December Letters: Holidays and impeachment like apple pie and ice cream

Dear Jim,

What do you think of families that choose to go out to dinner or order a pre made one from a local supermarket? It doesn’t seem very American to me.

Is it any less American than forcing your kids to eat Jello filled with canned fruit and topped off with cottage cheese served on a leaf of iceberg lettuce? Welcome to my childhood. When did mac and cheese enter the Thanksgiving equation? And why is it the men get to wake up the day after with a hangover, more football games, and turkey sandwiches while mom nurses a migraine and wonders when anyone will notice the mess left in the kitchen?

I am fine if families decide to order in pizza shaped like a turkey while they fight over who gets the last slice. Even better, stay home, cook up a Swanson’s TV turkey dinner and Skype your relatives rather than go to all the fuss just so you can see your home, spirit, and hope for humanity crushed by trying to prepare hundreds of thousands of calories for folks you are thankful for having to see only once a year.

Dear Jim,

Dark meat or white meat? Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Season’s Greetings or Bah Humbug?  Which of these best describes you?

These are not as simple as they appear. When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, I prefer dark meat over white meat. However, when it comes to a left-over Turkey sandwich, I like white meat and you better serve it up with that canned cranberry dressing instead of the real stuff.

When it comes to shopping, count me out of either of the two major shopping days. Gift cards cost the same no matter what time of year I purchase them. I haven’t the desire to leave my house on Black Friday other than to go for an early morning run. When it comes to Cyber Monday, I’d rather get a colonoscopy than wade through all the deals on-line.

It is not a matter of Season’s Greetings vs. Bah Humbug as much as whether it is okay to wish a stranger at the market Merry Christmas without offending them. We have become as politically correct as we have wasteful of our money on Christmas, make that Holiday, shopping. It also requires me to do too much thinking. I have to size up the person and determine if I think they can handle my greeting. I prefer to just utter what comes out of my mouth unfiltered so I usually just tell them to shut up and get out of my way. Does this count for Bah Humbug?

Dear Jim,

What is the perfect gift to give to someone you would rather not buy a gift for, but if you don’t, you run the risk of offending them? I am in a tight spot and could use your help.

You give them nothing while making them feel you gave them something. Here is how it works. You write them a note inside a card telling them in their honor, you have made a donation for a larger amount of money than they would ever spend on a gift to you in the name of a charity they can’t argue against. They will never know whether or not you made the donation and who can complain about someone who donated twice as much money to a needy group as they spent on that Starbucks gift card for you?

Dear Jim,

Are there any Christmas traditions you had as a kid you still follow today?  

There are a few. One of my favorites is to go around the neighborhood at night and take the wreaths off of people’s front doors and then switch them out with the ones taken from other homes. Then I watch as one neighbor accuses another of stealing their wreath.

On Christmas Eve, I enjoy taking a sizeable collection of dog waste and dropping them at my neighbors’ front door. I leave a note from Santa apologizing for Dasher’s poop mess and tell them I was in too big a hurry delivering gifts to clean it up, but if they do it for me, I will remember them with a special gift next Christmas.

Finally, once the Christmas Trees come down and sit curbside, it’s always a laugh to take them and plant them in a hole you dig in your neighbor’s front yard. Sometimes it takes them months to realize that dead tree in their front yard is not from the drought, but rather from Christmas.

Dear Jim,

Have you been following the impeachment hearings? I find them to be riveting. It’s why we must fight to hold onto our democratic rights and know that all citizens, even our president, are held accountable under our laws. Do you agree?

I guess now that Thanksgiving dinner is over, I can safely talk politics. First, no, I have not followed them if you mean watch them live. I have read my share of articles and watched replays of testimony and from them come to my own conclusions.

The House of Representatives will vote to impeach Trump because it is controlled by the Democrats. The Senate, and by that I mean Republicans, will ask Trump if he wants them to vote to not put him on trial or does he actually want to go through one. Trump will insist he get his “fair” trial not because he wants his name cleared, he knows that can happen with a phone call to old Mitch “I’m His Bitch” McConnell. No, he wants the trial because this is the stuff Trump gets off on.

We already know Trump no longer likes to “work” in the Oval Office and now spends most of his work days in his private residence. Here, where he is not disturbed by the people who work for him, is where he mentally, and most likely physically, gets off on the constant coverage of all things Donny. This is his drug and he can’t get enough of it. This is why he will not stop until some Secret Service guard is told to enter his private bedroom and finds him dead with his pants down around his ankles and FOX News blaring away.

This is not Watergate, where Republicans turned on Nixon and said they can’t support him. This is Merica, where a bunch of rich idiots and dumbass rednecks have hitched their perverted version of what constitutes freedom to a man who just wants to be the center of attention. This is nothing more than theater of the absurd being spun as our great government at work.

Our great government has not done any work since the aftermath of 911 and all that resulted in was a war against a nation that did not have what our leader claimed, WMDs, a resulting crashing of our economy and bailing out of the wealthy while the average citizen paid the cost, and the rise of a mad man we now call President of the United States.

Now if you will excuse me, I hear Jerry Springer has a show where he serves as the judge to legal disputes. I think I will watch it because at this rate, he looks like he might become the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Dear Jim,

Recently, members of Trump’s cabinet have spoken about how he has been chosen by God to lead us. Are you shocked that members of the president’s staff would go to such lengths to praise our president or is it possible they are correct?

This is one of those “It depends …” answers. If by God, you mean the one who depicts Jesus as a white man in the Arab world who was anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and pretty much anti Love Thy Neighbor Unless She is Hot Looking, then yes, it is entirely possible. If you believe in a god that ran out of swarms of locusts and in their place let loose a bunch or rich, disconnected, gun toting fools on the rest of mankind, you might also be right. If you happen to think God has a wicked sense of humor and is laughing his ass off at us as he watches us turn on each other, you could be right.

However, if you believe in irrefutable data, the kind Trump followers can’t comprehend because it does not come from the Bible, then you understand why Christianity and church membership is dwindling in this country. If Jesus was white and Satan is red, it makes sense their love child would be orange.

Dear Jim,

It seems like every family has one certain relative they have to tolerate during the holidays. It could be the one who drinks too much or is quick to get into arguments over politics. It might even be an entire family where the parents are self-centered and have numerous special dietary requests for their perfect little children. Maybe it’s that one person who is just obnoxious on all levels and is a bad influence on the kids because he encourages them to do all the things their parents try to teach them to avoid doing. And in some cases, it might just be a relative who is a total A-hole, but has nowhere else to go for a holiday meal. Is there one in your family everyone would be happy not to have around for the big holiday meal?

You mean, other than me?