.....brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board. (MUSIC)
TR: These are the good years for me and Barb. The kids are in a residential treatment program for at-risk thirty-year olds. So they can't call us, and we can't call them, and that's okay with us. And Barb went to her fortieth high-school reunion and saw her old boyfriend who had dumped her and he has gained a hundred pounds and he just got out of prison. So Barb came home happy. But the next night, I found her in the kitchen, with her head in the oven. Barb-cut it out. It's an electric oven. It won't work. What's wrong?
SS: Oh, it's the holiday season, Jim. We're trapped.
TR: But I thought you liked Christmas.
SS: I did when I was eleven. Now? Not so much. I mean, every year we whip out the plastic and buy a lot of junk for people we don't even like that much, and they glance at it and say, Oh. Cool. Thanks. And they don't want it so they think of somebody they can dump it on. For what we spend on useless gifts, we could fly to Paris for the week.
TR: So let's do it.
SS: Oh, come on Jim. Really?
TR: Really. Why not?
SS: Because we'd get to Paris and you'd check voice mail and your mother'd be on there all confused and weepy, wondering if we're coming over, and we'd change our ticket at enormous expense and fly home early full of guilt and be depressed right through February.
TR: I guess you're right. Forget I ever mentioned it.
SS: Okay. Mentioned what?
TR: Maybe we need to make a ketchup Christmas.
SS: Ketchup, Jim?
TR: Ketchup has natural mellowing agents that help a person feel satisfied and feel like you don't need to put on a circus, you can have Christmas with some cookies and candles and sing a few carols and that's good enough. And instead of cranberry sauce ----- ketchup. (MUSIC)
RD:
These are the holidays, welcome Christmas greens.
A new day is dawning, that's what Christmas means.
Life is flowing, like ketchup on your beans.
GK: Ketchup. For the good times.
RD: Ketchup....ketchup.