I xxxx you: Or how I learned to stop whining and to enjoy Christmas

Being perpetually single, Christmas season sometimes gets tough.

I come from a family, well I come from a family I just visited a week before the holiday, and my parents didn’t have a tree up or lights in the window. Even I do that - and leave the inside ones up until St. Patrick’s Day sometimes (unless there’s the slim chance I might actually have someone over and/or might get laid).

We’re also not very good about the love thing, meaning I’m pretty sure we all care a great deal for each other but have a hard time saying so.

Case in point: My folks deciding in September to move ASAP, giving themselves 10 days to pack it all and get out.

I show up like a good son the first chance I get to get things rolling and the dialogue goes a little something like this.

DAD: What the hell are you doing here?

ME (as I am lifting heavy objects): What the hell do you mean what the hell am I doing here? You gave yourself 10 freaking days to move. Someone’s got to do it.

DAD: Don’t do us any favors.

ME: Fuck you.

DAD: Fuck you (then storms out of house to sit in car for hours staring at pond in local forest preserve).

ME (to MOM): Doesn’t he realize I’m doing this because I love you guys and I get really frustrated when you rush into things and I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt and I don’t want you to get hurt.

Get the idea?

And Christmas is all about gushy feelings and Julie Andrews singing “My Favorite Things.” Deep down I am not immune to this. Songs like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” can turn me into 220 pounds of blubbering seal meat.

I also feel like a fifth wheel going anywhere to the point that one Christmas not so long ago, as no immediate family was around, to go see two movies instead of visiting friends.

But this year I decided not to be such a neurotic idiot about it. I even tried skiing when visiting my sister in Lake Tahoe, which is bold for a klutz like me, not caring too much if I fell, as long as it wasn’t on a small child.

Reinforcing how self-centered my “nobody loves me” shtick can be anyway, was seeing some friends on TV with their 22 year old son, who is in a hospital out east, learning how to use an artificial limb and what’s left of his other arm, both of which were blown up in Afghanistan.

Suddenly that I don’t have anyone next to me in bed every morning, hell any morning, seemed really not such a big deal. Plus, I snore anyway.

Plus, I sure do bitch and moan, but I realized this year, I really do have a good batch of friends.

So back to that four letter word. While the Eskimos may have dozens of words for snow, we only seem to have one for love, with no delineation, but for hot monkey love, which ain’t so bad when you get it either.

But that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room when you say it, which means its overused and trite and can make people uncomfortable.

Maybe there should be a word “loke” for when you’re in between falling in love and really liking someone. And another one for how you feel about your friends. And another one for your pets. Or your hobby. Or food.

Since there aren’t and since it’s Christmas I thought I’d let the government know by posting it here that there are people I think I love, which doesn’t mean I want to marry them, but that they my life does seem a helluva a lot fuller because I know them and for which I will use xxxx, not like a porno or a Muslim, but because we need a new word:

There’s a new friend and an old friend who both helped me find a liquor store to get the hardest to find gift on my list: Serbian Plum Brandy. And the place they both told be about had 4 kinds! That’s just one reason why I xxxx them both.

There’s my friend who I only talk to once a year, but who sends me a Christmas present, but I’ve known him 30 years. And his parents have me over every Christmas Eve like one of their own.

There’s my buddy in Northbrook who goes on adventures with me for my often fun job whose had his family and his Mom over for holiday meals (and meals will be a trend here).

There are my friends in Elgin who have me over to watch the Sopranos and eat with them and have made quite a few otherwise forgettable Sundays end with pleasant slightly drunken evenings. And another couple in Elgin who have me over to watch Monday night football, but really just to talk because who really cares when its's the Raiders playing?

There are my Irish friends who are not even 10 years older than me but consider me their son, who feed me and let me sack out on their sofa, and open the door and let me in whenever, for whatever.

There are my friends in Oak Park who feed me, too, and invite me out for beers and to have funny conversations about the sad state of the world.

There’s my buddy who asked me to bake Christmas cookies with her and her nieces, knowing full well I barely use my own over. It was great fun.

There are my basketball buddies who give me a reason to get off my ass and out of bed on Sunday mornings when it’s frozen outside for the last 15 years or so.

There’s the receptionist at work who always buys me a T-shirt when she goes on vacation, and I do the same for her. And the reporter whose been there longer than me with the heart of gold.

There’s my two friends from college, one in Denver, one in Boston, whom I hear from on the Internet.

There’s my friends from when I thought I wanted to be a comic actor a long time ago, whom I went with to a Sox game - the first time I saw them in almost 10 years.

There’s the guy who sends me e-mail all the time who should write a book about his life on the fringes of show business; my Notre Dame cousins; the couple in Chicago by Northeastern Illinois with whom I’ve explored the city and its fine bars; the woman in St. Louis who has sent me on some fun adventures in her hometown; and the sexy photographer with the tattoos at work, and the goofy photographer who makes me laugh just by walking into the room with his Polish Hawaiian shirt; the woman who got me King Tut tickets and the people I went with to that show.

There’s my buddy whom I only knew for a year, who was from Africa, who loved blues and taught at DePaul, who died this fall.

There are the people who actually read this blog.

Cripes, I feel like George Bailey or whatever the hell Jimmy Stewart’s name was in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” without having to have an angel snag my whiny ass off a bridge.

So to all of you, for what it’s worth, there’s a guy near a river in Illinois who xxxx you.

And if I forgot you, I owe you a drink.