Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Don't Lose It Over Last Minute Shopping



Waited until the last minute to do your Christmas shopping? Lucky for you the Dysfunctional Bungalow has some ideas for you, like:



• Gift certificates for therapy.

I encourage you to explore the kinds of therapy options that are available. I have known types of therapy where you beat bats into pillows, group therapy where "the group" guides your life, giving you advice on dating and career (yes this borders on a cult, but whatever works), therapy where you throw dishes and any other no-longer-needed-breakables. For easiest clean up, I suggest throwing directly into a dumpster. Yes, you get a certain reputation as the “crazy dumpster lady,” but who wants to spend the afternoon cleaning up that kind of mess at your own house?

Living in the country lends itself to screaming therapy; otherwise you will get the police at your door. I once shared a house where “the screamers” met one Saturday a month. I would wait until they were in deep waves of pain screams to sneak into the kitchen and grab some tasty snacks they brought.

Just remember times are tough. Give a gift that will offer some relief for the jobless, foreclosed upon, and the sick without healthcare.

It has gotten so bad these folks are winding up on my doorstep. Last night I pulled into our snowy driveway to find a little girl sledding down it. I was glad to see that our lack of shoveling benefits someone. I introduce myself and we started to get to know each other. She tells me her name is Elizabeth and that our next door neighbor is babysitting her while her foster mother is working. She assures me driveway/alley sledding is safe as long as you look out for cars. She also informs me this will be a horrible Christmas. Elizabeth isn’t interested in sharing the details, which I can appreciate. I simply offer her a stack of our old dishes and lead her to our silver aluminum trash can to help her work it out.




Thursday, December 3, 2009

Real or Artificial - Either Way I'm Afraid



I fear Christmas trees. I realize it is like fearing lollipops, children’s birthday parties, frosted chocolate cupcakes, fuzzy bunny rabbits, or dishes of pudding. I am sure it is considered un-American, satanic, and the 73rd reason I will be going to hell. But to me Christmas trees are big and intimidating and overbearing and needy.


They start out naked and need lights and garland, and bows, and a tree topper, and popcorn, and sentimental ornaments you need to have some story about, ornaments that some kid made you with peeling glue and despite the fact it’s falling apart you love it more each year.

Everyone around me has these fabulously rich stories of growing up with Christmas, decorating the tree, rising early on Christmas morning to sparkling gifts magically placed under the tree, and I just can’t relate making me feel like a foreigner.

Recently, we got a tree and I have attempted to join in the magically delicious fun to decorate it and it never looks like the one’s I see in magazines. One year I imagined the tree as a person instead of a thing and hung vintage air fresheners with pictures of tantalizingly naked ladies on her. I gave her a tree skirt made of a fur stole. And I added some shiny, rhinestone costume jewelry to top it off. We had a party and I could tell from our guest’s reactions this is not how other people had decorated their trees in their homes and I would not be rewarded with gifts next to my furry tree skirt on Christmas morning.

Some of our friends had travelled to Spain during the Christmas season. They were so desperate for a tree they drove their rental car into a wooded area and illegally cut down a tree to take home. Very conspicuously they drove past suspicious eyes back to town with a freshly cut tree riding high in the back of their convertible.

I am uncomfortable with my very unpopular indifference toward trees when most people are willing to risk an unsavory encounter with the Spanish police for their passion for the Christmas tree.