By Ken Rickard
Advertiser Columnist

Merry Christmas.

I can say it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Scrooge. I love the holiday

season, its just the actual day in holiday that gets to me.

We are in the middle of the single male's Holiday Trifecta.

The Trifecta was brought to my attention in the waning days of a December not too long ago. But it has always been there. Its comprised of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day.

You've seen guys out on Trifecta nights. We all have one thing in common — we don't want to go home because there is no one to go home to.

Not that we are whining about not having a relationship, its just that all of our friends have girlfriends or wives and we're left to face the yuletide alone.

It begins on Turkey Day. We have to choose which feast to attend: the family's or the friends'. It's a toss-up as to which one is worse.

If we go home we have to deal with all of our relatives. The nieces and nephews are all watching videos so we can't even lose ourselves in the football game.

Should we accidentally wander into the kitchen, one of the distant aunts will inevitably ask, "Where's that girl you were with? Y'know, whatshername?"

"I haven't seen her for a couple years, but I hear she just got married. Thanks for asking," was my last response.

We can't get drunk because we're still too young to take the label of "family lush" from one of the grandpas.

If we head over to the friend's place we are greeted with a chorus of, "Look everyone, Uncle's here." After a glance around, we realize that they are referring to us, and this means we're officially no longer one of the kids anymore.

All the youngsters there belong to guys we grew up with and it becomes apparent that all these children will beat up our (hypothetical) kids, because they will always be older and bigger.

By the time the middle leg of the Trifecta, Christmas, rolls around, the single man is very susceptible to being habuteru.

We get invited to several parties, which we decline to attend. But we have to go to the one thrown by our workplace and we dread showing up solo for yet another year.

Playing Santa to the youths in our lives is fun, but avoiding family dinners by saying we have to work can drive us crazy.

The only thing that keeps us going is the thought of a nice cold drink at the end of the night, but all the bars are closed and we forgot to buy beer.

New Year's Eve doesn't count in the Trifecta because drinking heavily is a given, thus any self depreciating antics slip under the radar.

Which leads to Valentine's Day, when the single man will review all past relationships. (Usually while sitting in an establishment that has the word "club" in it's name.)

We think of the one who went away, the one who got away and the one we pushed away.

We wonder about the one who is happy, the one who is angry and the one who just might be thinking of us.

Then we try to figure out where the women who have no one to go home to are.

And we are thankful that we have nine months of normalcy until the next Trifecta.

Happy holidays.

Reach Ken Rickard at krickard@honoluluadvertiser.com.