Ah Christmas, a time when people go on extravagant spending sprees only to end up broke and worried come January. It’s also a time when people have the nerve to demand and/or expect gifts. I’m not always comfortable with self-retribution but I must say that this attribute is common among the female species. I mean, it’s the birthday of the savior of the world but sure, let’s make it about you. Your actual birthday, the anniversary of the first day he met you, Valentine’s Day, and some random days during the year aren’t already enough. Thankfully, my mother cured me of Christmas entitlement or any sense of entitlement at a young age. To begin with, she didn’t waste her time on any of the make-beliefs. While some kids are afraid of being on Santa’s naughty list, I was truly afraid only of being on my mother’s naughty list because she wasted no time using the rod to prevent the child from getting spoiled. This is not to say that my mother was severe or unfeeling. She just wouldn’t let some white bearded guy or anyone for that matter take credit for her efforts. To sum it all up, she was my Santa, my tooth fairy, my Easter bunny and everything in between. Since the days of getting excited about getting a new, multi-layered white dress for Christmas are long gone, I want nothing. I want nothing material anyway. But there are a couple of things that would make my Christmas superb. To start with, kindly don’t try to set me up. Yes, I know. One of your distant cousins saw my photo on Facebook and made remarks about some features on my body. And since he is around for Christmas, it would only be natural for us to meet. I know I’m alone and I appreciate your concern but I would really appreciate it if you stopped trying to rescue me from my loneliness. My being single doesn’t give you the right to treat me as a charity case. It would also be great if everybody stopped asking; “Where is Christmas?” How the hell is someone supposed to answer that question? Did I miss a class concerning this? Christmas is not a person or a tangible thing so no; I don’t know where it is. And you can only give so many vague answers in a day. Moreover, I have to be careful about the vague answers I give because once, I told someone, “It is there. Come and get it,” and the sucker actually took me up on my offer. So there we were, seated in awkward silence as he sipped on a soda that I had previously budgeted for. As a good Christian, it would be terrible if I didn’t ask that people stop making Christmas about themselves. But in a way, I am guilty of doing that too. It isn’t my day but here I am making requests. So instead of attempting to remove specs in people’s eyes while ignoring the log in mine, I will just say, may your Christmas be whatever you want it to be.
