I have written about Christmas before, don’t you know. I wrote about Christmas in China HERE. And you all might want to visit it and see what Christmas is like in China. And I have other Christmas themed posts as well. But this post will be about me offering you, the reader a very MERRY Christmas. And it won’t be much more than that.

When I grew up in the States, Christmas was a month-long event. It began after “black Friday” and continued to about one week past New Years. At that time the Christmas tree was taken down, and the decorations were removed, the food was all either eaten up or thrown out, and we all would settle in for the Winter months.

December was the month of long lunches with co-workers. Always involving alcohol. Also this was the time when frozen hams or turkeys were handed out. The company would buy them in bulk at bargain basement prices and hand them out to the employees as a token of “appreciation”.

This was also the time when the President would send out signed Christmas cards to every employee. But you know it really wasn’t his signature. My department was once told to sign a stack of 6000 cards for the President to mail out to all the workers. So we did, and over time our signatures got sloppier and sloppier. LOL.

December was quite the month for certain.

Typically, folk would leave for lunch around noon, and get back around four, pretty much sloshed. We would then try to pretend to work, while our bosses would close their office doors and take a nap. Obviously, work was only completed in the morning hours.

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All through the month of December, the “white collar” staff would take time off to go shopping during the normal working hours. It was pretty much a normal occurrence, and everyone did this. Just as long as you didn’t abuse this privilege, it was one of the “perks” of being an “office worker”.

So, if you all could imagine what it was like, imagine the afternoon with everyone sitting at their desks, sloshed. Smoking cigarettes in their company ashtrays and imbibing on some of the many, many home-make Christmas cookies donated (for the cause) and sampling the many kinds of dips and chips lying about. Heck! It was an often abused event, when people from one department would sneak into another department to grab some delicious dip and chips.

Fun times!

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The Christmas Bonus

One of the big conversation pieces revolved around the size of the Christmas bonus that we would get. People would tell stories about what they did with the last year’s bonus. And what they planned to do with this years bonus. Typically the bonuses would either be given out during the Christmas Party, or at the end of the day right before Christmas.

Most people tended to spend it on something big an lavish. It might be a down payment on a new car, an addition to their house, a planned swimming pool, or a vacation to interesting and sunny locations. By the time I started working, the idea of Christmas bonuses were begin phased out all over America. But, instead, we were promised generous sick days, and lenient extended vacation days to make up for the shortfall.

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Bonuses tended to equal one months pay. Which is WHY most companies calculated salary based on a 13 month year. Bet that you didn’t know that, did you?

From the festive celebrations to the time away from the office, there’s plenty that your employees look forward to about the end of the calendar year.

But, the one thing that likely tops their lists? A year-end bonus.

Nearly 80% of employers hand out a bonus to employees at this time—making it something that most employees not only appreciate, but expect.

And, while your staff is sure to be all smiles when you present them with a year-end reward, making the effort to provide bonuses on top of the usual payroll has some benefits for you as well. Fifty-four percent of employees state that they prefer monetary bonuses, and they would be willing to change jobs in order to receive that benefit.

-Quickbooks

Anyways, everyone tended to chat about bonuses and television shows. Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s the big shows pretty much dominated the conversation. MASH was always a favorite, as was “The Golden Girls”. And yes, we would talk about these things while at work. It’s what real humans do.

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Most companies, back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, held two Christmas parties. There was one “big” party, that was usually held in a local banquet hall or hotel. And one was a local party for the staff in any given department. Those local department parties were the stuff of legends. I’ll tell you what.

Local Department Parties

These local department parties might be on a Friday evening, where the boss would bring in a case of hard alcohols, and the secretaries would bring in some snacks and munchies. All paid out of the department budget especially reserved for this occasion. Typically, a table would be set up for the foods, snacks, and booze. Sometimes people might wear some stupid party hats. But that seemed to disappear in the 1980’s.

Typically the primary function of the party was to start drinking early on, then have a meal buffet style, and rounded out with some stupid games or a “mystery Santa”, some puzzles or skits, and then closure with handing out the yearly Christmas bonuses. Everyone would be smoking and drinking. Chatting up a storm about sports, television or the work “war stories” and then everyone would pretty much break for home by 9 or 10 pm.

In all my recollections, while the ladies might limit the numbers of mixed cocktails that they drank, everyone drank alcohol. If you refused to drink, you would label yourself as an outcast.

The idea was to really get everyone “shit faced drunk”, lower your inhibitions, and have fun. In those days, before the mainsteaming of busy-bodies and their ideas of a perfectionist utopia mandated by law, it was considered important for people to bond free of social inhibitions.

Oh my friends we're older but no wiser. 
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same. 
Those were the days my friend. 
We thought they'd never end. 
We'd sing and dance forever and a day. 
We'd live the life we choose. 
We'd fight and never lose. 
For we were young and sure to have our way. La la la la la la.

-The 5th Dimension - Those Were The Days Lyrics | AZLyrics.com

The alcohol was all high quality, and expensive shit too. None of that “average” stuff. If you are going to a Company Christmas party, you can expect to drink the best, and the Department Managers would typically contribute to this from their own home stocks.

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Of course music would be provided. Often it was just Christmas music, and played loud enough to provide atmosphere, but not so loud that you all couldn’t carry on a conversation with. The boss might hand out cigars, and there was always the obligatory visit from the President or the Vice President (the manager’s manager) who would stop by, have a drink and congratulate everyone and hand the manager the Christmas bonuses for him to distribute right then and there.

This was to prevent bad bosses from surreptitiously stealing the cash out of the employees bonus envelopes. 

Nope, the bonuses were not in the form of checks. It was in the form of cash. 

Indeed, it was usually in the form of hard cold cash. And i think part of this reason was to show gratitude and "special-ness". After-all, how often does a person get a stack of one hundred dollar bills?  

So yeah. It wasn't in the form of checks. It wasn't until the 1990's when everyone started to phase out hard cash bonuses.

Now, of course, once the bonuses were handed out, and all that, it pretty much signaled the time for everyone to leave. I would guess that about fifteen minutes to one hour afterwards, the staff would slowly leave in clumps and clusters. Everyone would help everyone else (being drunk and all) get into their cars. If someone was too drunk to drive, they would be driven home instead. And if, for some reason, someone or a couple of people needed to stay there, the company would provide them a hotel for the night.

Arriving Home

We would leave the office, drive home (drunk) and arrive safely. I only know of one accident that ever happened after a party. She wasn’t killed, but her car was smashed up, and she spent a week in the hospital. Obviously the fears of HR do have some weight. But not at the expense of creating a sterile no-fun environment.

But we would tend to drive home. And we would arrive and greet our families. Many of whom were past their normal meal times and who were off studying, watching television, or doing their own personal hobbies and activities. Since this is Christmas, the tree would be lit up (as well as all the house decorations), creating a nice warm and cozy atmosphere for us to arrive home to. And of course, the first thing that the wife would ask was “how big was the bonus this year?”

Elsewhere…

Sometimes the men (or ladies) would break off and meet at another venue outside of work before going straight home. The argument of “the night is still young” probably comes from this kind of situation. Often they would leave the company parking lot, only to drive four or five blocks over to a favorite lounge or bar for a few “night toppers” don’t you know.

It’s difficult to find a decent lounge today. But back in the day it was more like an American version of a British pub. It would have an array of sofas, comfortable chairs, fine areas to converse, smoke cigarettes, play cards and just drink with your friends. And at this time, the lounge might be packed and filled with a low hanging cloud of cigarette smoke that would waft and hang there like a blue haze.

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These were always fine establishments to head out to and hang out at. Most people might close out and head home around midnight, but others would linger until the “wee hours” of the morning.

Where are these lounges today?

Why aren’t there any more Christmas parties (in the United States) any longer?

What is going on with the HR telling you that you cannot smoke, you cannot drink, and you cannot have fun on your off-hours? I mean, people!, WTF?

Where did things go “off the rails”…

Money

The United States has become a place where everything has been co-opted by a military run money-making machine. The citizens, all are reduced, to what is nothing more than medieval serfs working on subsistence wages to service an enormous military-industrial machine that supports global “police actions”. To keep the citizenry in check, a local military is used which is called the DHS (The Department of Homeland Security). If it does not serve the military-industrial machine, then it is liable to prosecution… anything outside of the “normal” is to be avoided least one get entangled in legal battles.

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Too harsh?

Religion

Ok, then try this angle. Society has changed. Fun is now outlawed. This is because the Bible says that people have to be of a high quality to “witness” to others. That means no vices, a near saint-like presence, and an active effort to spread the word of God. Whether that is door to door with a bible, or obliterating the nations that do not follow the word of God; like Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and China.

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Still to harsh?

SEX

Try this angle. When you are with others celebrating the holidays people tend to relax. they lower their inhibitions. When people of the opposite sex lower their inhibitions, they tend to want to have sexual intercourse. By limiting all aspects of social interaction, the government (in this case, via businesses) can curtail the fun and freedom aspects of gender interaction.

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Remember boys and girls. The way for the 1%, the PTB, the oligarchy controls people is through “vices”. Vices are natural biological processes that are very popular. By limiting the access to these vices, governments control people. All you need to do is notice the government reactions to control popular pastimes, and systems in support of that.

• Donald Trump bans cat videos

Real Freedom is the ability to have fun.

Actually, it all boils down to sentience. Those with a service-to-self sentience end up collecting riches and with that comes power. They use that power to collect even more power, and as a result they lord over other sentience’s. Service-to-others sentience then is at a natural disadvantage. The two sentiences cannot co-exist.

What we are witnessing is the physical manifestation of the power projection between the two primary sentience’s on this earth and within this reality. And this story about the loss of freedom to have parties at work is one such manifestation.

Or…

To put it another way…

Your owners do not want you wasting your energies, thoughts, and creative abilities on anything that might “take away” from your labors from their interests.

And to that, I say…

Fooey!

Live life. You are in control of it. So live it and live it well. Do things you own way, with those that you care about, on your time schedule and in the way that matters to you. And if others don’t “get it” well, fuck them. That’s their problem.

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And I know…

I know that many won’t understand. That hey might think… well, what would they think? And does it really matter? We are all living our own different realities and the ways that feel best for us personally. And so if someone doesn’t like what we are doing, or how we are doing it, I say FUCK them.

Life is far too short to care about others that lie outside your immediate circle of friends and family. Concentrate only on those that matter to you, and if you put your pets before say a cousin, that is your decision and it is ok. Why? It is because it is your life. Do what is important for you.

And start now.

Start at Christmas.

Yes, things have changed…

Yes. I know that things have changed. That you have to abide by all sorts of diversity quotas, behavioral shackles, rules and regulations from state and local requirements to insurance issues, to local law enforcement requirements. But even so…

WHO says that you need to obey them?

Really. Seriously. So what? What is the worst thing that is going to happen if you want to take your staff out to a bar after work hours for a few drinks? What if your department budget no longer allocates money for recreation or “team building”? What’s stopping you for doing it yourself, on your own time, with your own money?

What’s stopping you?

Fear?

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Yes. I know everyone is different.

So what? Being different is good. No, I take that back. Being different is GREAT. It is what adds color to our lives, and passion to our experiences. It’s the wonderful aroma when bacon is cooking in the skillet, and the wonderful feeling when you take your first sip of icy cold beer after a really bad day at work.

So don’t hold back.

Be yourselves.

And embrace who you are and your own uniqueness. I mean that. I really, honestly do. And no matter what others might think of you, your lifestyle, your behaviors or your taste in music, in all events BE YOURSELF.

It’s an element of what Christmas is.

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Oh?

What?

You don’t think that I am serious. Oh Noooo! I am very, very serious. You MUST be who you are and you MUST share that reality with those that you care about. This remains true whether they accept that reality or not. And no it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will get drunk at a work party. It might mean anything.

But it means the freedom to be ourselves surrounded by those that we love and who loves us for EXACTLY WHO WE ARE right now.

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Strange posting from Metallicman

Yes. I get that a lot.

Why aren’t I railing about the “issues of the day”? Why aren’t I all that concerned about the Fourth Turning, and the SHTF, and the post-election shit-storm and all the myriad of issues that seem to intrude in my daily news feed? Why not?

• The train is moving full speed to the end of the line. There’s nothing that I can do about it.
• The Oligarchy, the PTB, the 1%, the Jews, or what ever enemy du Jour you want to assign this current world-line to, well it’s also out of my hands. You just recognize what is going on and step out of the way.
• Work rules and regulations come and go with the human condition. What we have now is but a fleeting moment in time. Embrace it.
• And if this world line is going to opt for the MAD level fiasco, well, I’ll perform a deep slide and get the fuck out of here. Maybe you all should consider that as well.

And if you don’t understand, well then, pour yourself a nice cocktail and forget about it. You need to relax. American have become so fucking uptight over the last few decade. When they arrive here in China they look bewildered and out of sorts. Like they are trying to find some kinds of stability or familiarity that they can hold on to.

Just celebrate Christmas.

Celebrate your way

Do it YOUR way.

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And if you don’t…

If you don’t take some friends, some co-workers, some family out to a meal, or a beer, or just a cup of coffee then you are a sorry, sorry excuse for a person. It’s the relationships with others that define our value. You have no relationships, then you have no value. Simple stuff. Easy to understand. Yet…

What the fuck is wrong with you all?

You don’t need to buy a lot of expensive presents. You don’t need to get shit faced drunk. You don’t need to ask permission. You don’t need to plan for a big event. You don’t need to order a cake.

You just need to be there.

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Some ideas…

• Stop over to your grandparents unexpectedly. Say hi. Tell them that you want to look over some old picture albums if they don’t mind. Or barring that, just have a cup of coffee, and maybe watch a television show with them.
• Call your brother, or sister and tell them that you remembered about the time when XXXXXXX and you were thinking about that time and just wanted to say hi.
• Call up a friend and say hi, and go out for a beer. You pay. It’s your treat.

It need not be extensive, expensive or exclusive. You just need to contribute your time. If you cannot. If you cannot give some of your time up for those that you care about, then what the fuck are you doing with your life? It’s those in our lives that make it worth while and who helps and stands by us when the times are low and we need to know that we are not alone, and that these people care about us.

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My friend Marcus didn’t know that. He thought that he was alone. He thought that people didn’t understand him. He thought that he was a failure. But that was all wrong-headed thinking. He wasn’t a loser. He wasn’t alone. And he wasn’t a failure.

He was just different.

And that difference made him special in our minds. And to this day, I greatly lament that he is no longer here. And yeah, even though I saw him rarely (being at the other end of the globe and all) I still wish that he could have said “MM I’m going through some shit right now, can I crash at your house for a month? I won’t be a bother. I just need some time”

And while my wife might have a fit, I would say “Yeah. I’d be happy to host you. We have an empty 2nd and third bedroom. Just come and we will sort out everything when you arrive.”

That’s what friends do.

That’s EXACTLY what friends do.

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It’s a shit load better than the alternative. No shit. It’s better than the alternative; the reality of what actually happened. Instead of lying nude in his bed and blowing his brains out.

So now, it’s Christmas. Are you all gonna follow the herd? Or are you going to spend time with friends and family? Are you going to bond with co-workers? Are you going to be a substantive person? Are you going to make a difference in this world? Or are you going to continue to be a passenger?

Do things your way.

Define your life by your actions now.

Use Christmas as your springboard.

Final words

Merry Christmas. Don’t be afraid about being called into HR for saying it either. Be who you are. Be proud, and define life on YOUR TERMS. start now.

Merry Christmas!

And if HR gives you some shit over it, tell them that Christmas is a Chinese holiday and you are just celebrating it because you are part Chinese.

…And if they look at you like you are fucked in the head, show them THIS post.

Remind them that Federal law prevents and prohibits discrimination against your religion and speech. It’s first amendment, baby!

Tell them to stop being so niggardly.

niggardly
[ˈniɡərdlē]

ADJECTIVE
not generous; stingy.
"serving out the rations with a niggardly hand"

synonyms:
miserly · parsimonious · close-fisted · penny-pinching · cheeseparing · [more]

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Oh…

One last thing.

How is Metallicman celebrating Christmas this year 2020?

Like this, you all. Like this…

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