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    A Married Man's Guide To Christmas
    A Married Man's Guide To Christmas
    A Married Man's Guide To Christmas
    Ebook124 pages2 hours

    A Married Man's Guide To Christmas

    By Robert Henry

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    About this ebook

    In the great tradition of guy-humor everywhere, here comes humorist Robert Henry's growling, good-hearted rant about holiday madness, A MARRIED MAN'S GUIDE TO CHRISTMAS. Henry reveals the truth about Christmas through the eyes of a typical married man. "Remember, it's not how you celebrate the joyous season. It's whether you are still alive, married, sleeping indoors, with a healthy prostate, and without a rap sheet on January 4th that counts." Husbands will laugh out loud. Dads will slap their knees and keel over (have CPR ready). Wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, female co-workers and sales clerks who dread seeing men mumble and mutter their way through the Christmas section at BIG BOX DISCOUNT WAREHOUSE will nod in recognition at the syndrome best described as "CAN I SURVIVE UNTIL NEW YEAR'S?"

    A Married Man's Guide To Christmas is a must for every guy who wants the women in his life to understand why he'd rather buy them gift certificates than brave the treacherous online world of lingerie catalogs. Why have just a joyous season, when you can have a Christmas filled with laughs that don't include finding pictures of Uncle Herbert in a teddy? Irreverent, honest, and biodegradable, Robert Henry has captured the essence of the holiday season for all men in A Married Man's Guide To Christmas. So grab it today for all the beleaguered males on your Xmas list and all the long-suffering females who just want the lights strung on the front porch by Christmas Eve, the honey-do list completed before Aunt Sookie arrives with her flatulent Pekinese, and that expensive bottle of Scotch left mostly full until the tinsel is hung, the presents are wrapped, and the home owner's association has accepted your apology for spelling out a less-than-jolly greeting in solar-powered candy canes on your front lawn.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBelleBooks
    Release dateNov 11, 2011
    ISBN9781611940763
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      Book preview

      A Married Man's Guide To Christmas - Robert Henry

      A Married Man’s

      Guide to Christmas

      by Robert Henry

      Illustrated by

      Bruce Bolinger

      About the Author

      Robert Henry is an acclaimed author of grocery lists, letters to his therapist, and skywriting slogans. His time in advertising led to his groundbreaking use of the words, But wait! There’s more!! that has become a mainstay of all infomercials. An acute student of human behavior that led to the mistaken charge of being a Peeping Tom, Mr. Henry brings his insight to the male animal known as The Married Man. He lives with his wife, Isabel, in Annandale, Virginia, a fact she denies. His awards include, Least Likely to Have Identity Stolen, fourth runner-up in the Most Attractive Armpit Competition and Mr. Congeniality in the Nose Hair Topiary Contest. His books can be read anywhere where fine literature is totally absent.

      About the Illustrator

      Bruce H. Bollinger is a nationally-known cartoonist, a veteran of Cracked magazine, and a test monkey for Zantac. He has drawn cartoons for greeting cards, books, comics, magazines, websites, newspapers, and really annoying bathroom walls. As ghost cartoonist for the famous Don Martin, Bruce has kept people laughing for years—particularly anyone who attends his annual prostate exams. His greatest contribution to this book was his suggestion, I don’t think it should be round.

      A Married Man’s Guide to Christmas
      by

      By Robert Henry

      Bell Bridge Books

      Copyright

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead,) events or locations is entirely coincidental.

      Bell Bridge Books

      PO BOX 300921

      Memphis, TN 38130

      eISBN 978-1-61194-076-3

      ISBN: 978-1-61194-081-7

      Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

      Copyright © 2011 by Robert Henry

      Printed and bound in the United States of America.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

      A previous edition of this book was published by in 2008 by FlappyDuck Publishing, Inc.

      We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

      Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Cover design: Debra Dixon

      Interior design: Hank Smith

      Photo credits:

      Illustration (manipulated) © Bruce Bolinger

      :Emam:01:

      PRAISE FOR
      A Married Man’s Guide to Christmas

      "A work of art! A tour de force!

      A flammable addition to any Yule log!"

      —Jonathan Winkbottom, Northern Neck

      The best stocking stuffer since Catherine Zeta Jones.

      —Bert Liverstad, basement apartment South Trenton, N.J.

      It kept my husband busy and out of my underwear drawer for an entire night.

      —Clara Midgefitter, Homemaker/Dominatrix

      I laughed so much, I spit out my ball gag!

      —Rev. Billy Cloppe, Divine Church of Lowered Expectations

      I love Christmas, but only read in the bathroom. This book meets all my needs.

      —Wallstadler, On-site Manager Woodley Hills Mobile Home Park

      Robert Henry is a genius!

      —Robert Henry, Annandale, Virginia

      To Isabel

      I showed you life is more fun when we’re silly. You showed me patience and love.

      Acknowledgements

      I would like to acknowledge the support and talent of Bruce MacKechnie, whose layout and design were essential to the creation of this book. I count him among my friends . . . along with Joseph Stalin, Pat Sajak, and that guy that sells me booze at the liquor store. I think his name is Marty. You know, the one with the nose whistle. I would also like to thank Carolyn Steele who helped in editing my manuscript. She knows that whole i before e crap that I skipped in school, probably because I was checking out the girls that look like Carolyn.

      Chapter One

      ’Tis the Season

      Ah, the joy of the season. Christmas. It’s just like family . . . one big, dysfunctional, overly critical, is this the best that you can do, I’m coming to your house and staying for three weeks camped on the floor of your den, family. You love it and you can’t wait for it to be gone.

      There is probably no time of the year that we look forward to more. And there is probably nothing else that fills us with such dread. We can accept the ambivalence of our feelings, recognizing that our inner child is wrestling with an elf for control over a large, serrated knife aimed at the heart of one of Santa’s hoarded venison. Or, we can deny our feelings and just reach for a 16 oz. tumbler of our favorite bourbon. Therapy or booze? That’s the Christmas dilemma.

      Having sidled close to heresy in suggesting that Christmas might not be all the flock it’s cracked up to be, let me be clear. I like Christmas. My holiday memories are dear to me, matched only by my memory of finding my dad’s stash of Playboys buried in the bottom of his closet back in the summer of ’65. I am moved in special ways.

      However, I must give the season its due. It is insidious in nature, promising moist eyes of joy at the sound of silver bells, while concurrently dredging up memories of Uncle Norman dressed as Mrs. Claus, just because he loves the feel of a red velvet brassiere.

      Christmas is the sight of a lit Christmas tree in the park, with an even more well-lit bum taking a leak on the bulbs. It’s about the sounds of carols sung on a crystal night with stars beaming hope to all of us. And it’s the tinny squawking of eight-track tunes over a speaker at the tree lot with lights beaming into the semi-bearded faces of sweaty men who are saying, They all lose a few needles, guy.

      It’s no wonder that we get manic-depressive about the season. We feel good about dropping a buck into the red bucket next to the bell ringer standing in front of K-Mart. On the other hand, we find ourselves online shopping for large caliber weapons that are suitable for giving real sincerity to our feelings about the dozens of charity telemarketers who are calling us at all hours to open our hearts.

      Over the years I have tried to make some sense of Yuletide. I am not alone. Look into the glassy eyes of a coworker describing his route from in-law to outlaw to favorite aunt to church to pageant to party, during the period that roughly covers the last ten days

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