14 Tricks For Making Holiday Mass So Much More Bearable

1. Pre-game. Nothing like stumbling into a church half in the bag to mark the beginning of a truly merry holiday season.

2. Drop some red food coloring into the holy water pools.

3. Slip acid into the Blood of Christ. Watch as your fellow churchgoers experience a real holiday miracle.

4. Have an “in” with an alter boy? Swap out the Blood of Christ for Kentucky Bourbon. Count how many alcoholic Catholics you know while you wait for someone to inform Father Gregory that there might have been a mixup at the “Blood of Christ” Factory (also known as Barefoot).

5. Put hard candy on every seat. Forget paying attention to the sermon when all anyone can hear is the crinkle of plastic and overzealous sucking sounds.

6. The old “Petroleum Jelly on the Floor” gag. Swab a portion of the linoleum floored hallway to the (hopefully) carpeted main room with a little bit of that stuff your grandma rubs all over her face at night and watch as slapstick comedy ensues. As people fall over one another, slip and trip and maybe even hurt each other, you can just sit back and laugh, you devil worshiper, you.

7. Wear the same outfit to every Mass. Wait for someone to bring up the smell. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a whole section of pews to yourself.

8. Show up halfway through the service dressed as Jesus Christ or, if you’re not up for it, have your friend do it instead. Don’t say anything and just stand in the pews, walk around and bless people. Or takeover the whole Mass while yelling at the priest, “You know nothing of my work!”

9. Bring “alternative” Body of Christ offerings. Stand at the front of the congregation with a basket full of chocolate covered graham crackers or fortune cookies saying, “El Cuerpo de Jesus Christo” or “Da Sick Bod of Mah Bae.”

10. Offer to watch a neighbor’s infant child. Take them to church with you. Pick the latest service possible. Let the little devil worshiper scream and refuse to remove the child from the proceedings while telling everyone, “It needs this more than you do; it’s parents voted for Obama!”

11. Bring a lit menorah and dress in a long nightgown and slippers. Tell people you’re practicing for a Jewish production of Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol.

12. No matter what hymn the congregation starts singing, break into “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know” (Britney Spears circa 2000).

13. Go in drag. Really, really bad drag. Tim Curry in Rocky Horror-level drag.

14. If all else fails, call in a fake rapture threat. Mass is cancelled! “Come in and pray for salvation, but please bring booze, because it’s going to be a long second coming.”