“On Donner! On, Blitzen! On Chewy! On Tavo!”

I effin’ love Christmas! Growing up in my uber-nutty religious home, Christmas was banned since MommPithy considered it a pagan holiday (“Ees heezen day. We no chelebrrrratt”) , so I didn’t get to get my Santa on til I moved to NoVa in ‘03. (there were some random traditions that we sorta did, but that’s another post for another day)

Since then I have discovered only one thing that makes me Grinchy during this time: gift wrapping.  No matter how carefully I cut the paper, or how precisely I fold the edges, my gifts end up looking like they were shoved inside a pinata and then whacked around by a 5-year-old’s birthday party.  It’s not pretty.

I try strategically placing my bows and tags to cover the bad spots, but it’s always a FAIL. Once side might be Martha Stewart-perfect, while the other side looks like Martha’s old cell-mate, Big Marge, went at it. And Big Marge does not have a delicate touch…just ask Martha.

Last year, I gave wrapping paper the finger, and embraced the awesomeness of giftbags. It was a beautiful moment when I fluffed the tissue paper and smiled at the pretty, pretty bags.  Easy, breezy, gift bag girl!

This year as I unearthed the tree and all its trimmings, I  began plotting my shopping list when it occurred to me: over half of my peeps needed their gifts sent to them this year. Sending a gift bag through the mail is so not gonna work. So my options are send crappily-wrapped gift or send gift bag that got  a love squeeze from Big Marge.

So I apologize in advance for any misshapen boxes, questionalbe bow placement, and possible murderous thoughts I might have about our firendship. I do really like you, just not when I’ve got bits of double-sided tape stuck to my person, several paper cuts and have used up half of my wrapping paper for only one gift.

And in honor of WordPress having a nifty lil’ snow widget (and becuase I really want to post these links), I shall leave you with my two favorite Christmas carols. Yes, they are in Spanish and yes, they are Colombian Christmas carols.  But other than Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, these two songs are what get me all Christmas’d up.

First up,  Cinco Pa’ Las Doce (really more of a New Year’s song, but you hear it during Christmas)

And despite the fact that little spawns sing this song, it really only sounds best when kids sing it:  Mi Burrito Sabanero

And because this is a CLASSIC that we actually did listen to every Christmas (like I said…random traditions) and sadly some people have not been exposed to this brand of awesome, I gift thee the Santa Claus and His Old Lady by Cheech and Chong.

You can blame Batanga.com’s Radio Navideño station for this. 

~ by pithycomments on December 9, 2008.