Happy Holidays

Our house is like a Christmas tree that doesn’t know when Christmas is. Every year, small festive additions go up, and never come down.

We’re not big on holidays. Most occasions warrant a phone call to the grandparents, maybe something special for dinner but nothing exorbitant, nothing religious and nothing that marks the date as anything more than a number on a calendar.

Pop culture would have me believe that these special days are a time for family, love, generosity… plus other virtues, but I don’t think we need to allocate days to celebrate these things. Designating a day for romance and a day for family, these things become nothing more than a chore, and after the first few years of it, most people end up dreading them.

I think Christmas and birthdays have given me the idea that friends only need presents twice a year. Family only needs me to be extra nice a few days of the year. These small acts of redemption are good enough, it feels. And because these virtues are not what we tend to practice everyday, those few holidays are seen as the reason why we should be nice or giving or affectionate.

”Give money to the man on the street, why? Because it’s Christmas.”

or

” Give us that! Deagol my love.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my birthday and I wants it.”

Holidays told Smeagol that murder was an okay thing to do as long as it was his birthday (even if this isn’t exactly true, I’m convinced it made the task easier to justify). Holidays tell me that I’m a good person if I’m extra nice once a year in December. I should be nice because Christmastime is supposed to be nice, not because niceness is a admirable quality to possess. Children are told that if they are nice, they will get toys. There’s some first-rate intrinsic motivation for you. I hate to over-cynicise, but it gives parents the leeway to say, “I’m not buying you that, it’s three months until Christmas, ask me then.”

However, the things I enjoy about Hallmark* holidays are that they do remind people of the good things in life, even if the reasoning is shot. Movies like Love Actually and the Scrubs episode at Christmas still give me warm fuzzies, and watching happy people celebrate is never to be scorned.

Christmastime seems to have an enhancing effect. It brings out the ‘extra’ in all of us, whether good or bad. Good things seem better at Christmas, bad things feel much worse. It is then that we have a clearly defined image of how life ’should be’. Happy.

As long as these ‘pros’ exist, I consider our holidays to be something worth celebrating. But it shouldn’t mean that we never celebrate in between allocated days, nor should it make us feel obligated or guilty. The big pro for me is the aura that they create, when we really know what we want and it takes nothing more than a few kind words, hugs, kisses, friends or strangers to achieve it.

(*Incidentally, I’ve always wondered why Christmas cards only say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Holidays’, and birthday greetings are ‘Have a great day!’. I always feel like I should at least say, “Have a great year!”, or how about even a “great life”. But I guess getting that message annually gets tiring.)

My Monster and Me

I brushed my teeth on Thursday morning 2:30AM. My dad sitting at his computer and me sitting at mine, he reminds me that my curfew is 2AM, knowing full well that I won’t be in bed until 3. And I close my bedroom door at 3AM, knowing full well that he won’t be in bed until 4. It’s a happy arrangement.

This day’s toothbrushing came free with the usual breath of mint, and a bonus! A revelation. I wove the Monster back and forth between pearly whites and coral gums, and listened to her roar.  She lashed fury at the grub remains of my midnight scavenging, screaming to the sleeping world. Her voice was monotonous but as loud to me as a drill. She buzzed away at my mouth-y innards… bzz zz zzzz.

My late night-early morning toothbrushing involves a trip to the other side of the house, to the small bathroom behind the living room.  My onflight luggage is as follows: the Monster, a cup, my traffic-director-yellow retainer box plus retainers, an old fashioned toothbrush for retainer cleaning and a tube of colgate. The trip is made on tiptoes and once I’m behind that bathroom door, I unleash the monster without fear of waking people who sleep at normal hours.

It occurred to me that the Dr. Frankenstein who invented the Monster electric toothbrush could easily have made her quieter, more docile and neighbourhood-friendly. Why, when these days everything is shipped in smaller, faster, stronger, better,  did my Monster have to be so freaking loud?

The revelation came when I realised that she sounds like the dentist’s office in kids movies. In my red-eyed epiphany hungry state, I latch onto this idea. What child will be afraid of the ‘bzzz’ in the dentist’s chair when they have their own ‘BZZZZing’ monster at home every night? Instead of running to hide behind their mother’s business suits, children will hear “See Sammy, this is just like when you brush your teeth at home!”.

My conclusion is that the oral hygiene industry seeks to remove the childish fear of dentists. I can’t say for sure whether they are able to reduce sound on electric toothbrushes. My knowledge of physics reminds me that the electrical energy, transforms into kinetic energy and provides a force that moves the brush, but much energy is lost to heat and … sound. Maybe Monsters are loud simply because they are what they are, monsters.

Either way, I should start brushing my teeth earlier.
(It is now 4AM and my dad is not yet in bed. The arrangement is not working. Then again, it is 4AM and I’m also not in bed. He knows.  !)