracle (does Home Depot carry toys?) the only thought
circling your head is the kid's disappointment because the toy isn't
under the tree. You've failed as a parent. You SUCK. You’ve given
them a love, a home and attention but couldn’t deliver a fucking
toy every other kid will get and wave in the faces of your kid.
Hopefully the arresting officer will go lightly on your situation
after you punch a nun buying a cart full of Hatchanimals for an
orphanage. It’s a Christmas miracle you didn’t give her a
concussion.
40-50 years old
You've got kids in their teens and
early 20s. The toys turn into gadgets and the holiday morphs into an
event exorbitantly more expensive than ever before. As if footing the
bill for six years in college and another year “finding themselves”
isn’t enough of a gift. You don't like anything about the holiday —
from the songs you've heard only once a month for the last four
decades but annoy the shit out of you at the first note. The Classic
radio stations you love now play this crap 24/7. Also the
decorating, the traffic, the commercials and those Charlie Brown
specials you adored in your youth but now feel like PSA cartoons
about the dangers of bullying in school. Seriously, if ever there
were ever a cartoon kid to shoot up a school, it's Charlie Brown. A
mindful jury would exonerate him.
50-60 years old
You don't care about Christmas till a
week ago. Your wife (if you're still married) does all of the
shopping, you only have to buy for her, and yet you still manage to
screw that up. Your kids visit for a couple hours, just to collect
their gift cards and eat, and shuttle out the door to visit their
future in-laws because they are “splitting time” between families
this year. You’d all celebrate together but your in-laws are
fucking morons with big mouths. You're also not allowed to eat half
the food on the Christmas table because of high cholesterol or that
just-starting heart failure you've been diagnosed with. You go to
the buffet table in the other room alone where you can to shove all
that salami into your mouth, as long as they don't see it, it can't
hurt. You end the day in a drunken sleep.
60-70 years old
The holiday is slightly more enjoyable.
You're older now, semi-retired, and living off a smaller salary so no
one expects absurdly expensive gifts. There are also grandchildren.
It's fun to watch them open gifts, get excited for Santa and get
wrapped up in the festivities like your kid's did — and you — did
so many decades ago. It's also enjoyable to witness your own
children, now grown, slowly lose faith in the holiday while chasing
down the newest piece of crap toy around the country. You're laughing
your ass off, chugging spiked eggnog and grinning “welcome to the
club” with a warmth that’s probably thanks to the brandy spiked
chocolates and double rum cakes. If there is one thing to celebrate
during the holidays it’s booze-infused baked goods. What's also
good is that at this age, you can complain of feeling too cold or
tired and your kids will drive you home and you get to avoid all the
drama.
70-80 years old —
You don't notice, or care, it's Christmas time. Many of your friends
are dead, all your kids are gone during the holiday, visiting your
grandkids or just refusing to spend time with a miserable old bastard
like you. The good news is no one expects shit from you as far as
presents because you're living off a pension or meager social
security benefits. Retirement? Ha! Bigger bullshit that Old Saint
Nick. Your family would rather you not buy them gifts anyway since
you're terrible at buying gifts. It's because you always left it up
to your wife. You'd buy gifts that had meaning to you, 50 years ago!
Where is your wife? Well, it depends which wife you're talking
about. Also, you spend at least five minutes a day thinking about
your own death. It will kill the mood of any retirement community
holiday pizza party.
80-90 years old —
Christmas? You call this shit Christmas?!? When I was a kid, THAT was
Christmas! You refuse to talk about the Christmas that's going on now
and prefer to speak of ones that occurred right after WW2...during
the German Reconstruction period. Each Christmas you manage to see
keenly reminds you of the next one you, by probability, won't see.
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