So, It's "Goddamn Christmas Time" Again. (Part I of who the hell knows?)

[Luna]

Thanks, guys.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh wait, that's "bitters"

whatever, squeeze a few more drops in my whiskey so that I can STAND TO BE ALIVE for the rest of this fucking jolly season.

I am surviving by means of making everyone else as hideously angry as I am.

It works!

A Christmas message you can count on!

Tensions are mounting, here in the pretty little city of bridges. So far, I have seen one car attempt to drive up someone's front steps, one restaurant arson, one cheer-related Facebook altercation between a local gallery owner and an artist, and one friend's father-in-law served divorce papers on Thanksgiving to his 70-year-old wife while she was in jail for stalking one of the local firemen.

That's just since Wednesday, and the season has hardly begun!

I saw a Santa being arrested at Walgreens on Sunday.

No idea what for, but his salvation army collection thingie was knocked over.

HO HO HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Shopper-who-pulled-gun-at-San-Antonio-mall-within-4060598.php

HO HO HO!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Suu]

I look at Christmas differently then you guys do. Instead of loathing its commercialism (which I do, oh trust me I do.) I look at Christmas in it's ancient tradition: returning to the holidays of light in darkness.


Christmas for me is not snow, it's not material goods... It's how many lights we could fit on the palm tree out front, it's the absolute insanity that my family exhibits for the 2 weeks every year when I get to actually see them. Sure, sometimes I go to Florida in the spring or summer, but Christmas is my really only chance. Two weeks out of 52. Something that up until 2009 was denied to me by my ex-husband once they moved back south.

Fuck your snow. I fucking hate it. I hate the way the sun hangs so slow in the sky as the days grow shorter.

I fucking HATE how early the sun sets, and how the cold sets into your goddamn soul and starts permeating everything so it can make itself right at home in my toes and knees, making me creak like an old lady. I hate the wind that catches the inside of your hoodie and shoots straight down your neck on days you think you can get by without a scarf. I hate natural gas heat.

The physical seasons mean nothing to me. Nothing more than the opportunity for a few pictures and even more opportunity to complain. Sure, fall is pretty. I like it for the whole 3 days it lasts. Then you remember it's just the beginning of decay and death until you want to kiss the ground at the sight of the first crocus in March. I was raised without seasons, which makes you wonder if snow really sparkles like it does on Christmas cards, or what the smell of fallen leaves is like. Garbage, and mold. Wet mold. Spring brought me a selection of new allergies I had never knew I had before, and a regular dependence on pharmaceuticals to combat it on a daily basis so I can survive. Summer is the same, if not hotter, maybe. I chalk that up to the fact that central air conditioning has not been invented north of the Mason-Dixon. Give me a strong thunderstorm that shakes the house down any day over a Nor'Easter. Though thundersnow is something that everyone should experience at least once. Watching the lightning dance on falling snowflakes is spectacular...then you remember you have to go out into that shit when it's done.

So does snow sparkle? Yes, and your happy sparkly experience ends quickly the minute the shovels is put in your hands. I still can't use one properly. Ten years of New England and I have no clue how to shovel snow. Fuck that shit, this is why I live in apartments.

Christmas, for me, is the chance to escape the dull, and I forgot how much I actually *liked* it, (or rather, the ridiculous way my family does it - Jesus not included.) until my divorce.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

In regards to the thundersnow- I've experienced it twice. The first time everyone thought to remark on it, like we just arrived on an alien planet.

The second time was the year after and we all just nodded at each other with a smile and a "dood, wicked fahkin pissah" sort of glance.

[Freeky]

  Your accent.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Your accent.

I mock it a lot, but the funny thing is, Bostonians just don't sound like they're supposed to. Unless they're....


Hmm... I'm not sure how to put this. Very blue collar and very ethnically Irish/Italian/Greek. And even then it's not a guarantee. My friends and I used to consider a Boston accent a shibboleth, and an indication that someone with said accent would automatically declare themselves our enemy, unless they approached us.

It is true that I say wicked in place of very, and I pronounce aunt as ont. But otherwise, I just sound like indistinct American, with some weirdly out of place Hibernicisms and Anglicisms. I do come from a blue collar Irish-American background, but, my dad is not actually from Boston so it provided a counter example and made me aware of accents at an early age.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Funny enough, Midsister has the accent (Twidsister does not).

And I remember that one time when I was about 14 my cousin John, who was also dual-citizen and originally from NYC but raised there, really really made Midsister mad by talking about "oosters", and how annoying they are crowing in the morning.

/threadjack

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I remember Christmas. When I was little it was all sparkly lights and obnoxiously well-padded snowsuits and a tree full of fun things to pull off and smash. When I got older it was about laying in the bed shivering, hoping 'Santa' went downstairs with his bottle of booze instead of coming into my room to tell stories. At the ripe age of six until I left home, it was snow. Bloody snow.

When it gets cold, farmers hunt. When they hunt, my family slaughters. Up at the crack of dawn, tend the livestock, off to school. After school it's straight to the butcher shop behind Uncle's house. It's loud in there, and so cold. Hunters stand around the front door, boasting about their big kills and placing their orders for chops, steak, bologna, and sausage. Big laughs, big guns, big smiles. It takes a lot of skill to to hunt down those wily ol' critters with their ten-twenty-thirty-point racks. With their huge bodies. Or their tiny bodies still covered in spots.

The deer don't come through the front. They come in the back, gutted, tongues lolling and eyes glazed in shock. Their legs are cut off at the knees and they are hung from hooks, head down. They are stripped naked, hides ripped off in one great pull, sending ticks and fur flying. Then comes the chainsaw.

It's a loud and gristly mess. But in no time, the animal becomes just parts. The parts become tidy white packages, stamped and arranged in a tidy box. Ready for the freezer. Ready for dinners and smiles all around. For other families.

For mine, once the tidy, pretty packages go out the front door, we go out the back. The mountain of heads and legs watch as we check each other for ticks. As the elders beat whoever misbehaved that night and throw them in the pile of waste parts. As the various cousins and aunts and uncles pile into their cars to go home.

Living closest, my brothers and I would ride in the back of someone's truck or walk. At midnight the sky is so crystal clear it looks like the stars are cutting their way through, piercing the darkness. Bone shards puncturing slumbering, slack organs. Steel hooks punching through hide. Bullets making something that was whole . . . something vibrant . . . a dead thing, black inside, full of holes that let in the light. Some light.

Once home, we pick a side of the garage, boys on one, me as the only girl on the other, and we strip down as far as we can go and scrub off the blood and bits with snow because in winter we don't have water when the pump freezes over. But you can't go to school covered in pieces of dead things. So scrub with the snow, race into the house on blue feet. Up the stairs and under the covers that are pulled up so tight, over our heads.

And lay awake; shivering and haunted; until the sunlight comes through the holes in the blankets, looking like stars in a tattered sky.


ETA: Edited for a closer approximation to accuracy.

[Sita]

This is the first year that I totally am not into the whole Christmas thing.

What makes it worse is that my parents are apparently on the bandwagon of starting the season before Thanksgiving. When they asked if I had been watching any Christmas shows or movies yet, I said 'Of course not, it's not even December yet.' This had my mom in disbelief, because apparently you can't be in the proper mood for the holiday if you don't start it a month early.

For the last few years I've gradually become indifferent to the holiday. Perhaps it's because I haven't been able to decorate, or maybe I'm just more jaded as I get older. I just wish all the constant music and pressure to be happy and get the perfect gift would already be over with.

[Suu]

We aren't gifting much this year, even though my family is present crazy. Note: by "presents" we mean cleverly wrapped puns from the dollar store and flea market that take all morning to open while we start on the Irish coffee and amaretto and orange juice to somehow nurse our hangover from the party the night before.

I'm fucking broke. My business took a nosedive because of my schoolwork load this year (I'm calling this entrepreneurship thing a "bad idea" right now.) If it wasn't for the fact Navyguy is a twisted bastard like myself and decided that driving to Florida sounded like the ticket, I would probably spend my holiday crying in my bedroom like I did the morning of Thanksgiving before I smacked myself out of it. We're bringing with us a selection of handmade booze and as much holiday cheer as we can scrape together, and stopping at South of the Border on the way. He's never seen that horrid place, so I need to make sure he gets his full Roadside America Experience^TM.

Navyguy didn't have a Christmas last year as he was in Kuwait, so I promised him something unlike he has ever seen before, which is a holiday insanity that I've come to accept as "Christmas:"

- The plastic tree, because real trees in Florida are expensive, this one is okay though, it didn't melt in the shed like the last one.
- The well-lit sable palm in the front lawn. It may not look like much, but it takes my brother hours of work. He will remind you of that every time we plug the fucker in. It's the state tree, you know.
- The ancient and horrible photos of Christmas Past decorating my parents' already  picture-plastered walls. Most of them avant-garde.
- The lovingly handcrafted wooden toys and wall decorations my grandfather made before he passed away. He used to sell them at craft shows and flea markets in Alabama.
- The tiki hut. Every spend Christmas Eve in a tiki hut with a fully stocked bar, a TV, and a 125lb German Shepherd snoring at your feet surrounded by about 20 people you don't know and plates of food everywhere?

You see, my parents have this rule. If you have no place to spend the holiday, you spend it with them. The tradition of picking up strays goes back for as long as I remember. Sometimes it's family members, sometimes it was my school friends who for whatever reason, couldn't stand to be home with their own families, or even the lonely neighbor who maybe lost her husband some time ago. You'll be given a cup of whatever you want to drink, a warm meal, and a place to sleep if you need it. Stay for Christmas morning and more than likely Santa will have left a gift for you. Him and my parents go way back, they don't mind asking him the favor. Legend has it that his last stop was at my Grandmother's house every year, where he could sit and have a cup of Bailey's and unwind. I remember seeing him as a little girl back when I still lived in New York. He always had a present for every child. Every year. When I was old enough to "know better" I asked my dad who he really was, figuring it was a family friend that would do the honor of dressing up every year. He would just shrug, and go, "It was Santa. You know the rules, if you don't believe, you don't receive."

I don't want to say that my family does the best Christmas, but I feel like they've perfected it, and do it right.

[LMNO]

Suu, that sounds wonderful. It reminds me of how my dad would host Thanksgiving, in spirit if not in practice (in practice, it was a lot more "smart people talking about smart things" driven). That all-inclusive, strays welcome, tonight-all-is-family vibe. I've tried to carry it on.


Fuck, I miss him.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Your accent.

I mock it a lot, but the funny thing is, Bostonians just don't sound like they're supposed to. Unless they're....


Hmm... I'm not sure how to put this. Very blue collar and very ethnically Irish/Italian/Greek. And even then it's not a guarantee. My friends and I used to consider a Boston accent a shibboleth, and an indication that someone with said accent would automatically declare themselves our enemy, unless they approached us.

It is true that I say wicked in place of very, and I pronounce aunt as ont. But otherwise, I just sound like indistinct American, with some weirdly out of place Hibernicisms and Anglicisms. I do come from a blue collar Irish-American background, but, my dad is not actually from Boston so it provided a counter example and made me aware of accents at an early age.

I don't have an accent either...until I get up there and they pick it right out.

Go south...or west... :P

[Suu]

Suu, that sounds wonderful. It reminds me of how my dad would host Thanksgiving, in spirit if not in practice (in practice, it was a lot more "smart people talking about smart things" driven). That all-inclusive, strays welcome, tonight-all-is-family vibe. I've tried to carry it on.


Fuck, I miss him.

You're going to miss him forever, but it's the little parts of his legacy, such as Thanksgiving dinner that you're carrying on that are far more meaningful than any of his books, and I'm sure he's proud wherever he is.

If you're ever in Clearwater on Christmas Eve, give me a call. I've been trying to get Squid over for years, but she was usually stuck working.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Nigel,

Go ahead and start "the letter" without me.  TGG and SG will still want a bite out of it, I think.  I am abstaining until I can think my way through whether or not it is an exploitation of child labor.  Plus I don't feel up to the funny.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel,

Go ahead and start "the letter" without me.  TGG and SG will still want a bite out of it, I think.  I am abstaining until I can think my way through whether or not it is an exploitation of child labor.  Plus I don't feel up to the funny.

Forget it.