Living Retired #219- December 4, 2017
HUSBANDS & WIVES SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS IN DIFFERENT WAYS.
It’s December.
Around the world people are preparing to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas–by personalizing the family greeting card with a picture of their dog wearing a pink tutu and feather boa.
Much of December is wasted driving in circles around the shopping mall parking lot with one hand on the steering wheel and the other out the window frantically waving a finger at the idiot who stole your spot. In the backseat the Michelin Man–oh that’s your kid in his snowsuit!–screams, “Mom I’m peeing my pants!”
Amongst all this merriment everyone wishes each other the best of the season. The Spanish say Feliz Navidad. The Italians say Buon Natale. The French say Joyeau Noel. In Farsi it is Christmas MobArah.
But not so fast Mr. Elf on the Shelf! After 25 years of marriage, couples don’t say Merry Christmas…
Wives say “What the hell were you thinking?”
Husbands say “Look! Do you want me to help or not!”
Here’s what I mean…
When a guy drags the scrawny 27′ tall Christmas tree he chopped down into the living room–scraping the paint and scarring the wallpaper–you can count on his wife to take one look at the frozen blob with its crooked trunk and throw her hands into the air and scream, “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?”
With sharp pine needles sticking out of his fingers and sticky pine sap in his frostbit nostrils, her husband shouts “LOOK! DO YOU WANT ME TO HELP OR NOT?”
Realizing it’ll cause even more damage to extricate the tree out of the house, your wife comes to her senses saying, “Well you’ve gone this far we may as well put it up.”
The expression ‘putting it up’ is really a misnomer because everyone knows the Christmas tree is put into a stand so it can fall over! Husbands spend hours trying to make the tree stand upright–even tying bungee cords around the trunk and stretching across the living room over through the dining room chairs and nailed into the china cabinet. Or securing the tree stand to a 4′ square piece of plywood that is then nailed through the carpet into the floor joists. It all leads to the same outcome…
Your wife walks into the room–in her bare feet because it’s the middle of winter!–and steps right into a 3′ pile of dead pine needles in the carpet. Bouncing around on one foot and swearing like a soccer mom she trips over the rope and falls into the plastic ivy with fake flicking candles on the fireplace mantel and screams, “What the hell were you think thinking?”
Your husband responds with, “Look. Do you want me to help or not!”
FYI: Last year our Christmas tree was parallel to the floor so much that I suggested to Jan that we invite our friends over and charge them a fee to pose for a picture standing beside the ‘Worlds Only Christmas Tree Balance Beam.’
Then there’s the annual Christmas tradition of decorating the front of the house. OMG!
Women, tired of asking–okay pleading!–finally give their husband an ultimatum: “If you don’t put that television remote down and go outside and put the decorations up, I’ll hide the Victoria Secret Christmas catalogue on you.”
An hour later, guys are lugging an extension ladder with strings of Christmas lights dragging behind. It’s cold, the wind is whipping, the ground is frozen–perfect conditions for putting up the Christmas decorations!
Finally, with strings of lights drooping from the eavestrough, fake icicles sagging from the garage, and an inflatable plastic Santa Claus that won’t inflate in the middle of the yard, your wife comes out to inspect. Instead of taking a selfie kneeling in front of the nativity scene with plastic hay bales and imitation frankincense, she takes one look at what you’ve managed to put together and screams, “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?”
With the blinking lights not blinking and his frozen fingers not working, your husband says, “LOOK! DO YOU WANT ME TO HELP OR NOT?”
With that your wife throws her hands into the air, spins around to stomp off into the house–and trips!!–this time over the giant green foam Christmas topiary! Sobbing, she says she’s emailing your daughter: “I’m telling her to replace ’till death do us part’ in her marriage vows to ’till we can afford to hire professionals we won’t hang outdoor Christmas lights.'”
And then there is the Christmas tradition of buying the Christmas turkey. Men take on this responsibility because we have an innate talent of knowing just how big a bird to purchase.
Without getting into all the details, it’s a complicated formula that takes into consideration the number of people who will want white meat, the number of people who will have dark meat, and the 3 pounds of cooked mush that will result from carving the turkey after drinking chocolate peppermint schnapps all day long!
With everyone seated at the dinner table, you can count on men proudly presenting the carved turkey on the platter…
Your wife will take one look at how you transformed a perfect plump Christmas turkey into something that resembles a plush Tickle Me Elmo after your dog got hold of it! With one of those silly gold paper crowns perched on her head from the Christmas cracker, she’ll grit her teeth and moan, “What the hell were you thinking?”
At this point your husband will with one hand–because the other hand is wrapped in a dish towel serving as a tourniquet from carving the turkey with an electric knife–rip off his Christmas apron with a John Deere motif and storm out of the room and scream, “Look. Do you want me to help or not!”
