Are you getting a new car for Christmas? Me neither, so you might want to stop watching television, especially NFL games because if you watch the commercials, you may think you’re getting a new luxury vehicle with a big red bow on it … and I don’t want you to get your hopes up. If you watch the TV ads closely, you’ll notice that these new cars are typically parked in front of just-built, upscale houses and come furnished with a hot new wife, and while I can’t comment on your spouse, I do know that you’re typically thirty days late on your mortgage and that your house is sixty years old and sits on the riverbed. Anyway, there’s lots of stuff you won’t be getting this holiday season.

‘Tis the season to be unrealistic. Instead of sugarplums dancing in your head you should be thinking of some other fruit that’s more practical, maybe a nice lemon, but you don’t. You’re dreaming of a white Christmas (why does it always have to be racial?) when you can only afford a beige one. It happens. You want shiny and bright when dull and overcast would be perfectly acceptable. There are a lot of bad influences this time of year, so let’s set expectations.

I saw your five-year-old sitting on Santa’s lap. She asked for an iPhone. She says Jenny down the street has one. Jenny’s gonna be a teenaged prostitute. Your daughter can’t find two socks that match and she only eats oyster crackers and strawberries, so a phone seems a little, well, advanced. I’ve picked out for her a coloring book and crayons. Let’s work on coloring within the lines before we start online dating.

Junior thinks he’s getting a new puppy (the people on TV usually get a new puppy that sits in the back of the new car). He says the reason he never goes near the fleabag you have now is because it’s the wrong breed. Ya, well, he’s living on the wrong planet. Junior hasn’t mastered putting toothpaste on his toothbrush, so responsibility is really not his thing. I got him a parakeet, it’ll be dead by Saint Patrick’s Day and then we can work on weaning him off of pets altogether.

Most of the women in your life will be expecting diamond necklaces, seventy-five diamonds in the shape of a heart that will tell her that she’s not just legally bound to you, but she’s your fuckin’ soulmate. Most of the women who get these gifts on TV get them on a tropical island or just as a shooting star passes by or during a light snowstorm on a sleigh – so you’ll need to work on that. I’m not saying these women don’t deserve diamonds and, depending on how big of an ass you’ve been this year, jewelry may be your last chance, still, for a guy who has lived a beans-n-franks existence diamonds-n-pearls feel like a bit of a stretch. Besides, most gals have a dresser drawer (the jewelry graveyard) full of trinkets they never wear. I would go with something more reasonable, like a blender. You could opt for one of those automatic, robot vacuums, but you’ll be accused of trying to put the recipient to work and it will start an argument that ends with, You never do shit around here. No, a really expensive blender. A blender has a cocktails-and-appetizers feel to it that makes people happy. And this way you can avoid the general suspicion that comes with pricey jewelry and she can just take it back to Target and get something she really likes – women like to go to Target.

Everyone will be kissing the boss’ ass and they’ll mostly be doing it with booze. If you buy a really expensive bottle it sends the wrong message in two ways: 1) that you think the boss is suave and sophisticated and deserves the finer things in life, and 2) that you’re a politically-correct brown-noser who will sell out to impress the boss. Since we know that neither of things is true, let’s be more everyman. I’m suggesting that you buy a case of Bud Light, cans. It will taste like shit, but it will give everyone the opportunity to say Dilly-Dilly a bunch of times, and while you’d be dumb to expect a new car in your driveway this Christmas, expecting a pile of empty beer cans is well within reason.