Conscious Choice: Holiday Bliss — Or Your Money Back

December 2003

Holiday Bliss — Or Your Money Back

A soul survival guide for those living on the consciously correct edge

by Peter Cashmore

It’s the Holidays! And for those who celebrate (tolerate?), it’s time to gather with friends and family to celebrate the values that unite us.

Once again, it is time:

* for the dog to tear the (recycled) wrapping paper off all the presents to test their viability as chew toys,

* for Auntie Mavis to flirt drunkenly under the table with Uncle Harry,

* and for — just when you thought it couldn’t get any more exciting — the holiday turkey to self-combust in a glorious shower of savory (irradiated) herbs and lethal carcinogens (this wouldn’t have happened had it been organic!).

Alas, before you know it, all this holiday merriment will be over and you will receive an urgent call from your banker — and it won’t be to wish you a happy New Year.

There is an antidote for these trials and tribulations of the festive season. Whether your aim is to find true meaning in a world dominated by crass commercialism or simply to erect a 12-foot high neon (recyclable) Santa in your front yard, help is at hand.

I call it The Five-Step "Turn Your Holiday Distress To De-stress" Plan.

STEP 1: Practice goodwill to all men, women, children, and off-duty Santas.

This year, spread goodwill to everyone you meet and should you encounter a staggering, bearded man in a red suit, it would be best not to mention the weight problem.

STEP 2: Buy the biggest Christmas tree you can find.

This will ensure an endless series of hilarious, pine-needle-related foot injuries. By the way, those who buy live (now dead) trees deserve the pine needle plague.

Know that it is crucially important that you place the tree in the exact center of the living room. This is not a question of feng shui. It is so the dog, the cat, your inebriated or hung-over house guests, and each and every one of the kids get at least one good shot at knocking it down.

STEP 3: Release your inner child...but leave your real ones at home watching (politically correct) cartoons.

Retail therapy is good for the soul, especially when it involves careering around the toy shop wreaking digital pandemonium by pressing the "try me!" buttons on the season’s latest crop of toys of Xtreme brutality.

Buying toys for your children can be fun too. The standard practice is to bring your kids’ gift lists along and then systematically ignore them (see Step 5). Resist that temptation. Strap on a heavy duty pair of elbow pads and, in the name of all that is sacred about parental love and slavish subservience to your offspring, join the other grown-ups in the stampede for that very last, every-boy-under-the-age-of-13-must-have Mega-powered Abseiling Plastic Arnold Schwarzenegger Action Hero (a.k.a. conqueror of California).

STEP 4: Improve your career prospects; take a camera to the office holiday party.

We all know the situation. You have been coveting a leadership team job ever since you started at the small socially-responsible company, but you just cannot get the boss to respond. Well, here’s the solution:

* Go to the office party with your camera.
* Spike the punch liberally with (biodynamic) wine and (organic) hallucinogens.
* Ply your unsuspecting superior with buckets of the sweet liquid...
* And presto!
* The boss is sacred veil dancing in his underwear before you can say...
* "Smile!"

Now sit back, relax, and look forward to a New Year featuring:

* Your very own corner office.
* A sleek new hybrid company car.
* A discreet monthly bonus of unmarked bills.
* And all the Fair-Trade coffee you can drink.

STEP 5: Remind yourself why we observe Christmas: To celebrate the birth of Santa Claus.

A trip with the kids to Santa’s grotto is a day well spent. When you see your kids’ faces light up with joy, you’ll instantly forget that you paid the earth for this opportunity to stand shivering in a mile-long line while being pestered by a little green man with big pointy ears. And that’s just the store assistant.

If your children have not yet specified their...Gift Requirement Orders, a quiet word with Santa will help you "magically" guess what they "really want." Don’t let their shrieks and protests deter you. Now it’s just a matter of convincing them they’ll be even happier with the cheap (non-sweat shop) knock-offs from that cool Christmas Madness Liquidation Outlet down the street.

Follow these five simple steps and you’ll be able to bounce out of bed on even the grayest December morn and look out at a world brimming with joy and holiday spirit...assuming you can see past the 12-foot (recyclable) Santa.

Peter Cashmore hopes everyone gets what they want this holiday season. He personally has his heart set on the Plastic Arnold Action Hero...in the Buddha pose.

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