JABBERWOCKY
By Megan Kirby
December 7, 2008
The holiday season is here again, encouraging peace and goodwill towards men—unless you want that particular man’s parking space. Then you have full permission to run him over. Two of the most popular American holiday activities are hunting for parking spaces and trampling others in the pursuit of a good deal, both of which are encompassed by Black Friday.
Black Friday is the perfect bridge between Thanksgiving and Christmas because it commemorates the day Jesus took the Pilgrims to Kohl’s. The deals they found that day were biblical in proportion, and they are fondly recalled each year as knife fights break out in Best Buy parking lots across the nation.
On the bright side, parking might not be too bad for Elmhurst students. After spending all year hunting for campus parking spots, it’s rumored that an EC student’s glare can send a mini van bursting into flames like a festive yuletide log.
It’s probably easier to do all of your shopping in the comfort and safety of Elmhurst. Students can stroll through scenic downtown, where a variety of trendy boutiques offer fashionable items that are just right for a college budget. A pair of socks only cost as much as your laptop! If you want a sweater, though, you might have to drop out of school.
A more economical solution is to find gifts on campus. Looking for the perfect gift for younger siblings? They’re probably lonely since you left for college. Why not give them one of Elmhurst’s charming squirrels! Parents love it when their kids receive surprise animal presents, especially in the form of deranged, homicidal rodents. Squirrels shouldn’t be too hard to capture, either. Statistically, there are seventeen squirrels gnawing into rooms at Niebuhr Hall this exact moment.
Need something for mom and dad? Why not put those unused J-points to use towards some heartfelt gifts! Nothing says ‘thank you for supporting me through college’ quite like a 12-pack of Vitamin Water. By now, however, the Roost is so ravaged by shoppers that you might have to settle for a bag of pork rinds and some Skittles. It’s the thought that counts, right?
By the time all your shopping is done, it’ll be time to head home and enjoy all of those yearly family traditions. You would think the fact that we’re lugging Evergreens indoors and nailing socks above the fireplace would make Christmas seem bizarre enough, but every family has one tradition that makes the holidays just a little bit stranger.
In my family, for example, we always have plum pudding. Plum pudding is basically a badass fruitcake. It chills out and ferments in a vat of brandy for a month, so by the time Christmas dinner rolls around it’s soaked up more alcohol than a dorm room carpet.
Just when you think plum pudding can’t get any cooler—WHAM—it’s lit on fire.
Everything can be made more festive with the addition of roaring flames. Puddings, fireplaces… Just take a flame-thrower to that Christmas tree and bask in the warm glow of the holidays. Leaning over the table with my family members, our eyes light up with the glow of seasonal joy and alcohol fumes.
I think plum pudding is a bit of a cruel joke, to be honest. Every year, the adults in the family promise that it’s an acquired taste and that eventually I’ll love the flavor. Every year, I take a tentative bite, and it’s the equivalent of being punched in the mouth. This is my first Christmas as a legal adult, though, so maybe the magic of the pudding will be revealed to me this time.
Still, whether you’re just on the threshold of adulthood or you’re older than Saint Nick himself, there’s a certain youthful joy to the holidays. I’ll admit that I’m already planning on sneaking down Christmas morning to get a first peek at the stockings—my own private tradition. I can sleep through all of my afternoon classes, but come Christmas morning my internal clock will wake me up at the crack of dawn. “Get down there!” it will say. “Maybe you got some BEANIE BABIES!”
For a few minutes on Christmas morning, as I hop over the stairs that creak and peer around the doorway, I revert to my five-year-old self. The gifts piled under the tree, the snow glistening outside the window and making the whole world seem clean and pure.
Momentarily, my joy is simply too much. In the house that’s still sleeping, I sneak back upstairs.
It’s these moments that keep us wrestling shoppers at the mall, or lugging home the perfect tree. Nothing is quite comparable to a burst of Christmas happiness, those moments when you can truly understand the meaning of “Joy to the World.”