One of the few pleasures of growing old, in my crusty opinion, is the clarity you get about yourself and the space you occupy on the saint—asshole spectrum. I lean heavily towards asshole, and while I’m not proud of it I’m at least aware, and if I choose not to do anything about it, it’s on me. How do I know I’m kind of a prick? Well, it’s always been there: the self-centeredness, the cruel snark, the emotional laziness. As I age the signs simply become more overt.
For example, I’m engaged in a multi-year experiment to see how long it takes you to be removed from people’s holiday cards lists.
Lump of Coal, Here I Come
When I was a young man, I put a lot of effort into my holiday cards as part of my I AM AN ADULT DAMMIT charm offensive. I drew doodles, I hand-wrote poems, I made those things sing, baby. Of course, it wasn’t because I loved everyone on my list so damn much. I wanted everyone to be impressed and tell me how awesome my holiday cards were.
Now I am old and it takes me 1/85th of my life just to wake up in the morning, so that kind of effort is obviously impossible. As is any kind of effort at all, to be honest. On the one hand, I’ve turned into 110% Grinch, and the holiday season just irritates me in every single way to the point where I want to become a Super Villain who goes out at night to tear down holiday decorations and hand out toothbrushes at Halloween, and on the other hand holiday cards increasingly seem like Old People Facebook, a way of pretending you’re in touch with someone.
I mean, I get holiday cards from cousins I haven’t spoken to in decades. What the fuck?
So, about, jeebs, probably fifteen years ago now I stopped sending out holiday cards. And the volume of cards received dropped steadily as people got insulted or assumed I’d finally drunk myself to death, but I’m still getting a dozen every year. Which is either folks not cleaning up their mailing lists, or people vindictively trying to make me feel like a dick for not reciprocating.
Which: Respect. That’s something I would do. I picture them with Peter Capaldi’s eyes from Doctor Who when they mail the cards to me.
Joke’s on them: I’m gonna pursue this goal until I get zero holiday cards. And then I’ll have one of those Mad Men zoom out moments where I sit alone in a diner and stare at my coffee as I realize I am mortal and an asshole no matter how much I like myself.
So, just one more reason for me to accept the fact that I am not a good person, and will probably become less good as I age, until I die alone and unremarked-upon, eaten by cats and buried by disinterested city employees. Huzzah! That calls for a drink!
Aaaand here’s the ultimate proof we are (very) long lost twins! #grinchesunite
I haven’t sent out holiday cards since 2012. That was the first year without my mom and my heart wasn’t in the holidays at all. Now, it’s just laziness. Since all of my YA novels come out in August, I typically spend December in a state of perpetual motion — either I’m on the second draft of a project or doing revisions of some sort. I had a disagreement with an aunt that resulted in a Facebook tantrum (mine) and decided there was no point in ‘greeting’ people who don’t even like me. Like you, I receive very few cards now and that’s fine. The whole point of my tantrum was that I’d much rather hear from people throughout the year instead of out of some obligation, so cheers to no holiday card lists!