HOLIDAY SPIRITS FOR THE UNSENTIMENTAL MAN

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Real Men don’t get sentimental with holiday spirits? Yes, they do, and you might one of them.

Do you cry when you see someone else crying?

No? Do you feel like crying, but stuff the feeling away?

If yes, good job. But stop.

Crying is good for you, most of the time.

Not so good in the wrong context.

Like laughing at a funeral, some emotional expressions are misplaced. Remember, it’s not your fault.

It doesn’t make you a bad person, unless you were a bad person to begin with.

Crying just might explain who the heck you really are.

• If you’re digging through Christmas lights and find some from you childhood, lights that remind you of your mom and dad.

You start choking up and think you’re having an allergic reaction. But to what?

Maybe it’s Sears bike you rejected because it wasn’t a Schwinn and you hurt their feelings.

They had other kids to buy for, but you didn’t care.

Or the eight track tape deck that wasn’t cool because only cassette decks were cool and they didn’t know the difference.

Go ahead and cry it out. Your dad won’t mind one bit. Neither will your mom.

Tell them you miss that tiger striped banana seat, you miss the Bread tape with David Gates they included in the eight track.

They understand holiday spirits.

• Say you’re hanging Christmas ornaments and your wife hangs one her mom gave you on your first anniversary.

You can’t stop looking at it and remembering that day.

Back then it was just a goofy present; today it’s a reminder of how much she loved you for marrying her daughter.

If your wife asks you what you’re doing, you have three choices.

1. Tell the truth.
2. Say you’ve got a pine needle in your eye.
3. Call it holiday spirits.

• The Bulldog ornament you brought home from your class reunion comes out of the box and you hold it in your hand.

Your wife says, “Come on, we’ve got a lot of Christmas balls to hang. Which one is that?”

Suddenly memories span the decades. Faces flash by like a facebook Year In Review. You wonder what it’s like for those who married their high school sweethearts.

This is one ornament that deserves better than the rest, so you put it in a place of honor on the fireplace mantel.

Those tears are Bulldog tears, not Red Raider, Duck, or Viking tears.

Not everyone get Bulldog tears.

You don’t need to explain this one.