Scarlette Quille, aka, Rack Attack, aka, The Re-Caroler

     If you’ve been reading this column for the last five years, you know a few things about old Scarlette Quille:

1. She loves vodka. The expensive kind. (So if you were planning on getting me a Christmas present, please send vodka. Grey Goose or Kettle One will do.)

2. She hates holidays in general, but Christmas the most.

     Yes, I just said it.

     I feel guilty for admitting I don't like Christmas, but last year’s pregnancy and unemployment have given me the opportunity to watch thousands of hours of daytime television.

     The message that I have received from all these chat-fests is that you have to be "true to yourself.” You have to learn how to admit your faults. That, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck is definitely Satan's half-sister.

     So I don't like Christmas. Does that make me a bad person?

     Still, I celebrate it. I wrap presents, eat too much, spend more money than I should, endure long awkward hours with family and I decorate my house. In the grand tradition of mothers all over the country I do these things to make "other" people happy.

     Oh yeah, please, don't tell me you never had a Christmas guilt trip; when your mom was screaming at you while over-doing some Christmas related task.

    You were like, "Mom, if you don't want to embroider and hand sew every one of our teachers a Christmas present, you don't have to."

     And then your Mom was like, "I do this for YOU, so YOU can have a good Christmas, and this is the thanks I get? A daughter with a smart mouth.”

     Speaking of moms and Christmas... what kind of “Christmas Mom” did you have? Was she an insane Christmas drill sergeant forcing you to dress in sadistic formal holiday wear for her own sick pleasure, then parading you around town to various pageants and Santa sightings?

     Or was your mom the kind who baked for two weeks straight and then used her children as slaves to assemble cookie packages for EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING SHE EVER MET?

     Or maybe you had the obsessive decorator type – the one who had a specific place for ever single holiday decoration, including holiday tree ornament placement. (You know, the type that even has holiday bathroom decorations.)

     I loved going to my friends’ houses during the holidays so I could see what kind of crazy their moms were; it made me feel lucky to have my mom, who was certainly holiday-crazy but no deranged maniac – like some "people" I know.

     I'll be honest here: I've tried picking up a holiday habit to obsess over. I’ve tried all of the abovementioned things and more.

     One Christmas I made candles out of baby food jars. They sucked.

     As you might suspect, I lack the dedication and desire to achieve any sort of notoriety in the domestic arts. Unfortunately, Christmas is the holiday when the domestic goddess rules and the rest of us feel inferior.

     The real problem I foresee is this: How will I guilt those kids of mine into coming home for Christmas when they’re in college? The sign of a good mother is whether or not her kids come home for "the holidays," right?

     Well, I merely dabble in baking, decorating and pageantry. I can't see my future-self calling one of my college age children – who wants to have Christmas in Cancun with her boy toy – and telling her I made four-dozen of her favorite cookies and am sitting next to our perfectly decorated tree crying my eyes out.

     My kids will know I'm full of reindeer excrement. They’re my kids, after all, so what kind of power will I have over them if I don't develop some sort of Christmas persona?

     Maybe that’s my problem; I have no Christmas persona. Or maybe I have one, but I just don't know what it is.

     I’m sure there’s some sort of quiz on Facebook that could give me the answer to "What is my Christmas persona?" but I don't like those quiz things. I don't really care what Hollywood starlet I most resemble or what my “Jersey Shore” name is.

     (I take that back. My “Jersey Shore” name was “Rack Attack.” That was a quiz well worth my time.)

      So I’ve been soul searching. What is it that I do EVERY Christmas that no other bitch on the block can do?

     Then it came to me: I can re-write a Christmas carol in a flat second.

     Why just the other day I went out for drinks, and, while it was a little early in the season, the people at the bar already looked depressed. Luckily I had “Silent Night” stuck in my head. (Thank you every single business on earth for playing Christmas music for six weeks straight.)

     Anywhoo, I've been singing the usually whiny and somber "Silent Night" with my own words for the last couple of weeks.

     Here goes:

Silent Night, bo-ring night

At the bar, shirt's too tight

Bon Jovi streams from speakers above

Pe-ople toast to get-ting a buzz.

Everyone in here looks Bo-red

Everyone in here looks bored.

Silent night, big girl fight.

Her boobs are fake, it's quite a sight

Bon Jovi streams from speakers above

People toast to get-ting a buzz

Everyone in here looks bo-red

     Feel free to add your own verses.

     So that’s it, Rack Attack's Christmas Persona is: The RE-CAROLER. I take Christmas carols and make a mockery of them, whilst encouraging young children and drunk people to do the same.

     Future guilt trips to my children will have rich material. There is a Santa after all.

     Cheers to you, the baker, the decorator, the Christmas stage-mom, and those of you who are still searching for your Christmas persona! I salute you.

Catch you in the New Year,

Scarlette Quille