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Jingle Bell Schlock (Dowd hates Christmas)
The New York Times ^ | 12/05/04 | Maureen Dowd

Posted on 12/04/2004 2:10:20 PM PST by Pokey78

If I hear "Frosty the Snowman" one more time, I'll rip his frozen face off.

It's a scientific fact, or should be, that Christmas music can turn you into a fruitcake. It either sends you into a Pavlovian shopping trance, buying stupid things like the Robosapien, or, if you hear repeated Clockwork-Orange choruses of "Ring, Christmas Bells" drilling into your brain with that slasher-movie staccato, makes you feel as possessed with Christmas spirit as Norman Bates.

I've never said this out loud before, but I can't stand Christmas.

Everyone in my family loves it except me, and they can't fathom why I get the mullygrubs, as a Southern friend of mine used to call a low-level depression, from Thanksgiving straight through New Year.

"You're weird," my mom says. This from a woman who once left up our Christmas tree until April 3, and who listens to a radio station that plays carols 24/7 all month.

My equally demonic sister has a whole collection of rodents dressed in holiday clothes that she puts up around her house. There's a mouse Santa Claus and mouse Mrs. Claus and mice elves and a miniature Christmas village with mice, and some rat Cinderella coachmen in pink waistcoats and rats in red velvet vests and more rats, wearing frilly red-and-white nightshirts and nightcaps and holding little candles, leading you up the steps to bed. It's beyond creepy. I keep fretting that it's going to be like "Willard" meets "The Nutcracker," where they come alive and eat her like a Christmas pudding.

My mom and sister both blissfully sat through "It's a Wonderful Life" again on Thanksgiving weekend, while even hearing a mere snatch of that movie makes me want to scarf down a fistful of antidepressants - and join all the other women in America who are on a holiday high - except our family doctor is a Scrooge about designer drugs, leaving me to self-medicate as Clarence gets his wings with extra brandy in the eggnog.

I've given a lot of thought to why others' season of joy is my season of doom - besides the obvious fact that yuppies have drenched the holidays in ever more absurd levels of consumerism.

I think it has to do with how stressed out my mom and sister would get on Christmas Day when I was little. I remember them snapping at me; they seemed tense because of all the aprons to be sashed and potatoes to be mashed. (In our traditional Irish household, women slaved and men were waited on.)

It might be exacerbated by the stress I feel when I think of all the money I've spent on lavishing boyfriends with presents over the years, guys who are now living with other women who are enjoying my lovingly picked out presents which I'm no doubt still paying for in credit card interest charges.

I was embracing my Christmas black dog the other day when I read a Times article so scary it made my hair - and my genes - curl.

It was about how severe stress can make a woman age very rapidly and prematurely, looking years older than her chronological age, because the stress causes the DNA in our cells to shrink, and sort of curl down on itself, until the cells can no longer replicate. "When people are under stress they look haggard, it's like they age before your eyes, and here's something going on at a molecular level" that reflects that impression, said one of the researchers, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California at San Francisco.

So now, on top of all the stress related to having a president and vice president who scared us to death about terrorists to get re-elected, I have to be stressed about the fact that my holiday stress might cause me to turn into an old bat - instantly, just like it happened in Grimm's fairy tales, when a girl would be cursed and suddenly become a crone. Or just like this Christmas doll my sister brought home once that had an apple for a head; her face looked all juicy and white at the start of the week and then by the end of the week, it was all discolored and puckered.

I flipped through the hot new self-help book by Gordon Livingston, a psychiatrist from Columbia, Md., "Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now."

One of them is the cardinal rule of anxiety: Avoidance makes it worse; confrontation gradually improves it.

Yep. I definitely need to rip Frosty's face off.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: antichristian; antichristmas; barfalert; barrenwitch; bigot; birthofjesus; bitterness; catherinezetajones; christ; christians; christmas; dowdalert; dustywomb; grinchstolechristmas; hatefuloldhag; liberalbigot; lonelyfeminist; mediabias; merrychristmas; prayforher; queenoftheharpies; reasonfortheseason; religion; religiousintolerance; scrooge; shrew; spinster
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To: TaxRelief

Actually, I was referring to a Christmas parody song. I do those every year.


181 posted on 12/06/2004 5:47:42 PM PST by doug from upland (Vietnam Vets: FINALLY -- welcome home, heroes)
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To: politicalmerc

what does she look like.........anyone post a picture?


182 posted on 12/06/2004 6:02:21 PM PST by Collier
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To: CaptainK

..and she wrote "scarf down", instead of scoff down, which I believe, is correct.


183 posted on 12/06/2004 6:06:03 PM PST by Collier
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To: nutmeg

Actually, I enjoy reading about the pain and misery liberals like Maureen Dowd feel when we celebrate a traditional festivity - whether it's Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, or Independence Day... these people seem to literally get sick. Maybe it has something to do with being a liberal. :-)


184 posted on 12/06/2004 6:40:56 PM PST by Victoria Delsoul
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To: doug from upland

Your parodies are great, but I thought Modo would just hate Silent Night. (Much too mellow for her...)


185 posted on 12/06/2004 6:50:13 PM PST by TaxRelief (Merry Christmas!)
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To: MeekOneGOP

Great graphic Meek!! I can't stand her.


186 posted on 12/06/2004 7:34:04 PM PST by potlatch (Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.)
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To: potlatch
Thanks. :^)

Me either.


187 posted on 12/06/2004 7:36:38 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (There is only one GOOD 'RAT: one that has been voted OUT of POWER !! Straight ticket GOP! ©)
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To: TaxRelief

The song is done. I will be posting JINGLE BELL ROCK.


188 posted on 12/06/2004 8:11:28 PM PST by doug from upland (Vietnam Vets: FINALLY -- welcome home, heroes)
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To: speedy
I think MoDo is either on the verge of a complete breakdown or a political conversion.

Or perhaps both?

189 posted on 12/06/2004 8:15:19 PM PST by Uncle Vlad
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To: Pokey78
Let's all sing and stick it to her --- JINGLE BELL SCHLOCK
190 posted on 12/06/2004 8:21:11 PM PST by doug from upland (Vietnam Vets: FINALLY -- welcome home, heroes)
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To: Collier

See my post 71.


191 posted on 12/06/2004 9:05:59 PM PST by politicalmerc (To get Rejected Stickers http://www.tdowc.com/store/catalog)
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To: Pokey78

Scroogette


192 posted on 12/06/2004 9:10:12 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (This is your budget. This is your budget on the Drug War. Any questions? [eno_])
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To: Clara Lou
A daddy figure? That's the only thing that I can come up with.

You're thinking of a relatively normal person, not a denizen of Hollyweird. More than likely, marrying Douglas acquired Miss Zeta-Jones the connections and publicity useful in advancing her career.

193 posted on 12/06/2004 10:38:14 PM PST by Siamese Princess
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To: Pokey78

Someone said on Rush's show that Dowdy needs a conservative man in order to be happy. I disagree.

What she wants is some cheating cad like Bill Clinton - someone who can convincingly bite his lip and act repentant while diddling employees half his age.

Why? Because Clinton symbolizes everything feminists believe about men - that they are insensitive cheating louts who sweet talk and con every pair of boobs they can get their hands on and feign sorrow only long enough to gain temporary forgiveness so they can cheat again.

You see, if a conservative man of conservative values came into her life and shwed her love, honor, respect and some good old-fashion manly virtue, she couldn't deal with it. It would upset her worldview and cause her to question every stereotype she believes in. All the stuff the Sisterhood has programmed into her.

She can't have that. What she wants is somebody who reinforces those stereotypes by being the lying cheating cad she just knows deep down that all men are.

So she'll continue to buy carefully-chosen Christmas gifts for men who only pretend to love her until they find somebody better (shouldn't be difficult).

Meanwhile, Maureen can snuggle up with her Pulitzer at night.


194 posted on 12/06/2004 10:56:46 PM PST by Tall_Texan (Let's REALLY Split The Country! (http://righteverytime3.blogspot.com))
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To: Pokey78
No, I know why she hates Christmas. Look, not one mention of Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother in the entire column! Did they ever read the Gospel of St. Luke in that "traditional Irish household"?

In our traditional Irish household, women slaved and men were waited on.

Yeah, while we slave our arses off the rest of the year to give you women all you enjoy!

Feminists.

195 posted on 12/07/2004 11:01:19 AM PST by MegaSilver
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To: MisterRepublican

Oooh, thanks!


196 posted on 12/07/2004 11:02:07 AM PST by MegaSilver
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To: Pokey78

197 posted on 12/08/2004 2:20:31 AM PST by weegee (WE FOUGHT ZOGBYISM November 2, 2004 - 60 Million Voters versus 60 Minutes - BUSH WINS!!!)
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