Image by BenSpark via Flickr

My friend’s father-in-law hands out sugarless chewing gum and mint dental floss for Halloween. He’s not even a dentist. He never calls my friend for the holidays. When my buddy finally breaks down and calls him, he always gives my friend an world-class guilt trip, “I thought you were in the hospital or lost your voice or something; haven’t heard from you in such a long time…”

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I know my friend’s father-in-law isn’t a perfect Scrooge. He is, after all, a cyclist and shod runner. In fact, he competes in the senior Olympics.  The man is well organized has a nice house and, for the most part, treats everyone with his own homemade brand of kindness. He means well. I don’t think he’s cruel; I don’t think he even means to irritate my friend, but he’s a touch more egotistical than myself, which is quite a feat.

A few years ago, my friend’s father-in-law must have heard Alton Brown‘s hypnotic voice praising the virtues of gifting goats for X-mas.  Whatever it was, it kick-started a series of Heifer International Cards that seemed to devolve from actual gifts to what I believe are slack counterfeits. If they are real, they may as well be fakes because a third grader could produce higher caliber work with a box crayons and a roll of toilet paper.  Last year my friend’s mother-in-law sent my friend a soggy copy-bond piece of paper with cloudy spots of color parading as a Heifer X-mas Card. “A Fifty Dollar Gift to Heifer International was Gift on you Behalf.” Yes, “was Gift on you behalf.” All those goats, chickens, and pigs must have chewed off the some of the keys.

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I think supporting disaster relief and zero grazing charity is great. God knows there is plenty of wealth for everyone. But Heifer Cards are worse than a lump of coal and a form of reverse Scroogery. Why? First, the person who buys the card is actually doing the giving, not the person who receives the card. So it totally steals your healthy karmic thunder. Second, once Heifer International gets your address from the giver, the unending tide of requests for gifts begins. And Heifer is worse at guilt trips than my friend’s father-in-law because they include visuals, charts, and play the tax card. Last, if you really think about it, the gift says, “Hey, I love you, but some poor farmer in Africa who is outta goats is more important to me right now than you are; so, he’s getting your money this year–Merry Christmas.”

Yes, I sound like a terrible person. Maybe I am a terrible person, but I don’t give meaningless gifts that make the other person feel like a total douche. This year, the card asks, “Can One Animal Change the World?” Yes! It can change “Merry X-Mas” into “Baaah baaah baaah Humbug!”

Happy Freaking Holidays.

(Speaking of Goats, here’s a weird barefoot fairy tale about a magic goat.)

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