Thursday, December 22, 2011

Lying - and other ways to celebrate the holidays

Right around this time of year I start acting very strange and very devious (and very stupid) - and its the worst with the people I love the most.

Here are a few of those Christmas specific behaviors I've noticed lately...

Hoarding - This is a new practice for me. Once Neil and I joined bank accounts I realized the one huge downfall - he can see where I buy his gifts. Shortly after that, I began squirreling away cash. At the grocery store: "I would like cash back with my purchase" and then ten dollars would slip into a drawer. And so on for an entire year. This seemed normal until he found the wad of bills and wondered if I had plans to run away from him in the middle of the night (in fairness, it did look a little bit abusive relationship-esque).

Lying - I think everyone does this. right? When he asks "what were you up to today?" and my honest answer would be "aimlessly searching through sets of headphones for ones that I think would work for you but I don't know because I don't want to spend a lot but the cheap ones break but how cheap is too cheap? and was it new headphones you needed? or did you already buy yourself some? ahhh!" but instead I come up with something like "you know. day stuff. it was really day-ish" (did I mention I'm a bad liar)

Subliminating - If I don't lie well, then I really don't do this part well at all. I call this Subliminating - where you sort of plant a message for you already got while searching for how they react to the mention of the gift. I usually don't care what I receive, but I care about how much someone likes what I give. Because of this I want to make sure and then reaffirm my gift selections. It makes for awkward conversations like this... "hey honey, remember that time when you said you would maybe want to wear a hat. In your mind, was it gray? just, like, hypothetically?"
      Then I do it one better - I clue hunt, strongly suggest, and poorly misdirect (in case they catch on to my subliminating) "Mom, honestly a table lamp would be perfect next to this recliner - like you said before, it would make the room look great - buuutttt I would wait till january to get one because there's no way you want to add lighting to the room before christmas - what with this tree in here and all."

Bulking Up - I don't mean putting on weight (although that happens. no judgement), I mean adding to the gift pile. I think I got this from my mom, and I used to hate it... and now I do it. When I was younger I would say things like "Mom, we're almost out of toothpaste." and if we were within the month of december, she would answer "Well, maybe Santa will bring you some." Now here I am, days before Christmas, and I'm wrapping gum. and cliff bars. Those are groceries people. groceries! I fear I'm a hair away from wrapping up food and pets like Aunt Bethany and it's not pretty....




So Happy Holidays - I hope you are as dysfunctional in your practices as I am (hey at least its all coming from a good place)!

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