You can call me crazy, or even obsessive-compulsive, but I have always been a collector of things. When I was a kid, I collected pogs. If you don't know what those are, don't ask...but just know that I had some awesome slammers. My urge to collect things escalated and took years to come down when I discovered the joy of Christmas shirts. There were literally thousands of different designs on the Internet, and I would never be able to own all of them. They were the perfect collectable.
When I get an idea in my head like this, I really take the ball and run with it. Not only to I try to get a touchdown, but I run that ball right out of the park like a modern day Forrest Gump. I felt like the whole college scene was way too dominated by what people wore and how they looked. I wanted to prove that you could wear something completely lame and still manage to have friends and dates. Before I knew it, I had around 15 of these Christmas t-shirts with Santas and snow and all kinds of ridiculous crap.
In a complete twist of fate, it turned out that I was proving that it did matter what you wore. When I wore my Christmas gear, people who didn't know me had to seek me out to ask me why and people who did know me started referring me to me as "that Christmas guy" to strangers. I don't know if it was because of the shirt, but one night I found myself talking to the most enchanting woman I had ever met. She never mentioned my clothes at all, but we talked for hours and hours while the rest of the bar seemed to just not matter anymore. When she gave me her number, I was in heaven.
After we hung out a couple more times and started talking on the phone every night, our attraction turned into a pretty great relationship within just a few short weeks. Those weeks were a blur, I was so incredibly happy. We moved in together after about five months and the whole thing got even better. It wasn't until I caught her giving me a look of utmost displeasure one night out of the corner of my eye as I was putting on one of my Christmas shirts that I knew that everything wasn't perfect. She didn't mean to let me see that look, but I knew that the shirts were getting on her nerves.
It was definitely time to get rid of all of these clothes that had been clogging up my closet for the last three years. I literally had around a hundred of the things. I had no idea how bad my obsession had gotten. I went to my sweetheart and told her that I wanted to give them to charity. Throwing them all away seemed like such a waste. We loaded them up and took them to a shelter for people living on the streets, and I felt a whole lot better about myself when we were done.
We fast-forward to a few months later, and the Holidays were upon us. My girlfriend is a great person and upon her suggestion, we decided to donate our time to serving the homeless on Christmas Eve. Without really thinking about it too much, we went to the same shelter that I donated my shirts to. When we arrived, we were both floored by what we saw. Almost a hundred men and women were there wearing the Christmas t-shirts I had given months earlier. It was festive and just seemed somehow...right. We walked to the serving line and I realized tears were in my eyes. I finally knew what all of that Christmas crap was really for.
When I get an idea in my head like this, I really take the ball and run with it. Not only to I try to get a touchdown, but I run that ball right out of the park like a modern day Forrest Gump. I felt like the whole college scene was way too dominated by what people wore and how they looked. I wanted to prove that you could wear something completely lame and still manage to have friends and dates. Before I knew it, I had around 15 of these Christmas t-shirts with Santas and snow and all kinds of ridiculous crap.
In a complete twist of fate, it turned out that I was proving that it did matter what you wore. When I wore my Christmas gear, people who didn't know me had to seek me out to ask me why and people who did know me started referring me to me as "that Christmas guy" to strangers. I don't know if it was because of the shirt, but one night I found myself talking to the most enchanting woman I had ever met. She never mentioned my clothes at all, but we talked for hours and hours while the rest of the bar seemed to just not matter anymore. When she gave me her number, I was in heaven.
After we hung out a couple more times and started talking on the phone every night, our attraction turned into a pretty great relationship within just a few short weeks. Those weeks were a blur, I was so incredibly happy. We moved in together after about five months and the whole thing got even better. It wasn't until I caught her giving me a look of utmost displeasure one night out of the corner of my eye as I was putting on one of my Christmas shirts that I knew that everything wasn't perfect. She didn't mean to let me see that look, but I knew that the shirts were getting on her nerves.
It was definitely time to get rid of all of these clothes that had been clogging up my closet for the last three years. I literally had around a hundred of the things. I had no idea how bad my obsession had gotten. I went to my sweetheart and told her that I wanted to give them to charity. Throwing them all away seemed like such a waste. We loaded them up and took them to a shelter for people living on the streets, and I felt a whole lot better about myself when we were done.
We fast-forward to a few months later, and the Holidays were upon us. My girlfriend is a great person and upon her suggestion, we decided to donate our time to serving the homeless on Christmas Eve. Without really thinking about it too much, we went to the same shelter that I donated my shirts to. When we arrived, we were both floored by what we saw. Almost a hundred men and women were there wearing the Christmas t-shirts I had given months earlier. It was festive and just seemed somehow...right. We walked to the serving line and I realized tears were in my eyes. I finally knew what all of that Christmas crap was really for.
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For more information about a classy Christmas apparel check out Matt's pick for the best Christmas family clothing on the web.
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