On the first night of Hanukkah, my mother gave to me

Nothing, because the gift she’d ordered was from an artist on Etsy.

 

On the second night of Hanukkah, my mother gave to me

Two bags of gelt, because the gift she ordered on Cyber Monday

Hadn’t shipped by Hanukkah Sunday

Nor had the gift that she’d ordered from Etsy.

 

On the third night of Hanukkah, my mother gave to me

Three pairs of socks!

On Nordstrom Rack she wished a pox

For a note of “damaged packing”

On my real gift’s UPS tracking

Two bags of gelt because the gift she ordered on Cyber Monday

Hadn’t shipped by Hanukkah Sunday

And no response from the artist who’d posted on Etsy.

 

On the fourth night of Hanukkah, my Mother gave to me

Four spinning dreidels

Because my too-big Kate Spade bangle

Was unreturnable by mail

(It had been a final sale)

Three pairs of socks, two bags of gelt

And another query to the artist on Etsy.

 

On the fifth night of Hanukkah, my mother gave to me

Five frozen Trader Joes’ latkes!

Four spinning dreidels

In lieu of my Kate Spade bangle

Three pairs of socks

Because of my gift’s damaged box

Two bags of gelt

And nothing whatsoever from Etsy.

 

On the sixth night of Hanukkah my mother gave to me

Six powdered donuts because my gifts still hadn’t shown up

Five frozen latkes because of undelivered tchotchkes

Four spinning dreidels while she wore my big fat bangle

Three pairs of socks instead of whatever was in that damaged box

Two bags of gelt, which were better, though, I felt,

Than that nothing that she’d ordered from Etsy.

 

On the seventh night of Hanukkah my mother gave to me

Seven promises to go shopping!

The type of mad she was was hopping!

Which was maybe why she was drinking!

While the candlelight was winking

From our just-lit menorah

While she recounted the horrah

Of that bitch Yvonne from Banana Republic

Who had another think to come if

She thought she gave two shits about

Her stupid shipping policy.

 

On the eighth night of Hanukkah my mother gave to me

Eight gifts she ran out and bought!

You could tell she spent a lot!

On top of all the money that she’d wasted

And all the notes she’d cut and pasted

Tracking packages that won’t turn up

Until the last candle’s burnt up

‘Cause Cyber Monday blows when Hanukkah shows up so

ea-ea-ea-rly.

 

 

Happy Holidays to you and yours from all of us here at Meanopause headquarters, where we spent every last waking minute of last month (except for Cyber Monday) trying to write a novel for “NaNoWriMo” (National Novel Writing Month). Obviously, we shouldn’t have taken that Cyber Monday off.