On the first day of Christmas

First Pres gave to me...

Too much estrogen in one room.

Yep. It's that time of year again. Time for the annual Ladies' Christmas Banquet at FPC.

I consider myself a pretty cheerful person, for the most part. I'm not hard to please, I tend to go with the flow on most occasions. However, there are a couple of times a year when I draw the line and protest the need for my presence.

One of those times is occurring tonight. I have no problem with celebrating Christ's birth. I love this holiday, actually; it's my favorite one. Where I start rolling my eyes and suppressing the gag reflex, though, is when you put 200 or so hormonal and emotionally charged women in a room, have them perform cheesy songs (such as the 12 Days of Christmas with revised words to fit the occasion, see above for example), listen to a cheesy vocalist, and pay attention to the cheesy talk given by the cheesy woman-speaker from another church whilst the cheesy lady in the next chair is suppressing tears at the sweetness of it all.

Since I haven't yet been struck by lightning for writing such blasphemy, I'll continue.

A couple of years ago was my first experience with such an evening. Luckily, I was sitting at a table of misfits and troublemakers who, like myself, could hardly (read: not) suppress the giggles that spontaneously burst forth at the hokiness of it all. I thought we'd wet our pants when "Shirley Shurley" (yes, that's her real name) got up and called some vocalists to the front to entertain us with their rendition of the chosen Christmas-carol-with-revised-lyrics of the year. I kept waiting for someone to get up and say, "Would the table in the back left corner please go stand outside the door and wait for me to come reprimand you for your bad behavior?"

Somehow, I got out of the evening last year. I think I had a sudden case of meningitis or some other life-threatening excuse. I'm unfortunately healthy tonight.

The other time of the year that I refuse to honor others with my presence is for Ladies' Retreats. I hate them, mostly for the same reasons that I hate the Christmas dinner (too much estrogen and crying), except I'm even more resolute about my staying home. I mean, a Christmas dinner is a few hours. A retreat? A few DAYS.

Meningitis? Forget that... usually for retreats I pull out the big guns and fake my own death. Dead people can't go on retreats, and they can't be made to feel guilty about it, either.

If you'll excuse me, I think I need to go put on my bathing suit, jump in a freezing cold pool, and visit the sick ward of the hospital for good measure. What's the incubation period for the flu? Praying for 30 minutes or less...