Holiday Article

Andrew Chang // Holiday Article

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, it’s necessary to realize three important things.

1. Inappropriately sitting on Santa’s lap is not funny.

Sometimes the people that benefit the most from the winter season aren’t those who love the holiday spirit, but those who take the opportunity capitalize on the consumers. For that reason, it’s commonplace for many malls to have a Santa figure, drawing children to sit on their laps so that their parents can spend their time in the surrounding area making large amounts of purchases. However, with every group of teenagers that comes across one of these displays, it’s highly likely that one of them will choose to sit on Santa’s lap and humorously make a wish. This joke, meant to be ironic, is frequently unfunny and makes everyone feel awkward.

2. White Elephant is really sad.

It’s still unclear to me why people still play White Elephant. For those unfamiliar with this cruel game: it’s an event where a group of people get together, each bringing a wrapped present to put in a central pile, and take turns choosing a wrapped present from the pile. When each person takes a present, he or she proceeds to unwrap it and show it to everyone. The next person can either steal an existing unwrapped gift from someone or adventurously take another present from the pile. This is a terrible game on two levels. One, it’s always awful when nobody wants to steal your gift. Secondly, it goes on forever sometimes because sometimes everyone wants to steal a particular gift when your gift is still sitting there in the middle. Either way, you feel sad. Either way, nobody should ever play this game.

3. Joke gifts hurt everyone.

Sometimes, when it’s really difficult to think of what to get someone as a gift, you’ll consider getting them a funny or shocking gift as a joke. Examples of such include inappropriate lingerie, absolutely useless items, and other weird miscellany. Stop right there. You’re not going to want to do that. You’ll purchase the item at a store and give it to them on the designated date; they’ll open the wrapping; they’ll either laugh or stay silent; a month later, your joke will be in the recipient’s closet, never to be seen again; you just wasted a lot of money on a few seconds of laughter. If you can’t think of anything, just go with a gift card and tell them a funny joke. That way, everyone can have a giggle and they can still reap the pragmatic benefits of a gift card.

Hopefully, given these guidelines, you’ll be able to have the best holiday season you’ve ever had. Remember, it’s all about the people you love!

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, it’s necessary to realize three important things.

1. Inappropriately sitting on Santa’s lap is not funny.

Sometimes the people that benefit the [delete "the"] most from the winter season aren’t those who love the holiday spirit, but those who take the opportunity capitalize on the consumers. For that reason, it’s commonplace for many [is "many" necessary? you already refer to it as "commonplace"] malls to have a Santa figure, drawing children to sit on their laps [should be "his lap" because you're referring to a singular figure] so that their parents can spend their [delete "their"] time in the surrounding area making large amounts of purchases. However, ["However" doesn't really fit in this context-- you haven't said anything that makes the following sentence contradictory?] with every group of teenagers that comes across one of these displays, it’s highly likely that one of them will choose to sit on Santa’s lap and humorously make a wish. This joke, meant to be ironic, is frequently unfunny and makes everyone feel awkward. [LOL]

2. White Elephant is really sad.

It’s still unclear to me why people still play White Elephant. For those unfamiliar with this cruel game: [change colon to comma] it’s an event where a group of people get together, each bringing a wrapped present to put in a central pile [perhaps put this phrase in dashes rather than commas.... it's kind of confusing as it is now], and take turns choosing a wrapped present from the pile. When each person takes a present, he or she proceeds to unwrap it and show it to everyone. The next person can either steal an existing unwrapped gift from someone or adventurously take another present from the pile. This is a terrible game on two levels. One, it’s always awful when nobody wants to steal your gift. Secondly, it goes on forever sometimes because sometimes ["sometimes" is repetitive] everyone wants to steal a particular gift when [change to "while"] your gift is still sitting there in the middle. Either way, you feel sad. Either way, nobody should ever play this game.

3. Joke gifts hurt everyone.

Sometimes, when it’s really difficult to think of what to get someone as a gift, you’ll consider getting them a funny or shocking gift as a joke. Examples of such include inappropriate lingerie, absolutely useless items, and other weird miscellany. [perhaps come up with more examples? lingerie doesn't with vague terms such as items and miscellany] Stop right there. You’re not going to want to do that. You’ll purchase the item at a store and give it to them on the designated date; they’ll open the wrapping; they’ll either laugh or stay silent; a month later, your joke will be in the recipient’s closet, never to be seen again; you just wasted a lot of money on a few seconds of laughter. [This sentence is definitely grammatically incorrect... but it sounds nice the way you have it, so I'll check whether it's okay. But you might want to think about how you'd like to break it up if the exec. copy editors tell me to tell you to change it.] If you can’t think of anything, just go with a gift card and tell them a funny joke. That way, everyone can have a giggle and they [specify antecedent; right now it's everyone, when it should be the gift card's recipient] can still reap the pragmatic benefits of a gift card.

Hopefully, given these guidelines, you’ll be able to have the best holiday season you’ve ever had. Remember, it’s all about the people you love! [This last sentence is so random? How does it fit with the rest of the article?]