Dear Crabby,
As if putting up decorations and running all over the place for presents wasn’t taking up enough of my time, now my wife tells me we’ve got all these holiday parties we have to attend. Ugh. Any advice on how I can skip this headache?
Thanks, Edward McScroogin
Dear Edward McScroogin,
What! You don’t enjoy having to get all dressed up, go to the house of someone you barely know, eat room-temperature appetizers and drink watered-down punch? I’m right there with you buddy. Besides, it seems like these holiday parties have become such big productions. First, there are the frou-frou invitations letting you know the ‘theme’ of the party. Funny, I thought the theme of a holiday party was, ya know, Christmas. I didn’t know we needed to give it a fancy name like ‘Martinis and Mistletoe’ or tell everyone to wear only white to ‘evoke the feeling of fresh fallen snow.’ What happens if I don’t wear white; will there be a bouncer at the door to turn me away? I will say those Ugly Christmas 
Sweater parties sound like a hoot, so if you get invited to one of those, I think you should definitely go. Otherwise, the only holiday parties I think are worth a tinker’s darn is the kind we used to have in my neighborhood growing up. Everyone was invited and everyone brought something to share. It was the one time of the year we could get my mom to make her special fudge, which melted on your tongue. No one got after us kids for how much cocoa we drank, or told us when to go to bed; and we all knew not to accept eggnog from ‘Uncle’ Bob. Sometimes we’d watch movies or sing carols. Aside from eating and having fun, there was really no set agenda. We just allowed the Christmas spirit to move us. Now that’s a holiday party.
As for your situation, I’d say have a talk with your missus and decide on one or two of these holiday parties to attend to try and keep some of the specialness of the season alive. Maybe you bite the bullet and let her pick one of the ‘bells and whistles’ parties and suffer through as best you can. Then, you pick the party that sounds most appealing to you. Of course, if one of the parties you’ve been invited to is a work party, you have no choice but to go. I’m pretty sure the only way to get out of those is to have some medical procedure scheduled for the same time. So, if you’ve been putting off getting your gall bladder out, now may be the perfect time to set that up. But if you’re in good health, go to the party and be on your best behavior because cameras are everywhere these days and once something gets put on the Internet, it’s there forever. And that’s a really long time to live down one night of stupidity.
Hope this helps and remember: enjoy the holiday spirit and take it easy on the spirits, if you know what I mean.
Dear Crabby
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