The holidays are here. In another universe, we may be able to ignore this fact, since it’s not even December. There’s no sign of snow and Santa Claus is as sure of his reindeer lineup as Coach Mike London is of his football timeouts — that is, he has no clue what he’s doing. But, after all, this is the 21st century, and ignore it we cannot.
Instead of spending Thanksgiving supping with the family, our mothers quickly departed to go find baby Bobby’s Tickle Me Elmo Version 15.4, which apparently twitches a different foot or laughs with a different vocal inflection or something so it’s really super important that Mom buys it before the harlot housewife next door does. Instead of the television gods giving us a month of welcome respite after our lengthy inundation of political ads, we are brainwashed by a new batch of holiday advertisements that also celebrate what it means to be American. These ads somehow feel more authentic because everyone is carrying a shopping bag. I honestly think that if Mitt Romney had simply realized he could mobilize voters by offering a one-time curtain-buster election booth special with 60 percent off all red-tagged merchandise at polls starting at midnight, he would have a) won and b) won as big as the sale at Macy’s.
We can no longer look back, except maybe to reflect on the beginning of the season and what it means for the end of it. After all, isn’t a family Christmas about cleaning up the messes made at Thanksgiving?
Before coming home for Turkey Day, I was concerned about how this year’s festivities would play out. I was living a completely different life away from home, and I didn’t know how far my relatives would probe into my daily affairs. Would they ask the generic, “How do you like school?” I almost wished they would, because, as frustrating as the question can be, it’s simple to get away with giving a blinding smile and an, “I love it! I now know why they call college the best years of your life.” To this, all adults in the room will inevitably gaze off starry-eyed toward an ambiguous corner as they remember the glory days when they excelled at legally binge drinking and scored the winning touchdown in flag football against what probably was a team of asthmatic Echols Scholars.
As this scenario plays out, you can slip away and Instagram more pictures of the food on the table, flaunting your professional photography skills with your creative angles and expert use of the ever-hip 1933 filter, arguably created exclusively to photograph poultry. Even though your answer is complete bull, you know your nostalgic relatives don’t really care that there are a few caveats to your loving school, such as the fact you’re failing economics and the boy on the fifth floor with Bradley Cooper’s abs still doesn’t know you exist. Happy with your answer, your relatives won’t even ask why you’re eating as if you’re hibernating for the winter, and you won’t have to explain that you actually are, as it was hard enough to force yourself to walk to O-Hill to eat what looks like groundhog meat without the whole inclement weather thing.
Besides the obvious lack of theatricality, this scenario obviously takes the cake — and maybe even the stuffing — as the golden ideal for handling relatives.
I worried, though, that this wouldn’t be what I would face. Since I left for school, my dad likes to do this cute thing where he slips in little hints about what he assumes I am doing weekend-wise, executed by taking me to breweries on Family Weekend, where the jokes and beer flow at the expense of a little thing called my dignity. How this would go over with the presence of all four of my grandparents was enough to scare the hangover right out of me.
I figured I could go about this one of two ways. I could beat him to the punch with a charming dose of my infamous sarcasm, chatting gaily about Mike, my tattoo artist and the intricacies of fermenting moonshine while in a dorm. A tempting option, I’ll say. On the other hand, I could pull the classic “hellfire and brimstone” move, preaching about pitfalls of underage consumption and throwing in mentions of Satan wherever appropriate.
In the end, I decided to keep my mouth shut and hope for the best. The results were disappointingly tame. It may have been one of tamest Thursdays I’ve had since coming to the University. Looks like I’ll be bringing Mike my tattoo artist home with me next break. Maybe then we’d make things interesting.
Julia’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at j.horowitz@cavalierdaily.com.
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