“Best way to spread Christmas cheer is by singing loud for all to hear.”
–ELF
Some years, I can belt at the top of my lungs and still be a Grinch. That was me the year of our next story. I made it through December 23 by going through the motions, but I couldn’t go home for the holidays, so I spent Christmas week in California, where palm trees replace pine and the city clears out. I felt myself falling into a holiday hole of despair I couldn’t escape. Determined to make the most of it, I called up my new friend Angela—who always seemed super optimistic—to spend Christmas Eve doing the most festive activities to bring me out of my holiday funk. She was alone this holiday season, and it always makes me feel good to spend time with a fellow lonely friend. Plus, my boyfriend had been working a lot, so he wanted to just vegetate by himself.
Angela is a coworker of my friend Sam. Sam invited Angela to her birthday party a few months earlier in August, and after a few drinks, I must’ve given her my phone number (or rather, the booze I sucked down decided to give her my number).
Our duet of “All I Want for Christmas” last night was epic! It’s Angela by the way, she texted after that fateful first night together.
Sam’s birthday party had taken place in a rented-out karaoke room, and although I don’t remember singing with anyone (too many vodka sodas), belting out a Christmas song in the summer sounded like something I would do. Once a week or so, I would get a text from Angela, and all these texts were holiday themed. It was our connection. Sam warned me about Angela almost immediately, telling me to tread lightly with her. Apparently, everyone in the office hated Angela, but I figured office politics were none of my business. I’m sure plenty of coworkers have hated me in the past, so why not give her the benefit of the doubt? Sure, I heard she’d gotten caught faking a broken arm for three months to get sympathy from her peers and access to the disability parking spot, but c’est la vie! Besides, Christmas is a time of kindness and love and forgiveness, and Angela was always nice via text, so why not take the relationship to the next level? I invited her to my apartment for December 24, and I was optimistic I would be able to go from Scrooge to Santa in no time with the help of Angela and some activities that promoted holiday cheer. Yay, Christmas!
We started early. Angela arrived at my house around 9:00 a.m. with hot chocolate, the kind that radiates a deep, sweet aroma. Unfortunately, Angela wanted to save us some cals, so she’d bypassed the marshmallows, and when I took the first big swig, there were none to slow the flow, and I ended up burning the roof of my mouth.
“Sorry, I forgot to tell you I told them no marshmallows.”
My tongue was numb, and everything I ate after was tasteless. Still, I marched on, ready to enjoy the day. Feliz Navidad!
Next on our to-do list was baking. I bought one of those cookie presses the year before on clearance but never used it. It’s one of those devices that looks like a plastic gun filled with dough as its ammo. You’re supposed to aim it at your baking sheet, then pull the trigger to release the dough. It comes with a variety of barrel shapes, so you can allegedly make cookies shaped like holiday items, but unfortunately, I didn’t realize you had to use a special recipe with this product. My dough was too thick and heavy to use in the press, so the machine got clogged, and we never got any cookies in the oven.
While I was casually swearing at the press, Angela was trying to play Christmas music, but the Alexa robots in my place misheard her say, “Alexa, play ‘Do You Hear What I Hear,’” and instead kept responding, “Yes, I do hear you. What would you like me to do?” like a sad, updated “Who’s on First?” The holiday is about more than cookies and music, so Angela and I decided to just leave the mess and head out for ice-skating—an activity that would surely lift our spirits and put me in a jolly mood! Ho, ho, ho!
Well, first we had to get gas. But at seven dollars a gallon, the credit card machine was down, so I had to go inside to pay. (It turns out all the machines were down, except the ATM, so I had to take out money with a four-dollar fee just to fill up my goddamned gas tank.) Cheap-ass Angela told me she’d forgotten her wallet and her Venmo wasn’t working, but I know she just didn’t want to chip in because suddenly her purse appeared when we got to the ice rink and she wanted an Italian ice, but it was nowhere to be seen at the Shell station. I also opened the Venmo app on my phone and saw that the night before, Angela had sent ten dollars to our other friend Dave for “Getting F*cked Up” with an elephant emoji. I didn’t say anything to her because, well, Christmas is the time of joy and giving, and I was being all about the love. (Speaking of giving, I did decide not to give her the gift I’d wrapped for her that morning. If she was making me pay for gas and ice-skating, I was keeping the pumpkin pecan-waffle candle.)
Ice-skating cost forty dollars each, which is fifteen dollars more than normal. Apparently, they raise the price on the holiday, which is such bullshit. Whatever. I was being cheery and paid the fee anyway. I don’t own my own skates, so I also had to pay extra for those, and they didn’t even have my size. The young woman working there handed me a size eleven even though I needed a size thirteen. “These are close,” she said. I curled up my toes and sausaged them into the skates; otherwise, this trip and the gas would’ve been for naught, and I was determined to have myself a merry little Christmas.
It took me a little while to walk toward the rink because the skates were so tight, and while I was bent over adjusting, Angela spilled some of her Italian ice on my head. Keeping on trend for the day, the bathrooms were closed, so my neck was sticky with lemonade residue the rest of the day. Still, I maintained my holiday cheer because it was Christmas and joy to the world or whatever.
Angela’s icy treat was partially ruined, so she supplemented it with a hot dog. I thought it was risky to eat so much food from a concession stand, but she insisted. After only ten minutes on the ice, she started to get a stomachache from the concession stand beef and asked to leave.
On the way back home, Angela told me she had a gift for me in her car. I worried this meant I’d have to give her the candle—an item I got emotionally attached to keeping when we were back at the gas station—so when we got to my apartment, I went under the tree and grabbed an item I wrapped as a bonus gift, the kind of shitty gift you got and regifted to the mail person or a neighbor who stops by with cookies unexpectedly. It was a hot chocolate mix in a mason jar, which I figured would be good for Angela since it came with marshmallows, and she’d failed to put marshmallows in the hot chocolate that morning.
Angela handed me a perfectly wrapped box, and my mood began to turn. I even felt my smile curling upward. Until I opened it and saw it was a Blu-ray copy of Die Hard.
“It’s a Christmas movie!” Angela said. Ugh, it’s not to me, but also, pa rum pum pump um and stuff.
The only non-Christmas Christmas movie I recognize is Last Holiday. There’s nary a mention of anything Santa-related in that Queen Latifah movie, but the poster has the word holiday and Queen in a red dress, so it counts.
“Thank you. This was so nice of you,” I lied.
Although I wanted to boot Angela from my house and watch The Family Stone for the fifth time that year, it was Christmas Eve, and I figured I should be nice like Santa or Jesus or whoever. I threw the hot cocoa mix at her and poured myself a shot.
“We should watch a holiday movie!” I said, trying to lift my spirits. A cozy flick to get us feeling like Scrooge after the ghost stuff.
“Yes, we can watch Die Hard!”
I wanted to say out loud that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, but she looked at me with doe eyes, and I remembered her telling me it was her first holiday without her dad. He wasn’t dead; he’d just flown to the Bahamas with his new girlfriend. But still, I felt bad because I’m a nice human who wanted to be jolly.
“Whatever,” I replied.
Since it wasn’t pre-2010, I didn’t have a DVD or Blu-ray player readily available and was forced to rummage through my closet, looking for any outdated equipment that could play this bullshit movie that doesn’t star Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton. While I was digging for the antiquated machinery, my boyfriend must have spotted the wrapped present with Angela’s name on it, because by the time I came back into the room, she was lighting the pumpkin pecan-waffle candle—the one I originally bought for her as a gift but decided to keep for myself after she stiffed me on the gas. Not only was I unable to take the candle back, but now she had two gifts from me, and all I had was an old-ass Blu-ray. I was livid. I obviously couldn’t yell at my boyfriend in front of her, but I texted him, Why the f did you give her that, fucking fuck.
Unfortunately, after I hit SEND, I realized I accidentally sent that text to Angela.
“Did you just text me?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s a quote from Die Hard!” I lied again, hoping to fill the remainder of the day with the Christmas cheer I was determined to have.
“I don’t remember that line! Good thing we’re watching,” she replied.
Once the Blu-ray player was hooked up, I put Die Hard in the machine and said a silent prayer to Mother Mary that at some point in the film, someone says, “Why the eff did you give her that, fucking fuck?”
Angela opened her hot cocoa jar and decided to pick out the marshmallows one by one while we watched Bruce Willis and company.
“I don’t normally eat marshmallows, but they’re kinda good plain,” she said.
I’m not sure why exactly, but the way she ate the marshmallows made my blood boil. Since this was my year to have a demeanor as bright as Rudolph’s nose, I forced a smile.
Twenty minutes into the movie, Angela fell asleep from a sugar crash, and her snoring filled the room with a sound I can only compare to elephant calls. At least I wouldn’t have to explain the text dialogue thing. Meanwhile, my boyfriend was in the other room watching TikToks on his phone. I left Angela and went to check on him.
“What have you been up to?” I asked kindly.
“I’ve done absolutely nothing all day. It’s been wonderful,” he said.
“Do you want to do something Christmassy with me? Angela fell asleep.”
“No, I’m enjoying just hanging out alone,” he said.
“It’s Christmas Eve! We’re supposed to be in the holiday spirit!” I yelled. He wasn’t interested. Why wasn’t anyone as festive as I was? Everyone else needs to get it the fuck together for the happy season, I thought.
After storming out, slamming the door for dramatic effect, and calling my boyfriend a dick, I heard something that sounded like a crash come from the living room, and I raced over to see what happened. It was Angela farting. I’m not sure if it was the skating rink hot dog or the stale marshmallows, but whatever came out of her smelled like a dumpster and exploded louder than any of the gunshots coming from Die Hard. Somehow, Angela slept through it.
I decided I couldn’t look at Angela for one more second, so I fast-forwarded the movie to the end credits and shook her awake.
“Movie’s over. You fell asleep,” I said.
“Already? I must’ve crashed,” she replied. “Should we put on another Christmas movie? I think Four Christmases is streaming.”
“I’m going to get ready for Christmas Eve mass. I like to connect with God to remind me what this is all for, how Jesus was born on this day,” I lied.
“You’re not religious,” Angela reminded me.
“Right, but I’m just feeling kinda in church mode, so I thought I would go to mass today.” I wanted to tell her to rot in hell, but I was channeling my inner wise man or Mary or whoever was in that nativity story because…Christmas.
Angela blew out her new candle and waited a beat for the wax to harden so she could take the gift that I didn’t want to be her gift home. It was taking too long for my liking, so I put it in the freezer while she gathered her other things. She left a coat in my dining room, and when she was on her way to grab it, we found ourselves underneath some mistletoe I’d hung.
“We’re under the mistletoe. You know what that means,” Angela said playfully.
There was a voice inside me reminding me that mistletoe and friends are what the time of year is all about, and we’re so blessed to celebrate the annual holiday…but I would’ve rather kiss a toilet seat than Angela in that moment, so when she pursed her lips and looked up at me, I swatted her away and blamed it on her hot dog–marshmallow breath.
I grabbed the candle from the freezer, tossed it to Angela, and escorted her out the door.
“What are you up to tomorrow for Christmas Day? Should we continue our festivities?” she asked.
“No, I’m flying to Ohio,” I said.
“But I thought—”
“I bought a last-minute ticket while you were sleeping. Miss my family too much.”
“Okay, well, have a wonderful Christmas, and let’s do something for New Year’s Eve,” she said.
“No, bye!” I slammed the door and took a deep breath in.
My boyfriend took a break from his phone to join me just as I opened a bottle of wine I planned to take to the bed.
“Angela left already? Look, if you still want to bake cookies or do something Christmassy, I can…”
“No. I’ll be in the bedroom.”
“Pour me a glass. I’ll join you.”
“Grab a new bottle. This one is mine,” I said, gripping my bed wine harder than Saint Nick grips his glasses of milk.
That was the last time I saw Angela. I never booked that flight, but I did spend my Christmas doing what I should’ve done all along: silently scrolling through social media in bed next to my significant other. Angela meant well, and I wish her all the best, but sometimes we need to be reminded that just because it’s the holidays does not mean we need to be cheery or social. Sometimes other people are too annoying.
Season’s greetings!