Thursday, December 25, 2014

The Great Split: Women's and Men's Holidays

On Christmas and Thanksgiving, for each one, there are two holidays happening at the same time, because men and women do very different things.  In women's minds,  family and specifically the kids are the focus. Women holidays are about expressing love and kindness and pleasure in your family's company. There's awful, sentimental music and sappy-ass movies. And everyone's supposed to be polite and comment on how much they enjoy each side dish.
 

And then next to that, we have to shoehorn in the men holidays, where where we get to set things on fire, feast on a dead animal in no conversation other than grunting and roars, and there's excessive drinking and wanting to murder people at the table. 

But we're starting to split them up.  


I used to think that moving Black Friday to Thanksgiving was awful.  But now I think it's brilliant.  It separates the man and woman holidays. Everyone wins.   We gets to get away from the extended family and it's a tailgate, basically.  If we're at the walmart parking lot in the middle of the night with a grill, a flat-screen and satellite dish, and a case of beer, how is that not a) a tailgate, and b) awesome? 

I mean, there are trade-offs because the man has to shop, but really, it's perfect. The women and kids get to stay home and be lame together and the men get to be misanthropic.  If you teach men that shopping is a full-contact-sport, they will totally do it.  That's why people die at these things now.  "Outta my way, @#$!!!! that vacuum cleaner is MINE!"  I mean, get in, get out, win, and then celebrate our victory at the tailgate. "Hell, no, I'm not coming home. The games are on and I got everything I need here.  Well, not everything. I need to buy a portajohn.  Thank god I'm at the walmart already."

We just have to figure out a reason to be at walmart on christmas to make this complete, but I'm sure they're figuring that out as we speak.

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