This Year, Everybody Gets Myrrh
The Christmas shopping season started early this year. It starts early every year. I think in 2005, you could see Xmas decorations in some stores on the day after Valentine's Day.
In a forest of iPods and Xboxes and silicon bakeware "for only three easy payments of $39.95", we are constantly ambushed with overhyped, overpriced, over-technologized (somebody call Webster's, I think I just invented a new word) items that nobody really needs.
This is the time of year when, regardless of our religious denomination, we should hark back to simpler times. I was musing upon this as I was wandering lost among the gift-baskets-in-bulk at the local Big-Box Warehouse Club, each basket of which could be mine for three easy payments of $39.95.
It occurred to me that, back at the first Christmas, they didn't have Big-Box Warehouse Clubs or Xboxes or ginsu knives. When the Messiah of Christian mythology (remember, I'm Jewish) was born, the Wise Men didn't try to give him an iPod. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And then a bolt of brilliance hit me. Of course! No more trying to match impossible-to-afford presents with impossible-to-please relatives. This year, everyone gets one of three things: gold, frankincense, or myrrh.
Gold is too expensive. And frankincense sounds too much like the monster of Mary Shelley's book, which will certainly creep out the youngsters.
So this holiday season, everybody gets the gift that keeps on giving: Myrrh. It's fragrant, it's exotic, it has Biblical overtones, and best of all, it's cheap.
Myrrh is still readily available 2,005 years later (heck, Tom's of Maine makes a toothpaste that is loaded with the stuff). Myrrh is a gum resin that comes from Commiphora trees in Somalia and Ethiopia. These days, it's mostly used in the production of incense (and, of course, toothpaste. Here endeth the lesson).
Best of all, I can get a whole box of the stuff for 21 bucks. Ka-ching! My holiday shopping is now done. Everybody gets myrrh. And if anybody were to complain, they would be damning themselves to hell, because after all, if it was good enough for the Baby Jesus, it oughta be good enough for them. (Ingrates.)
So, naturally, I mentioned to the Wife my brilliant plans to dispense with holiday shopping.
Her response: "Who's Mur?"
In a forest of iPods and Xboxes and silicon bakeware "for only three easy payments of $39.95", we are constantly ambushed with overhyped, overpriced, over-technologized (somebody call Webster's, I think I just invented a new word) items that nobody really needs.
This is the time of year when, regardless of our religious denomination, we should hark back to simpler times. I was musing upon this as I was wandering lost among the gift-baskets-in-bulk at the local Big-Box Warehouse Club, each basket of which could be mine for three easy payments of $39.95.
It occurred to me that, back at the first Christmas, they didn't have Big-Box Warehouse Clubs or Xboxes or ginsu knives. When the Messiah of Christian mythology (remember, I'm Jewish) was born, the Wise Men didn't try to give him an iPod. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And then a bolt of brilliance hit me. Of course! No more trying to match impossible-to-afford presents with impossible-to-please relatives. This year, everyone gets one of three things: gold, frankincense, or myrrh.
Gold is too expensive. And frankincense sounds too much like the monster of Mary Shelley's book, which will certainly creep out the youngsters.
So this holiday season, everybody gets the gift that keeps on giving: Myrrh. It's fragrant, it's exotic, it has Biblical overtones, and best of all, it's cheap.
Myrrh is still readily available 2,005 years later (heck, Tom's of Maine makes a toothpaste that is loaded with the stuff). Myrrh is a gum resin that comes from Commiphora trees in Somalia and Ethiopia. These days, it's mostly used in the production of incense (and, of course, toothpaste. Here endeth the lesson).Best of all, I can get a whole box of the stuff for 21 bucks. Ka-ching! My holiday shopping is now done. Everybody gets myrrh. And if anybody were to complain, they would be damning themselves to hell, because after all, if it was good enough for the Baby Jesus, it oughta be good enough for them. (Ingrates.)
So, naturally, I mentioned to the Wife my brilliant plans to dispense with holiday shopping.
Her response: "Who's Mur?"
Comments
I love your blog. Very funny stuff. Charlie Brown juicing was hysterical. I hope I get some myrrh in my stocking this year.
I hope you don't get too much hate mail for your "anti-Christian" posts. There are some of us that identify ourselves as Christians that can take a joke and realize we do some stupid things that need to be mocked.
AC
In the dim recesses of my part-Jewish mind, I seem to recall Myrrh given to the Christ-child was symbolic of his death.
But what do I know? I'm one of the guys who believe Jesus was Asian. At any rate, Semitic.
Deepak