Bah. Humbug.

"It might be exacerbated by the stress I feel when I think of all the money I've spent on lavishing boyfriends with presents over the years, guys who are now living with other women who are enjoying my lovingly picked out presents which I'm no doubt still paying for in credit card interest charges."

Yes, it just might at that.

How pray tell do you turn a fruitcake into a fruitcake?

I know deep down that I'm supposed to feel sorry for her, but isn't there someone - anyone - else I could direct my sympathy towards instead?

"You're weird," my mom says.

Uh, Maureen, did you ever hear that old saying, "Mom is always right?"

Maureen Dowd's family should start a blog called The Weirdness of Modo.

M.

The rest of her family?

She must be an absolute riot to hang around with. You can just about imagine her mom standing in the living room, looking out the front window, and then saying to the family: "here she comes, everyone try to be nice."

You can just about imagine her ex-boyfriends saying to themselves, "Isn't it nice to be with someone who enjoys Christmas?"

Isn't if funny how you always have to double check the by line on a Modo column to make sure it isn't just a clever parody of her actual 'work'?

John: well said! You have to read the poor thing in parallel: one straight, one as self-parody; she always covers both angles.

I just happen to be one of Maureen's former boyfriends and my wife Peggy and I still enjoy the lump of coal which Maureen lovingly picked out for me for Christmas 1971. It sits on the mantle and we even made a little plaque for it so people know what it's doin' there, that it's a family heirloom and to please not toss it into the fire.

Between this column and the earlier one reprinting her brother's e-mail, I think Maureen is -- in her own, slightly skewered way -- trying to come to grips with Red State America, by using her family as an example of not only people who voted for Bush, but for people who hold Red State beliefs.

Dowd's family was virtually invisible in her columns until after Nov. 2; I think she's mentioned her dad's law enforcement history, but that's about it. Now, even though she's doing her own interpretation of Scrooge, she's using her family as a contrast to her own feelings about the holidays, and that comes right after letting her brother have his say about GWB's win.

Admittedly, it's not a great start on trying see the point of view of the other side. But compared to Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert or Frank Rich, it at least shows some signs on the Times' op-ed page of the awareness of life on the other side of the Hudson or Potomac rivers.

For the first time in years her columns make me laugh a again. Not with her, but at her. But a laugh's a laugh. She is still not as funny as Krugman.

Simple. The answer is she can't stand Christmas as an adult because it's not all about her anymore. Poor baby.

Bobbie Glasses:

So the choice came down to either your wife or a woman who would go on to become world famous and wealthy writing a column for the New York Times?

And who writes things like this:

If I hear "Frosty the Snowman" one more time, I'll rip his frozen face off.

Congratulations on making the right choice.

She's finally cracking up. Bush's reelection pushed her over the edge.