It's That (Sometimes) Infuriating Time Of Year

It's the full blown Christmas season. Here's how I know: I have that nauseous feeling that it's time to crawl into a cave and hibernate until December 26. Don't get me wrong about Christmas and presents and wiping out my checking account. I buy gifts for friends and non-friends. I'm a soft touch for the Salvation Army. I can never remember walking by a SA bell ringer without dropping some bills in the kettle. But, aside from my church, that's the only group I support. Unlike the United Way, the Salvation Army dispenses charity funds almost entirely to the needy. United Way folks pay their CEO's first and pay them well. For me this destroys the purpose of charity. One would think the United Way are congressmen grabbing PAC money ASAP.
I have a dread of receiving gifts. I don't like receiving gifts. This is a Freudian thing. When I was a kid my parent's, at Christmastime, spent more on us than Rockefeller spent on his entire clan. My parent's went into eternal debt to  buy gifts for us. We received things that were absolutely useless. When I was 12 I received a bow and arrows. That's right, a bow and four arrows. My buddy, Dick Musser and I, went out into a field, shot them in the air a couple of times then when a falling arrow came to close to my eyeball we left them in a field then went to the YMCA and shot baskets. The best gift, bar none, I ever received was a basketball game when I was nine years old. It had a cardboard court with five holes on each side of the half line. If a ping pong ball went into one of these holes I would pull a lever and a spring shot the ball in the air toward a basket. I played it for hours. I did learn to cheat with it, though. I drew a barely visible pencil line near a hole that told me how far back to pull the lever. This game must have cost $4.00. Maybe that's why my folks never mentioned how grateful I should be.
The absolute reason, and this is the Freudian thing, that I hate receiving gifts is because whatever we received my folks always said, "You'd better like this because we spent $29.00 on it". This has hung with me forever. I'm sure I could make a psychiatrist rich discussing those days.
In the last two days I have bought gifts for a very special lady who has been a mentor, a close friend who asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said, "Nothing". My best friend and best man in my wedding lives close to me. He'll get a golf gift. My neighbor smokes a cigar once a year and he likes good ones. I got him an Arturo Fuente. He'll like it. My mailman is a good guy. I always buy him something, usually a ham. My garbage men get Subway sandwich coupons. I think they appreciate those because I've never found leftovers in the garbage. I buy a 5 lb. bag of M&M's for my son's father-in-law. He sucks 'em down the way an addict snorts cocaine. I usually give my wife cash because everything I give her she takes back to the store. I mean, who wouldn't want an ocelot? Just kidding, of course, because remember: I don't have a wife, anymore.(See 12/15 blog)
I enjoy buying lunch for members of the armed forces. They are openly grateful. I'll buy them lunch the year round but at Christmas they get this and other stuff out of their price range. I love the guys who protect my family and me. I enjoy buying gifts when the recipient is unsuspecting. Aside from my grandchildren if someone makes a list they get lumps of coal.
You guys get the drift on the post. It's not that I'm a special and wonderful person. Blessings received are blessings earned but it's nice to be able to do the giving on one's own dime without the government telling me when, how and why. Imagine if the government told me I had to buy gifts for a certain block of folks in southwest Columbus. Now imagine me saying, "KMA".
I'm a stickler for saying, "Merry Christmas". If someone tells me, "Happy Holidays" I'll come back with, "And Merry Christmas to you, too". When push comes to shove I'm more than certain people like this.
I may do another Christmas post later but for now this is good enough.
Merry Christmas to all.