have a holly, jolly, oh, just bite me.

The holidays are already annoying the crap out of me.

The church around the corner from my house erected a manger over the weekend. It really bothers me because:

A--it is inflatable and collapses into a primary-colored puddle every morning when they unplug it and

B--the whole inflatable thing just seems wrong to me for this particular representation of what is supposed to be the most momentous event in the Christian faith. Nothing says savior like vinyl, I guess.

C--the mustard-yellow baby jesus looks like the baby from the Homer Simpson brood,

D--Joseph bears a startling resemblance to Yukon Cornelius from the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer claymation classic. So for all of you who believed that happy horseshit that Burl Ives fed us as children that Yukon and the Abominable were happily traveling the arctic circus circuit together and returning to the North Pole to plop the star on top of Santa's tree every year can just deal with the sad reality that Yukon is in a vinyl heap under a palm tree at the end of my street in humid Florida. And there is no Abominable in sight. (I will snap a photo this week if I can for further proof of my claim).

Okay--moving on--is it me or is the Lexus, big-frigging-red bow-on-top-of-the-SUV-Christmas commercial not just totally out of line and obnoxious, not to mention disgusting?

I mean, first of all, it's not even December 1st yet and I'm already sick of it. And this is significant because I'm not a TV watcher. But everytime the GITB is watching football or ESPN and I happen to be within earshot, bingo. And what is the message here--this is a normal gift that women should expect from their men??? Or is this just an appropriate gift for the beautiful thin white women from their uptight, rich type-A husbands who buy such items for their wives to assuage their guilt over banging the girl at work with their tiny little toolage? (thanks, e)

Ditto for the bullshit Kay and Gordon's diamond commercials. He must not love you if you don't get a diamond something or other from him for Christmas. So dump him on December 26th and go find some schmo who will buy you all kinds of baubles you won't wear most of the time anyway, because that means he really loves you.

And back to the mangers--Miss Daisy and I went for our nightly one-miler around the 'hood tonight and I noticed that my neighbor has a manger scene up in his front yard now and right next to it, the neighbor has positioned a jolly neon Santa and a neon train full of toys. Kind of a mixed message. But what I especially love about it is that although I know that Santa is waving, I could also be easily convinced that he is shaking his fist menacingly at sweet little baby jesus. He does appear to be advancing in a menacing way toward the manger...it's all perception I guess.