My father is a grinch when it comes to the whole Christmas holiday season.  From a nice, mild-mannered person the rest of the year, he turns into a raving grinch the minute he sees or hears about Christmas coming.

He hates Christmas. Well, not so much the holiday itself, but all the trappings that come along with it: the shopping, for instance.  He absolutely hates crowds and he feels it is akin to getting a root canal done if he even has to go to the store to shop.  He doesn't like to wait in long lines, and the music drives him up a tree.

Christmas tree, that is ....

He hates fighting for parking spots or the best bargains.  If he had his druthers, he'd rather stay home and vegetate in front of the TV, watching his beleagured Dallas Cowboys lose yet another game (screaming at the TV all the while), or he'd rather work out in the yard if there's no football on.  Or play on the computer if we kids aren't using it or are at school.

My dad doesn't work.  He collects disability.  He has a seizure disorder that causes him to have seizures.  If he has to go to the store, Mom has to drive him 'cause he can't drive himself, and if he gets really stressed, he can go into seizure mode, which means another trip to the ER if he falls and hurts himself or to get his medications checked out or altered.

Mom and we kids keep telling Dad to get a grip on things, but trying to talk to him is like hitting a brick wall: he absolutely refuses to listen.

Around Christmas time, we have to watch on eggshells 'cause that's when he turns especially nasty.  We call him "The Grinch, Reincarnated".  He makes Scrooge look like an angel.  He is as mean as a snake, and we don't like being around him when he is in one of his Grinch-like moods.

I'd enjoy Christmas a whole lot more if it were not for my Grinchly father.  If there is one thing I'd like, it would be for him to stop being such a jerk and learn the real meaning of Christmas!!  Or to stop buying us cheap stuff that we have no use for.  Just last Christmas, he got me a bar of scented soap on a rope and some cheap butt cologne that smelled like rotting cabbage.  It was gross!!  He is such a tight wad!!