SLICE of LIFE – Newport This Week

Nothing is simple during the holiday season. If it is, its an illusion, which you will surely learn at the most inopportune time.

Consider the sadistic words assembly required that accompany 99.9 percent of gifts for children under 12. Despite a cornucopia of gift options for this age group, constructing them with a directional leaflet that consists of three images for an 860-piece contraption is the penance for this plethora. Two out of five marriages end because of differing interpretations of these instructions.

As parents move out of the assembly required phase of gifting, we move into the phase of teaching the value of a dollar. At that point, less shopping is required for teens, because each item they hope to receive costs more than a semester of my college tuition. Hence, fewer packages are under the tree with each passing year. Parents with multiple children explain this to older siblings. Yet, despite the teenager intellectually knowing that their small pile of gifts costs the same amount as their younger siblings hefty, assembly required pile, emotionally, the child will still be in therapy for decades because of it.

Im Italian and thus was raised Catholic. This is a lethal combination for unjustifiable mom guilt, which rears its ugly head when I wrap gifts and witness the glaringly obvious pile disparity. To the untrained eye, it could be interpreted that I have a favorite child. I do, but it changes by the minute. My attempt to distort this imbalance is the reason why my 18-year-old gets a six-pack of underwear, each individually wrapped in six separate extra-large sweater boxes.

The supply chain shortage has put all items, from undies to gift cards, in jeopardy this year, so shopping early is highly encouraged to ensure that the coveted gifts arrive by next Christmas. But todays holiday shortages are nothing compared to the riots that broke out in 1983 when parents were trying to secure a Cabbage Patch Kid. Nothing represents Christmas spirit like adults armed with baseball bats in the check-out line to protect the toy they slidetackled a grandmother for.

But whether its 1983 or 2021, all stores share the same distinct smell that fills us with yule: evergreen and burning plastic. This smell says, Good tidings to you, and your credit card interest is blowing up with every swipe.

But no longer are we beholden to just swiping and signing. Technology is trying to con us into our deficits by eliminating our barriers to spending, all in the name of convenience. Now, we can tap our credit cards, hover our watches or converse with the most deceitful vixen in the world, Alexa. Opening a wallet, using a pen, slow check-out lines; these were the last of the consumer defenses against plummeting credit scores. We may smell less burning plastic thanks to our contactless payment options, but the odor is still eau debt toilette. And it stinks.

Although more convenient payment alternatives exist, lines at the register remain. Line jockeying, especially during the holidays, is the highest form of competition since Cabbage Patch Dolls debuted. Its kill or be killed.

For example, when an additional register opens at any store, there is a current of energy that simultaneously flows through every waiting customer in line. The collective mood instantly shifts from numb to predator, and there exist only three reactions: the commando, ninja-style beeline by those that just shuffled in from a car emblazoned with a handicap parking sticker (they wielded the bats in 83), those who move in a nonchalant, yet highly strategic manner to go undetected, and those who know they missed the opportunity because they were too far away, and are silently swearing, while smiling.

Speaking of foul language, nothing brings out my Jersey vernacular like decking the halls with boughs of holly. The frustration that accompanies incessantly moving a ladder to and fro, while the bough on the opposite side continually falls down, elicits a tirade of blasphemy that would religiously offend an atheist.

Unfortunately, our mischievous dog isnt intimidated and prefers to escalate dcor frustrations into a simultaneous game of keep-away and steal the pin. My wily beagle runs around the house like a festive rhythmic gymnast, leaving a trail of glitter and fake berries, which I seem to vacuum up until July.

But hey, if the holiday was simple, parents would actually go to sleep the night before Christmas, like in that story. Wheres the magic in that?

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SLICE of LIFE - Newport This Week