Ho, Ho, Ho, Merrrry.....wait, we missed it!

After a couple of weeks of lots of holiday horror stories and "shocking" breaches of Christmas etiquette, I was a bit surprised to see that on Christmas Eve, most of the columnists didn't even touch Christmas. (Maybe they figured any train wrecks are now far beyond stopping....).

• Abby revisited the issue of reading or not reading collections of private letters between deceased relatives (I responded to this one after the original October column)
  
• Kathy and Marcy of Annie's Mailbox counseled a high school student who's being buillied about her Jolie-like "duck lips"
• Dan Savage, whom I read weekly, but rarely write about here (partly because most of his answers are a bit out of my range of expertise, and partly because when I started this blog I checked the "no adult content" box, and generally try to avoid profanity, etc.) gives a slight nod to "last minute Christmas gifts," but mostly covers the standard Savage Love grab bag of spanking, smelliness, and electro-stimulation.
• Miss Manners hits on foreclosure and telecommunications
  
• And Carolyn wrote about HPV, of all things!

Golly gee whillikers, where can a girl get a little holiday spirit, or at least a little festive forehead slapping?

• Amy hits the spot, featuring a woman (I'm guessing) who is obsessed with the fact that her relative cannot send Christmas gifts on time. The gifts always arrive eventually, but she'd apparently do away with gifts altogether rather than have them show up late. How old is she, 9? Unless there are kids thinking Santa's been run over (by a reindeer?) because the presents aren't there, what's the big friggin' deal? Amy conveys basically the same sentiment, though not in so many words.
• Prudence devotes all four of her weekly featured letters (plus the video!) to Christmas conundrums (conundra? help me, Latin speakers!). Get ready for simmering sibling entitlement, multicultural mishaps, mysterious gifts from married men, and my two favorites: absurdly political Christmas cards and prank gift wrapping that would give Wile E. Coyote a run for his money.
• Carolyn's last pre-holiday live chat also had a few doozies: gourmet cooks griping about lame holiday food, obnoxious custody arrangements, and this, my favorite one (scroll all the way down to the bottom):
  

Washington, DC: Carolyn

Any tips for surviving driving my sister from one parent's house to the other this weekend? It's a three hour trip and she commandeers my radio, criticizes my driving, and generally drives me nuts every time we're in the car. Plus, she'll be ready late and want to stop at every Starbucks we pass, which will make her have to pee. I'm anticipating the three hour drive will take roughly 4.5 with her in the car. How do I do it so we arrive at parent no. 2's house with me still in the holiday spirit?

Carolyn says: Read this, see how funny this is, and treat yourself to a foofy hot somethingorother on one if not all of the stops.

Gentle readers (to snag a phrase from Miss Manners), thanks for sticking around for year two of A Little Help Please?! Happy holidays, and see you in the new year! (unless things are boring at home, in which case I'll see you, like, tomorrow).

Pick a card, any card...

This complaint to Amy Dickinson is amusingly timely, since it was published over the weekend, as I was having this exact experience myself:

Dear Amy: I found out that my husband's side of the family is yet again having a "gift exchange" in which we give a gift to the person whose name we've picked out of a hat.

There is one rule — no gift cards. I am not fond of this idea, but in past years I've exchanged a gift despite my objections, and kept quiet.

All relatives are adults, and I can't see the purpose of giving a gift to a person whom I do not really even know and see only once a year.

I would much rather pool our money or donate it to someone in need. I've made this suggestion, but no one wants to mess with their tradition. I understand that the grandparents get joy out of seeing all of us open our gifts and then pass them around, but we are adults. Isn't this a bit childish, or am I just being selfish? How can I get out of this silly tradition?— Bothered

Dear Bothered:Not only do I approve of your in-law family's gift exchange tradition (especially the "no gift cards" rule), I am tempted to try to marry into the family myself in order to participate in it.

Drawing names is a great way to cut down on the number of gifts exchanged; it also gives you an opportunity to get to know the person whose name you've drawn.

When you draw "Aunt Myrtle's" name before Christmas, you have an incentive to do a little research with other family members to try to figure out what she would like to receive. When Aunt Myrtle opens her gift in front of others and expresses her delight at your thoughtfulness, this forms a connection between the two of you that will last beyond Christmas Day.

Bothered's wish to donate the money to an organization or people in need is certainly in the right place. It's a worthwhile thought at a Christmas (and any time of course) where every person is buying for every person, the floor is covered wrapping paper, the bellies bloated with pie, and the excess of it all starts to get a little nauseating. But I agree with Amy that drawing names so that each person buys only for one other person is a great way to drastically decrease the madness, while keeping the "silly tradition" (that goes WAY beyond Bothered's husband's family) of placing gifts under the tree and opening them together. Indeed, often the idea of such a name draw is to ease the financial strain on each family member--leaving enough in their pockets to make a charitable contribution that season, if they choose to.

Bothered seems to be missing the point that, typically, a name draw gift exchange isn't an add-on to a gifts-free Christmas, but a welcome relief from every person bringing a present for every other person. Would she find buying gifts for 17 people she doesn't know well and sees only once a year preferable to buying for one?

If even a single gift seems wasteful to Bothered, certainly she could mention to the person who has her name, "I think the efforts of the ASPCA are so important and underfunded, and I would be honored if you'd make a contribution to their organization as a gift to me." She could even find out what causes are important to her assigned recipient, and make a contribution to that group (though in this case it's important to honor the recipient's cause, not the giver's pet project).

I spent this weekend in Ohio with SK's family, where they have virtually the same tradition. They, too, have only one rule, but it's a different one: there's a $35 limit on each gift. Unlike in Bothered's family, in SK's, gift cards are allowed--though I wish they weren't. Basically, everyone winds up trading $35 gift cards (another explicit rule of the game is that you don't have to spend $35--or anything--on your gift, but when all you're giving is a piece of plastic that required no thought or effort, it seems cheap to go under the limit, and no one does. SK's brother received a $25 gift card and a $10 bill.)

I'm not excusing myself in this case--I wound up with the name of SK's uncle, to whom I've barely spoken before. At his wife's suggestion, I got him a Home Depot gift card. Were gift cards "outlawed," I really have no idea what I would have gotten him instead--but it would have been neat to learn more about him: what teams does he cheer for? what does he do in his spare time? What projects is he working on around the house? Having spent just a day with him and his family, I have several ideas of things that might have made funny or useful gifts--what might I have come with if I'd actually tried, instead of taking the easy way out?

Then again, of course, the reason many givers turn to gift cards in the first place is that recipients are hard-to-please, and letting them shop for themselves turns out to be the best gift. How sad, though!

There were enough creative, thoughtful, and reasonable gifts in our mix (most of them rule-breaking, going above and beyond the name draw) to make opening gifts a lovely and festive occasion: homemade soaps, adorable sweaters craftily plucked from the thrift store, a book of wedding photos, a pine cone Christmas ornament put out by the national wildlife foundation--for every ornament purchased, a tree is planted, etc. I rather wish they'd ALL been that way. Shopping can be overwhelming and exhausting--not to mention a huge financial burden!--but when you're only buying for one, I think it's worth taking the time and making the effort to get to know something about that person, and trying to come up with a gift that will show you, um, care.

And to get back to Bothered's question....no doubt, Christmases can get way out of hand--but her husband's family sounds like they're doing a decent job of keeping things reined in, and focusing on being thoughtful and family-minded at the holiday. (Bothered doesn't mention what her own family's tradition is re: gifts).

Claiming silliness and overkill when the tradition is to give and receive a single gift once a year seems excessively self-righteous and Scrooge-like to me.

'Tis the Season....

Christmas carols, misheard lyrics, puns, inane arguments submitted for Abby's jurisdiction, and people who don't know how to use Google:.....it's the most wonderful time of the year!

DEAR ABBY: Please settle a disagreement I'm having with my boyfriend. In the song "Jingle Bells," he insists the horse's name is "Bob Tail." However, I'm pretty sure it's a description of the horse, as their tails used to be "bobbed," or cut short.

Please understand my boyfriend is one of those guys who is "never wrong"! -- JINGLE BELLE IN DALY CITY, CALIF.

DEAR JINGLE BELLE: Never wrong? Well, there's always a first time. You happen to be 100 percent right. The lyric in the carol isn't "Bob Tail," it's "bobtail." The definition of the word is in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. (What may need some "bobbing" may be your boyfriend's ego, and I hope you had some money "riding" on this.

You're Kidding, Right?

Oh come ON!

Dear Prudence,
Every year my fiance's family takes a portrait together and mails it out as their holiday card. His parents included their new son-in-law when their daughter got married. This is the first holiday since my fiance and I got engaged, and they have already commented on needing a bigger lens to fit everyone in this year. However, I have no interest in being in their picture this year or any year. They sign the card "The Smiths," but I have no plans to change my name and don't feel this last name would be mine. I plan to decline to be in the photo since I have always looked forward to having my own family and sending our own pictures to family and friends. How can I gently say to my husband's family, "Time to cut the umbilical cord" and let your children start their own holiday family traditions? The thought of the upcoming family photo is making me sick and filling me with anger.

—Won't Say "Cheese"

Dear Won't,
It used to be said that when certain hunter-gatherer tribes were first exposed to photography, they believed that if a picture was taken of them, it would steal their soul. You're probably aware, however, that a photograph of you with your future in-laws will not forever capture your image and make it impossible for you to send a photograph of yourself for your own holiday card. Speaking of which, your fiance's family is going to conclude that you're quite the card when you tell them you're not going to be in their picture, you will never consider yourself to be part of the "Smith" family, and that you believe your future mother- and father-in-law are infantilizing their grown children. Everyone will be filled with seasonal joy that you'll be around for the holidays for the rest of their lives. There are two approaches you could take here. One would be to vent the rage you are feeling over your fiance's family wanting to include you in their tradition. That might solve everyone's long-term problem by making you a short-timer. (However, if your fiance hasn't figured out by now that you have some issues, he must have issues of his own.) Or you could spend some time figuring out why a gracious and inclusive gesture from your in-laws-to-be makes you act like a petulant baby and work on growing up yourself.

—Prudie

For real??

I'm newly married, on the fence about really-officially-for-realsies changing my name, and also looking forward to establishing my own family traditions with my husband and cat-children. I also don't like large group photos and making everyone gather around and pose. I tend to think it takes way longer than it should and get annoyed.

So if anyone can see where this woman is coming from, it's probably me. And I think she's flippin' crazy.

As Prudence points out, absolutely none of her protestations is actually affected in any way by the fact that her in-laws want to take a picture and send it out. This doesn't prevent her from going by her own name, nor does it prevent her from sending out her own card. Their card doesn't supercede hers, especially since there probably won't even be very much overlap between the recipients of these cards. They sign the card "The Smiths" because the card is FROM the Smiths--not because it is the official, legal, sole holiday mail to be sent out by everyone in the photo, who must by extension be a Smith. The fact that she's in the photo doesn't make her a Smith any more than a photo featuring the kids with Mickey Mouse suggests that Mickey is their dad.

No, being in the holiday photo doesn't bind her to these people, something she seems to dread. But, um, marrying their son does. Why does she fear the commitment of a photograph more than the commitment of a lifetime?

Happy "Out-of-line's" Day! (pt. II): in which we hear from actual columns, not just Becky's ranting

OK, I guess I'll just proceed....chronologically? Which means with Amy, since she jumped the gun by publishing a V-day question yesterday. Actually not a bad idea, since it gave the person some time to adjust their plans/attitudes. This first letter is exactly the kind of Valentwhiner that drives me nuts.

Dear Amy: Well, Valentine's Day is approaching once again, and I find myself alone. Once again.

I am a woman in my mid-30s, was briefly married many years ago and have had few relationships ever since. I feel as if I've tried absolutely everything to find a mate, and the results are, well, not great. Lots of dates, lots of duds.

I can't believe I have to suffer through another Valentine's Day with this feeling of loneliness deep in my heart.

Do you have any ideas? — Sad Single

Oh come on! This woman has this problem 365 days a year, and that's what makes me nuts. If you're sad about being single and desperately seeking a mate, that's an issue of its own. It takes what really might be a sad and depressing thing (I'm trying to give her some leeway, although people who fear singleness would be happier all around if they worked to get beyond that) to the level of ridiculousness when your reasoning behind wanting a mate is "I can't believe I have to suffer through another Valentine's Day with this feeling of loneliness deep in my heart." Let's not forget that the reason we celebrate is because St. Valentine suffered through St. Valentine's Day with feelings of horrific pain deep in his entire body. Amy wisely ignores the fact that it's Valentine's Day, and just treats the woman's real issue, her desire to make herself desirable.

This is a long one, and I might have enjoyed it more if I weren't so anti-schmoop. Basically this person advocates doing Valentine's Day just how I think it should be done, and most enjoy it myself. But they're just so....well, schmoopy about it. Again, I like the attitude they're advocating. I just can't stomach the bitterness topped with schmoop and nostalgia with which they're advocating it.

DEAR ABBY: I clearly remember my first Valentine's Day. I was in first grade. A few days before, my mom asked how many kids were in my class, and we went to a store and bought large packages of valentines -- one for every child in the class. The cards were all the same size and said, basically, the same thing.

When I arrived at school, each classmate had a small box on his or her desk. At some point during the day, I went around the room and gave each child a valentine. [So did everyone...you're not like the magic fairy of Valentine's Day...] There was one for the quiet one in the back, the most popular girl in class, the prettiest and even the boys. This was long before society taught me that such a show of affection had to exclude people of the same gender as me. By the end of the day, everyone had a full box of valentines to take home.

One desk, one box ... the love of a child.

As I grew older, society taught me to narrow my offering of affection, picking only those I chose to be special or worthy. Eventually, I was taught to limit my valentines to only one person. More time went on, and then a card was not enough. To show that really special person what she meant to you, you needed to send flowers, candy and jewelry. [You don't! You don't!]

Apparently, as we grew older it took more and more to fill those boxes. Now we absolutely could not give to more than one person. People hire detectives to make sure that the person isn't filling anyone else's. [Yes, Valentine's Day means flowers, candy, jewelry AND FIDELITY. Society is asking too much!] And if you had no one to send you anything, you were saddened by your big, empty box filled only with sadness and despair. [empty box of sadness and despair? Jeebus.]

Today, I am taking back from society what it has taken from me. [You go!] I'm counting how many people play a role in my life, and I am buying "virtual" packages of cards. I have one for every single one of you -- man or woman, young or old, straight or gay, married or single. Each card is the same size, they all say the same thing -- that I appreciate who you are and what you have to contribute to each other. [You could buy a pack of NON-VIRTUAL valentines and ACTUALLY SEND THEM to the people you care about....]

I invite each and every one to do the same, so that no box is empty and the shy ones, the pretty ones, the popular ones and those who are less so go home tonight with a full box of valentines.

One virtual desk, one virtual box, and the love of a child at heart. I wish you all a happy Valentine's Day. -- ERIC IN LOS ALAMITOS, CALIF.

Oy.

And on to Carolyn's live chat (my link-maker isn't working right now, so I'll try to link it up later), which has a number of delightful and less delightful bits and pieces from all types.

Washington, D.C.: Dear Carolyn,

My fiance (of three months) threw a lamp at me. It missed me and hit the wall leaving a big hole in it. I don't know if he was aiming specifically for me. (He would say he wasn't trying to hit me, and that he was just mad. We'd been fighting a little that night and he was trying to go to bed when I interrupted him.) He told me to sleep on the couch, which I did. I packed up my things and left his house the next morning. It's been seven days now, and he has not called me to apologize, or anything. I'm almost 40, he's 46, and I really wanted to marry this man who I still love very much. Should I forgive him, should he eventually call me to apologize profusely?

Please, what do you think I should do? It's Valentines's tomorrow, and I wonder if he'll send me flowers. Pathetic, I know.

-- Still holding my breath.

Oh no! Oh no! Just so you know, Carolyn puts this woman straight in touch with the appropriate services to get her safe, and help her realize that she DOES NOT WANT FLOWERS FROM THIS GUY. If Valentine's Day can twist our minds around this much, THAT is a problem for sure.

Not as bad as a lamp, but...: My fiance and I had a big, yelling (non-violent) fight yesterday and have been cooling off, so to speak, since then. I haven't called him and he hasn't called me either, by mutual agreement. With Valentine's Day tomorrow, though, I'm wondering whether I should suck up my anger and drop by with the gifts I had bought him. I don't want to intrude on his healing space before he's ready, what do you think?

Another one--no violence, but letting valentine's day affect the course of the relationship--Carolyn advises her to focus on her own healing and health, and then the fiance's, and not obsess about the stupid gifts.

And less traumatic:

Valentine's Day: With all of these very serious issues coming up regarding Valentine's Day, I'll share a not-so-serious one. I work at a museum. Someone called yesterday and asked, "Are you open this Saturday, even though it's Valentine's Day?"

Yaaaaaay!

Hypertension City : My boyfriend is on a diet and trying to drop 50 pounds. For V-Day, I want to cook him a big, delicious dinner to celebrate all the progress he's made--and also just because the dish I'm making is one of his favorite dinners. I don't mean it as sabotage, just a nice thing to do for him. Is this sort of morally wrong of me?

Carolyn suggests it is at least unsupportive, and that gifts of food should support the new lifestyle change that losing 50 pounds involves.

and again with the Valentwhiners:

Getting a Grip on Valentine's Day: Any advice for how the single with no prospects 30-something can get through this weekend without silently going postal?

Carolyn Hax: Welllll ... you can remind yourself that it's silly, and that it's celebrated with the most gusto by people under 7 years old ... which actually makes it very not silly, but you get what I mean.

And, if that doesn't stick, then I would suggest using tonight and tomorrow to reach out to people who could really use the attention you want so badly to receive. A local hospital, senior center, homeless shelter, food bank--place a few calls to see who'd be happy for a couple of extra hands. Even if tomorrow is too soon to plan for a visit, you can spend the day making/gathering/buying something to deliver next weekend.

Thank you Carolyn!!!!!! And this guy :

New York, NY: Why not make a few valentines cards for veterans at a local VA hospital? Most of the guys that live there are widowers or don't have a lot of family/friends left. A card (or a visit, even better) makes a huge difference in their week.

And another:

30-something with no prospects: I understand the advice to look outside yourself when you are feeling lonely, but please don't dismiss the 30-something question as a matter of seeking attention. It's more anxiety than that -- it's worrying whether you will ever meet the right person, whether you will ever have the children you want, whether you'll be able to afford a home on a single income, etc. It can be a hopeless feeling (I was 30-something with no prospects once too). And Valentine's Day just makes it more in-your-face.

Carolyn Hax: I know. I do understand. But I think you misread my answer--I wasn't referring to attention-seeking of the look-at-me variety, I was referring to the loving attention of an Other. It's an ache for something you can't just go out and get. The best I can suggest, in those cases, is to give, which is something you can control. That's all I meant by it.

That, and to try to detach it from the holiday.

Exactly! All of these problems are real, but have nothing to do with Feb. 14.

And to wrap up:

Single and V-Day: I've always been single on Valentines Day. I've come to think of it like a Jewish holiday. I'm Catholic so I don't celebrate them but I think those who do should celebrate with gusto.

Nice!

Oh---probably should explain the title. Carolyn coined "Out of line's Day" because so many of the issues that came up in her chat (most of them unrelated to V-Day actually) involved people being totally, unreasonably, irrationally out of line.

And with that--enjoy (or don't) your day in the manner to which you are accustomed!