I was devastated when I found out the due date for my first baby is Christmas Day. I hate to think that my child will have to compete with the holidays on her birthday every year - combined presents, her special day getting swept aside by the excitement of the season, the difficulty putting together a birthday party when all of her friends will be out of town. How could I have done such a terrible thing? "Great," I thought to myself when one of those online calculators revealed the date. "Literally my first act as a parent and I fucked it up." (Note: don't have unprotected sex in early April. Nobody told me that they start counting the 40 week gestation period before you actually conceive - what the hell kind of sense does that make? How could I have known this? And now my child will pay for my ignorance every single year of her life.)
When someone finds out that I am due on Christmas Day, about 7 out of 10 of them exclaim delightedly, as if I did this on purpose as a special treat for myself, "Oh, what a wonderful Christmas present for you!"
Now, I admit that I am not completely familiar with all the Christmas traditions. My family is Jewish, although not religiously - we have chosen to retain the guilt and anxiety but skip the holidays and belief system - so I didn't even celebrate Christmas until junior high or so, when my mother remarried a gentile who brought with him the lovely tradition of gluttonously opening all your presents at once on a single day. My brother and I embraced this change with all the exuberance of the spoiled American child with no sense of or interest in any deeper purpose other than self-involved consumer fulfillment.
So, while I have thoroughly enjoyed the traditions of trees and cookies and gaining 10 pounds and presents galore, I admit I have not actually read up on any background to the Christmas story or could in any way be considered an expert. Don't get me wrong - I do understand it has to do with that guy Jesus. But more importantly for me it heralds my Aunt-in-law's annual peanut butter balls.
However when it comes to gifts, I'm pretty clear on what constitutes appropriate. Gifts after all know no religion. I've been receiving them for years and years. Therefore, despite my lack of knowledge regarding the origins of the Christmas holiday, I would like to list here the Top Ten Reasons Why Having a Baby Does Not Qualify As a Christmas Present.
1. One is not usually expected to make one's own gift.
2. Christmas gifts are usually wrapped in shiny, attractive paper and festooned with ribbons and bows. They are not wrapped in blood and mucus unless you are a family of vampires.
3. Unwrapping/unveiling the gift should not cause hours or days of excruciating pain. If it does, either a) you are doing it wrong or b) whoever gave you this gift doesn't actually like you and you should probably not be their friend anymore.
4. While a really awesome gift may include packing a bag and leaving at a moment's notice for an overnight stay somewhere, the somewhere should not be the hospital.
5. One should not be expected to carry around one's own wrapped gift for nine months every single place one goes, even while one sleeps, before being allowed to open it.
6. After opening your Christmas gift, it is not acceptable that that gift then be the only recipient of all future gifts, Christmas or otherwise, instead of you (or anybody else in your household) for the rest of your life.
7. Usually a Christmas gift should not immediately demand to suck on your boob. Unless you're into that sort of thing. Whatever floats your boat. Hey, I'm liberal!
8. A Christmas gift should never EVER have anything to do with the phrase "bloody show".
9. Your Christmas gift should not cause you to gain 50 pounds. Five, even ten pounds are acceptable under certain circumstances (a 2 lb box of See's candy, for example), but by no means is 50 pounds okay.
10. A Christmas gift should never make you threaten to murder your husband. Unless he gives you a blender. Then it's okay. Or a steering wheel cover. Okay, SOMEtimes a Christmas gift might make you threaten to murder your husband. That one isn't a good qualifier. So one more.
11. Generally, you should not be required to expel your own gift from a bodily orifice which you would normally never discuss, let alone display, in public. I say generally because I understand different families have different traditions, and far be it from me to judge. Like how some families open presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas.
So while I have little knowledge of Christmas, and even less of babies, I do think the points detailed here are inarguable. Therefore nobody is off the hook from getting me a present this year just because I might birth a baby. Keep in mind I already have a blender.
