Merry Christmas, You Trolls

You look out the window this morning and think: wait, did I sleep through to March? No—it’s actually Christmas Eve. The most Christian of all days. Which means the obligatory holiday greeting is now mandatory. My marketing department insists.

The model is simple enough: follow the example of the five thousand identical goodwill messages every TV network, every hairdresser, and every mobile carrier has been hammering at us since October. Merry Christmas! God bless your family! Have a restful holiday! Et cetera. You know the drill. It’s not your first Christmas. Or "Xmas," as the youth apparently calls it now.

So what I actually wish for you: that your Uncle Jörg, for once in his miserable life, doesn’t get absolutely obliterated and then slide his greasy fingers between your legs the moment he thinks nobody’s watching. That Erich—your older sister’s idiot boyfriend—loses his voice before he gets the chance to tell everyone, again, about the trip to Nepal where he found the meaning of life. And you didn’t.

I hope there’s enough goose to go around. I hope Aunt Iris doesn’t start singing. I hope nobody asks what you actually do for work. I hope the red wine kicks in fast. I hope you get a sweet text from Paula. I hope nobody starts a fight. And I especially hope Uncle Jörg doesn’t give you a vibrator—pink, with little red hearts on it, and slightly moist at the tip. Already. On arrival.

No idea how much I’ll be posting over the next few days. Depends on how stuffed I am from dinner, how hard my head is throbbing from mulled wine, and how deep into horizontal laziness the holidays pull me. But that’s fine. You’ve got better things to do over Christmas than sit on the internet. Merry Christmas.