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

Single in Sandpoint: Scarlette vs. December: The Winter Snow-down.

     December, we meet again.

     Each year I vow to take you down. I research your weak points. I consult ancient texts. But this year I discovered that, apparently, the only way to conquer your endless lines, snow, incessantly cheery music, soggy socks, cookie exchanges, white elephant gifts and heinous accessories is with organization, preparation and a flask full of very hard liquor.

     In the months leading up to December I was ready for the battle royale, and this time I’d be ready. I found I wasn't really stressing out about “The Holidays,” and I have no idea why. I wasn't curled in the fetal position on my bedroom floor, begging with the Lord himself to please, just this once, let’s skip December.

     No, this year I had high hopes. I’d try to do impossible things like bake cookies and buy presents in real stores (not online). I would be so good at it my friends and family would be like, "Dude, Scarlette has totally turned over a domestic leaf, she can cook, and these are the pickle-shaped salt and pepper shakers that I've always wanted."

     Yes, it would be glorious. December would just skulk off, defeated. That was my visualization. But when the bell rang, boy oh boy did December come out swinging.

Round One:

     We got the tree. The one the whole family went searching in the woods for. The perfect tree. Before I knew it I was riding around in the mountains in 7 degree weather, clutching hot chocolate and wondering what kind of a person buys a 2-wheel drive truck.

     My husband pulled over next an area with a bunch of "Christmassy looking" trees, and I said something like, “This tree is nice.” Then I went off searching in the woods for a tree that wasn't just nice; I wanted a tree that was PERFECT.

     Less than 30 feet from the car, or about 45 seconds later, I heard the sound of a chainsaw. Oh, no he didn't. Was he really cutting down that nice tree? I didn't say to cut that one down. I just said it was nice.

     Upon further investigation, I found that, yes – that was exactly what he was doing. By the time I arrived back at the truck, the tree had already been felled.

     "Why did you cut down that tree?" I asked.

     "Because you said you liked it," he shrugged.

     "NO, I did not say I liked it; I said it was nice," I hissed.

     "Fine, we'll just leave it here and find another," was his brilliant answer.

     Now, I’m not the kind of person who feels comfortable cutting down a tree and discarding it. I felt like all those jerks in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" – the tree wasn't perfect, sure, but maybe all it needed was a little love.

     Well, we got the tree back home and it needed to be trimmed down by about 4 feet, and I'm pretty sure those were the 4 feet that were "nice." All the love in the world wasn't going to make it a show-stopper. In fact, after the tree sat in the corner of the room – mocking me – for about a week, even our dog decided he hated it. After I left to go run an errand, the dog did it’s best to undress the poor thing, eating an entire strand of lights and taking a few ornaments off just for good measure.

     Round one goes to DECEMBER..

Round Two: 

     A couple of days after the dog-on-pine violence, I was sitting comfortably with my half-naked tree when I saw on the news that Sarah Palin was coming to town.

     I’d wondered why the weather was so cold and the sun hadn't been out for days; then I knew why. Oh, December, you cagey little devil you – you thought you could scare me with Sarah Palin? 

     I knew immediately that I had to be a part of this Sarah Palin fiasco, even if it was the last thing I ever did. I wanted to see her, look her straight in the eye, and ask her to sign my Levi Johnston issue of Playgirl.

     That’s just how I roll, folks.

     Sadly, though not unsurprising, Mrs. Palin wasn't in town to sign autographs or answer questions, she was here to sell a book. If you didn't have a copy, or your copy wasn’t purchased at Vanderford’s, you weren't going to get any face time.

     As a member of the media I had access to photograph her for 15 minutes, but other than that, nothing. My Playgirl sits today, still unsigned.

     Regardless, here's the deal: I'm not going to “go rogue,” not now, not ever. I expected to see a spectacle and I did. I saw a line in which hundreds and hundreds of people waited for hours just to be in the presence of a former-maybe-vice president and ex-half-term governor. I saw people in camouflage, people with pictures of their latest kill taped to their shirts, some of my family members, and even the racist guy that haunts my favorite coffee shop (SPR XX/XX/XX). I saw them all.

     Her tour bus befitted a rock star, with a giant portrait of herself on the side and a moose antler hanging in the front window. Her groupies were lined up and ready to do whatever conservative Christian groupies do.

     Now, normally, I don't frequent places that have very high concentrations of extreme conservatives; December threw this at me knowing I can never pass up a celebrity sighting – EVEN, maybe especially, if I don't even like the celebrity. December was trying to get me killed.

     I locked eyes with ex-Governor Palin just once. She had just said “I love your jacket” to a nearby woman who was wearing a faux fur cheetah print vest. I made a little noise, like a snort, and she looked straight at me. I looked back at her. What was there to say? We both knew that she’d just lied to that lady, and we also both knew that woman would probably be wearing that vest and buying identical pairs for all her friends. Since there’s a high probability that none of them believe in birth control, we may be seeing that vest handed down to grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren for the next century. At least.

     After my stare-down with “The Barracuda” I got a little scared, so I started singing a little carol I’d made up for just such a moment (sung to the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”):

She's written a book, it's got a high price,

She's gonna’ give out some Christian ad-vice

Sarah Palin’s com-iiing to town.

She kills things when their sleeping,

She knows my motives are fake.

She knows I didn't vote for her,

I best get out for my own sake.

          Round two goes to SCARLETTE (extra points for not getting flogged or converted).

Round 3:

     So, I'm in the shower, in my new house. My new house is in town and my old house was in a forest, so I'm not used to people just dropping by for the hell of it. To make matters worse, I was showering at a strange time of day – my kids had a Christmas sing-song spectacular that I had to attend, and I wanted to look like a normal person with brushed hair and pants on. Real pants, mind you, not the sweat kind.

     I hopped out of the shower and started to dry off. At that point it dawned on me that the perfect shirt I wanted to wear was in the living room with the rest of the newly folded laundry. I put the towel around my head and streaked out to the living room. I had the shirt halfway over my head when I heard knocking. A different kind of knocking. Window knocking, not door knocking.

     To my utter and all-consuming horror, the Fed-Ex man was staring through my window and I was wearing nothing but a turtleneck.

     I grabbed a towel off the laundry stack, wrapped it around my waist and answered the door under the impression he’d leave like a normal person – you know, like someone who’d just seen a total stranger half naked in their own home.

     NO. He made me SIGN FOR THE PACKAGE. Talk about awkward. I had to take a package and sign for it while standing in a hastily-wrapped towel skirt – a towel skirt that the delivery man had watched me put on.

     Perhaps this is the point in the column where I should mention that it’s actually less treacherous to shop in a mall than online; no delivery people are just waiting for you to do a nude lap around your house.

     Round three: This is a tough call, but I think the only winner here is the FED-EX GUY.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL, AND JUST SO YOU KNOW, I'M NOT TAPPING OUT YET!!!!

Scarlette Quille