TNL Christmas Etiquette Guide

We are now officially into the full-fledged Christmas season and it’s time to lay down some laws. We all know the little “hidden” rules that follow the holiday season, the one’s developed by politically correct thugs that serve no real purpose in life other then restricting fun. Rules like don’t make a pig of yourself and show restraint at the company Christmas party. Well, we say BS! Here are the real rules to follow this holiday season and anyone that doesn’t is un-American and supports terrorists. So ask yourself: do you support terrorists? I thought not.

-Christmas cards are for losers. How much effort does it take to buy a rubber-stamped, assembly line piece of cardboard? Here’s an idea – if you really care about someone, call them up and wish them a Happy Holidays; if you can’t spare the time for a call, then they aren’t that important to you, stop the charade.


-Fruitcake sucks! If someone offers it to you as a gift, offer an equivalent flaming bag of shit in return. The very least a person can do is stuff some store-bought cookies in a Ziploc bag. Have some standards.


-Eggnog is only available one time of year – take advantage. Granted the stuff has about 15,000 calories per 8 ounce glass but it’s damn tasty. Even better is the inventive person that adds alcohol to it - now that’s a person of fine standards.

-Dec. 19 is the official start of Bowl Season: grab a beer, hit the couch, and let the vegetation begin. Make sure everyone knows you will be unavailable until sometime in early 2007. If they don’t like it; tough, they will have to live with it. The bowls are the Oktoberfest of the college football season and the last chance to stuff in as much football as possible before the bleak months ahead – celebrate appropriately.

-Office parties are a chance for YOU to fleece the COMPANY. Drink and eat like you’re on death row and execution day is tomorrow. This is the one time that you can get shit-faced at a company event, piss everyone off telling them how you feel, and get away with it. Only the worst bosses in the world hold employees accountable for what goes on at the company X-mas party; it’s a get-out-of-jail-free-card experience.

-If you aren’t eating yourself into a coma you’re not doing something right. Christmas parties are a celebration; stuff yourself like the fat pig you are and be happy. Friends and relatives have spent a lot of time and effort preparing the food for you; show your appreciation by devouring large amounts of it.


-If you find a particularly tasty cookie at the desert table, like Peanut Blossoms, stand and guard them like you’re a lineman protecting Troy Smith in the championship game (Michigan fans substitute Chad Henne here). The really good cookies are always the first to go, forearm shiver anyone that attempts to take one.

-If the party you are attending has a vegetable tray as an appetizer, leave - they’re Communists. Vegetables should only be served as a side dish with profound amounts of cheese or in casserole format – anything else is unacceptable. Don’t even explain yourself, leave and head to a party that has a summer sausage/cheese platter, the very smell of which could cause myocardial infarction.

-Waiting till the absolute last minute to Christmas shop is a man’s God-given right, don’t be ashamed. Do you really think the sweatshirt you will get had anymore thought put into it then the couple hours you will spend shopping (gee honey, a PSU T-shirt, how did you know)? Furthermore, this is the ONLY time of year that the malls are working for you and not against you. Stores have special sales for last minute shoppers and the only other people in the mall will be guys – all the women finished shopping weeks ago. Buy something expensive and shinny and hit the mall bar to catch the game. If your mall doesn’t have a bar, what the hell are you doing there?

-It is perfectly acceptable to live off of cold turkey sandwiches and Bud Light the week between Christmas and New Year’s. You will also need copious amounts of naptime to refuel your football-watching machine. Be proud of who you are: a football junkie.

-Just because your team failed to make it to a bowl is no excuse to skip watching football. Adopt a team like Rutgers, root like crazy, and tell your nagging significant other to go to Hell; it’s the last chance for real football.

-Know your limits….. so you can set new ones. Limits are for quitters - remember back in college when you woke up under an overturned couch sandwiched next to someone you met at that Frat party the night before? Did you reach your limit that night? Did you know what your limit was? HELL no, you had no limits. Live like that again.

Brandi the Wonderdog says: limits are for wusses

There you have it, the TNL guidelines to good Holiday etiquette. Now go be clinically merry and fill yourself with certifiably insane cheer. January is just around the corner, you might as well set the bar low so your New Year’s resolution won’t be that hard to reach.