Chelsea Handler's Guide To The Holiday

LEAVE THE COOKING TO THE PROFESSIONALS

I love a big holiday meal with friends. And I'm a meat-and-potatoes kind of girl. I like baked hams, mashed potatoes, a big turkey stuffed with Vicodin and extra tryptophan—all the old standards. But I'm not very skilled in the kitchen. My dog has more culinary expertise than I do. I have trouble boiling eggs, and I learned a long time ago that the microwave isn't my friend. My last attempt at making something delicious for the holidays was in the third grade when I baked a Jolly Rancher pie and nobody spoke to me for the rest of the year. (Have you ever tried putting Jolly Ranchers in an oven? It's like a mini Hiroshima.)

When I host a Christmas party I like to pay other people to cook for me. It guarantees the meal won't be a complete disas­ter, or at least nobody on my guest list will come down with botulism. Luckily my brother is a professional chef, and I pay him handsomely to cook most of my meals. It's not always con­venient, because he lives in New Jersey, and flying him out to Los Angeles twice a week can be a costly commute, especially now that he refuses to take the Greyhound bus.

Don't get me wrong; I never take credit for an elaborate dinner if I had nothing to do with its preparation. But if I've pitched in at all, maybe coming up with an ill-advised hors d'oeuvre involving goat cheese and Cummi Bears. I'll defi-nitelv blame it on somebody else.

DONT GO OVERBOARD WITH THE DEC ORATIONS

When I was growing up there was a big house in Livingston, New Jersey that always had the best Christmas decorations. The front yard was like a Broadway set, with thousands of blinking lights, an animatronic Santa Claus and reindeer, and a nativity scene that looked like a wax museum display. It was insane, and every year thousands of people, including my family, would make a pilgrimage to the neighborhood just to admire it. Then we'd come back to our house, and I'd look at all the used cars in our driveway and the cheap lights my mom had thrown on the roof and not taken down all year, and I'd close my eyes and imagine a time when I'd never be humili­ated by Christmas decorations again.

Not that I'm a complete scrooge. I have nothing against a little holiday decor. I just think it should be subtle. Take Christmas trees, for instance. I don't understand people who haul huge tow­ering trees into their homes even' season. I like my Christmas trees like I like my men: short and corpulent. And whenever pos­sible, it should be a real tree, not one of those cheapo counterfeits. A Christmas tree should be like a good pair of breasts. Aluminum trees, like silicone boobies, are an affront to the holidays.

Also, never, ever decorate the outside of your home. Christ­mas, like sex, isn't something to be shared with the general pub­lic. From the outside my house looks bleak and uninhabited. But inside it's like the baby Jesus himself threw up white lights.

DON'T MIX FRIENDS AND EMBARRASSING RELATIVES

No matter what TMZ claims to the contrary, trust me—I love my fam­ily. But certain relatives should never be introduced to your friends and colleagues, especially during the holidays. My father has abso­lutely no social decorum at Christmas meals. He's usually the first to start eating, hoarding the food like he's preparing for a famine. And watching him eat is like watching a dryer on the spin cycle.

He loves mussels, so my mom sometimes made him mussels marinara for a preholiday snack, just to distract him from the real food. But he would get so enthusiastic, he'd cover himself in marinara sauce, drenching the sweater he had been wearing for three straight days. Oh. and he also likes to urinate over our balcony. That's not something you want other people to wit­ness, especially people who aren't directly related to you.

With a relative like that, you need to keep his interactions wifh non—family members to the absolute minimum. I'm care­ful to include my dad only in holiday gatherings that involve my five siblings and their respective spouses. We adore him, but we don't want anybody else to find out about him. It's got­ten so bad, we've gone so far as to tell him Christmas has been moved to a different day. If you can host a Christmas party without inviting your mussel-eating, balcony-peeing father, you've cut your odds of personal humiliation almost in half.

KEEP YOUR GUESTS WELL LUBRICATED

The moment your guests walk in the door, they should be handed a glass of alcohol. Wine, vodka, margarita—it doesn't matter. Not only will it lower their inhibitions—an inebriated guest is an entertaining guest—but an abundance of booze makes everybody a little less critical of the terrible food they're being served.

I have only a few rules when it comes to drinking. If you start slurring words, falling down or repeating yourself, you've had too much. But as long as you're not making a public spectacle

of yourself, I'm pretty accepting of most drunken behavior. And I always welcome my guests to sleep over. The best Christmas parties usually tum into big sleepover parties. I have a few spare bedrooms for just such occasions, and I'll also set up tents out­side for those less hygienic guests. (You know who you are.)

Alcohol also makes a great social lubricant for office parties. At Chelsea Lately I've tried to encourage a pro-drinking environment, not just for parties but as a general rule. If my employees need to do drugs or drink on the job, I can't know alxml it legally, but I'm not opposed to it. Whatever you need to get through the day. And that holds true for our annual Christmas party.

If you drink so much that it seems a good idea to hook up with one of your co-workers, try to do it somewhere a little less public, like a car. We have an official Chelsea Lately El Camino that we use for just such an emergency. If I notice a pair of drunken employees getting a little too frisky with each other, I'll throw them the El Camino keys and guide them toward the parking lot. If you're going to make a mistake you'll regret tomorrow, you may as well do it somewhere classy.

INVITE A FEW CELEBRITIES

I'm going to assume that, like me, you have a mid-level cable-TV show on E! and thus have easy access to a wide range of celebrity friends willing to attend your next holiday party. Here are a few suggestions to add to your guest list: Paula Abdul and David Hasselhoff are a must, especially with all the free time they both have. And don't forget about Michael Jackson's doc­tor. He's gotten a bad rap because of the whole possibly-giving-Jackson-a-fatal-overdose thing, but I think he'd be a lot of fun to have around for Christmas. If nothing else, he'd definitely bring enough drugs to keep everyone at the party really relaxed. But what if you don't know any C-list celebrities, semifamous people or even reality-show contestants? In a pinch, a little person can be just as good. What they lack (concluded on page 162)

Chelsea

(continued from page 64) in fame litde people more than make up for with their Egg McMuffin bodies. Have you ever seen a little person dressed up like a reindeer? A-dor-able. If you aren't friendly with any little people willing to dress up like a Christmas character for your amusement, find a fat baby. You'd be surprised how many parents will loan out their morbidly obese babies to complete strangers. In fact, anything overweight is funny, especially if it hasn't fully developed yet. Even a really chubby cat can be fun, but make sure to declaw it first. Put a Santa hat on a cat with even a modicum of personal dignity and it'll try to scratch your eyes out.

LET CHILDREN BOGART YOUR CHRISTMAS

When I was a little girl I remember wak­ing up on Christmas morning and running downstairs to open the gifts I'd bought for myself because my parents had dropped the ball and I was essentially raising myself. Even though I knew Santa was a big fat lie, there was still something magical about Christmas, with the snow falling outside and all of us gathered around the tree and me, as the youngest of six kids, opening my presents and pretending to be surprised. I felt the holiday was all about me.

But that changed as we got older. My brothers and sisters started getting married and having their own kids, and Christmas lost some of its magic. All of a sudden I wasn't the center of attention anymore. The kids have all the fun, and the rest of us are just chaperones with only food to look forward to. We might as well be watching the action from behind a glass partition or at least on television, in which case we would have the option of turning the volume down.

My nieces and nephews essentially

hijacked Christmas from me. I have nothing against children on general principle, but, at least during the Christmas season, they're not welcome in my home.

W HE* I* DOUBT. GIVE CASH

Whether you're looking for the perfect Christmas gift for a sibling, close friend or co-worker, nothing will put a smile on their face like cold hard cash. Nobody gets mad if you give them a fat envelope full of unmarked bills. You're basically telling them, "I trust you. Go out and go off." If they want to buy drugs with the money, that's their business; I think it's important to give people options. What's more, you'll never have one of those awkward moments when you catch them regifting your present, or run into them at a shopping mall and realize they're return­ing your gift for store credit.

KEEP THE HOLIDAYS SECULAR

I have nothing against people with religious convictions, but let's be honest: Christmas isn't really a religious holiday. Whatever you believe or don't believe is terrific, but please give the rest of us a break. I'm a big propo­nent of the separation between church and everything else in the world, and it's time to take back Christmas for those of us who don't want to hear about angels and shepherds and babies with glowing heads. Besides, ever since Jesus started dating Madonna, I can't take him so seriously anymore.

A secular holiday party is a happy holi­day party. Not only will your guests be more comfortable and less likely to get into screaming fights, but it's just more fun for everybody. If you're doing it right, Christ­mas should be a celebration of family and friends and having a good time, with just a sprinkle of porn thrown in.