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

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You'd think the inevitable slaughter on Black Friday(Thursday) of those trapped under the thundering stampede of Mammon would appease them, but mere blood and snapped spines isn't good enough for the Things™.  They thrive on Despair, and Frustration, on Horror and Spite, so an evening of rampaging consumerism won't do it.  They™ live under cloverleaf overpasses, delighting in the sounds of holiday gridlock, they stalk the queues at the post office as you try to mail packages, they lurk in the supply closet during your mandatory "non-denominational holiday party" where the Atheists, Jews, and Muslims are forced to sing Christmas Carols.  And when the morning comes, where millions of dysfunctional families gather together in resentment, depression, and passive-aggresive bitterness, THEY FEAST.

This explains "Post-holiday" depression.  And they FUCK WITH YOUR HEAD for 2 months ahead of time.  Just try turning on the TV.  I went looking for more GOP tears, and Good Lord, I saw an Immodium commercial which infers that Santa Claus has diarrhea and that he is likely to have a violent gastro-intestinal accident in my chimney.  Well isn't that just a GREAT ENDING to the year!  How is that supposed to entice me to buy this product?  And what about that little terrier pulling on Saint Nick's pants cuff?  What happens to HIM if Santa lets go suddenly?  Why, he runs straight to YOUR BED and rolls around, trying to get it off, of course.  Its a dog thing.  Bad scene all the way around.

Besides, the old man is eating the whole night long; he's bound to run across some tainted eggnog or a spackling-based cookie and have some sort of bowel discomfort.  I saw him do a spot on some channel where he just SLURPED down a half gallon of milk and then jammed a buncha cookies in his mouth like some snorting hog, while a horrified mother & daughter looked on.  It was all so degrading.  I think he has an eating disorder and some sort of repression going on.

And what's he doing out there in sub-zero temperatures, anyway?  Its time for a younger man to take over.  Santa is a worn old knob and it just won't do for him to stroke out and crash that rig into an elementary school or a car dealership.  Give him a decent pension, but for God's sake get him out of the air.  He's going to blink at the wrong moment, get those reindeer sucked into an Airbus and hundreds will die.  Hark the herald lawsuits sing.

And gee, if he's crapping in chimneys, are we going to take the hint in time or what?  I appreciate the giant robot he brought me back in 1975, which is why I feel compelled to look out for him now.  Let's not be selfish about the season of giving; let's provide Santa with the rest he so richly deserves.  Besides, I want that sleigh so I can get to Amsterdam more easily.  Yes, its beginning to look a lot like Hash for Christmas, ho ho HO!  But mainly I just don't wanna have to shinny up my chimney with a gas mask, a wire brush and a bottle of Clorox.  Bleach on Earth and good pills to men, amen.

Talk about pursuits that make even God scratch His head...A big old Heinz-y dog used to chase our ancient Volvo every time we left the house, so one day my Luciferian mother screeches to a halt, leans out the window and yells at the dog, "WELL, YA CAUGHT IT, YA STUPID SON OF A BITCH!  NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH IT?"  The dog, of course, just sits there and cocks his head at the yowling of the insane woman.  The pre-Christmas vapor lock can leave you in the same position as this dog.  At least the dog knew when he'd been had and didn't try to gnaw on the bumper.  That made him smarter than some of the people I have known, including myself.  Sometimes you want what you want with such feriocity that by the time you get it, your Wanter is burned to a crisp and all you can do is stare at the object of your former desire.  I don't always love having perspective, but that which allows you to apply better focus to the latest jihad of trumped-up have-tos is a beautiful thing.

Don't assume that Christmas is the only time people prove that they're thinking with their assholes, either.  I scanned past Nickelodeon and there I saw a kid grinning widely while smashing eggs on his head, one after another.  And people say *I* have some sort of mental disorder.  Fuckers.  I'm not the guy mashing eggs onto my head.

I feel especially vulnerable during the holiday Tourette's-go-round.  I actually laughed at Adam Sandler.  Something about making an Oscar into a bong and DEAR GOD, I LAUGHED AT IT, AAAIEEEE! *shakes head*.  I knew I was messed up, but geez...I'm losing any sense of standards whatsoever.

If I laugh at Will Ferrell, kill me.  Kill me dead.  There's still some hope for me because I'd like to see that quacky twit's butchered thighs hanging from a hook in some fly-ridden Somalian market stall.  Remember how much you wanted to kill those ultra-happy, grinning & religious optimists in high school?  I'd like to kill one right now.  Let off a little tension.  Anyway, I guess almost any laugh you get should be appreciated, but to laugh at Adam Sandler...Man, I just feel all dirty.

Pre-holiday angst, my entire ass.  You all are terminal fools, which you have proven by dashing through the SNOW, leaving the poor horse trapped in the wreckage of the sleigh to slowly freeze to death, just so you can slurp from a bleeping GRAVY boat, which has already developed a skin on top, guaranteeing that you will clumsily decorate your Hamtaro action vest and Ma's nice linen tablecloth with the aftermath of your ill-bred doofishness.  What a jerk!  You're taking that damned horse in your lunch until every tendon is GONE.  Do you think my brain is made of some super-high-tech heat shielding, a pure carbon frontspiece capable of shrugging off 4000 degrees C of B.S. like it was just some bayou gnat?  You guys really press me to the wall with that eye-popping wankery, but it does serve a useful purpose; it makes me feel better about my own failings.  I would have just made burgers from the horse up front and stayed home where it was warm.  Besides, Ma's cooking tastes like anthrax pudding.

Precious moments, wasted hours: yeah, whatever, fuck off.  Don't get me started.  I didn't WILLFULLY waste most of them.    I mailed out my gifts, fought the crowds a little and said the Right Things to some folks who deserved to hear it, so let me the fuck ALONE; I'm square with the house.  I FIST your narrow views and distant judgements.  Then I end it with a really great "hide the engineer boot".  Truly, I am the Henry Rollins of gift-giving.  But don't worry about ME; some folks are so far gone, they'll dance on your ribs in the mall to save 20% on a Wii.  Not me, though, I'm a civilized man.  No, really.

I don't always practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching TO, but I also know the power and the pleasure of being validated to hell and gone because I broke the Loop when I was finally seen as not TRYING to preach, but simply to Get Across.  When you have no agenda and are able to get someone to see it, that's when you move to the next level, where the real rewards begin to take shape.  Post-storm air always seems to be the cleanest, because the chaff and crap have been washed away, so to speak.

What does this insane jabber have to do with Christmas, or anything else?  Not all that much.  It's just time for my pills.  Hey, it has an internal logic you can crack, but you'll have to take your OWN pills to manage it.  Now I lay me down to sleep, thank God for pills so I don't freak.  So stuff yer holly bush, resin-cast reindeer and mall psychosis.  I care little for the traditional holidays; I can make my own anytime.  Merry Whatever-Ya-Got, that's the ticket.  Gimme another one o' them Christmas bacon-burgers, there, baby.

Now, fuck off.  TGRR needs his alone time.

THIS

IS LIKE A CHRISTMAS MAGNUM OPUS OF LIQUID BITTERNESS

GREAT AS A DIGESTIVE APERITIF.

[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.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

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!

[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!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

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.

[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!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

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!

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Holy shit Roger!

STOP ME BEFORE I KILL ME AGAIN.

I WILL DO NO SUCH THING.

OR KILL ME.

Me first.  I've had dibs since 1981.

Coincidentally, that was the year I was born.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I mean, if nice old granny was cooking something different for Christmas dinner this year, and when you tried to peek into the cauldron to see what it is, she gave you a depressed skull fracture with her ladel. 

So, not unlike my actual granny, God rest her angry, angry soul.

Kesselhobogooking, old gramma used to call that.  Poking around the pot too see if it was done when you weren't doing any other cooking.  Grandad was hte only who could be a kesselhobogooker and live to tell.  We all knew why.  Granny chose him because she like him.  The rest of us were just fallout from that.

She never decorated either.  Well, never more than was practical.

There was a wreath.  The smell of the conifer, the holy, and the herbs kept the wargs away.  Sure, they'd smell it all in the forests ANYWAYS, but something about the arrangement they couldn't cotton,

There would be mistletoe.  "remember, it stalks us all."  Granny said.  "Stand still too long, and it might take a liking to you.  Tarry under it with your love, and you may get up with a bush rooted in your bung.  Now, what does that make you call to mind?"

There would be gifts too.  Not things you wanted, always.  Things you needed.  OR wished you didn't

"Here's the socks to keep your feet warm.  Of course dear, they ARE warm now, you're right.  These are for feet running in terror through the night and the damp.  You're no sport if your feet fall of.  That's a bad end to a hunt."

"Such a nice  red coat.  It suits the little one.  So easy to spot..."

"I do hope you enjoy digging with that shovel.  Dig nice enough, and we'll have space to put the whole family!"

So mom and dad would sit on the couch and drink and drink, for granny kept nog, and toddies, and mullings poured out.  They never seemed worse for it though.  Maybe she never mixed it strong.  Maybe, despite the dedicated pulls at their mugs, they could never down enough to blunt the horror.

Dear god, Richter.

I actually took my hat off to that. It was unconscious, but it happened.

[Luna]

Winter in Vermont looked like Christmas.  Trees, and snow.  That antiseptic smell of a nice winter morning, the low sifting sound as the snow came down, or the exciting blue pale of the moonlight. 

Winter in Boston looked like Christmas.  Newbury Street or Downtown Crossing with the lights up, clean white snow before it went February dirty gray, and the music making you feel like it was the NICE part of the 1950's again, not the sort of city Art sang about in "The Boxer"

In Providence the wind howls through the buildings like the dry wind through dead ziggurats.  It comes war now and again like the shoggoth rolled over in the canal and cut a fart.  There is no place for the clean New England winter here.  There is no grand thoroughfare for the lights and cheer like in Boston.  There is only the cyclopean twisting of the odd city plan.  Hell, maybe if I can get up hill without busting my ass I can get to one of the College hill bars, warm and welcoming, bereft of the usual younguns, finally properly partway deserted for a quiet drink, or a random chat if I feel like that.  Then it is back out into the desserted night.  Once again alone in the unoccupied ruins under the pale diffusion of cold stars.

Balls.  I've seen Providence, and it's EXACTLY how everyone sees Christmas when they close their eyes.  A smallish city in rolling hills.  Snow.  A fucking weirdass bronze pineapple for no fucking reason on Federal Hill.  Angry Italians.  Grey slush.  Bad drivers.  Rage.  Hate.  Hipsters singing Christmas Carols in shitty lava lamp bars.  Senseless violence.  The world's worst Cornish pasty.

Ah, the holidays.

No, Roger...  We haven't had a decent SNOW around here for Christmas for YEARS.  A dusting, an inch or two before Christmas, but it melts off before the day.

Mother Nature does it just to spite me, the hateful bitch.

See, I could handle just about anything at Christmas, if there was snow on the ground.  I'm talking about real snow, enough to go out in the yard or a park and build a snowman.  You know the kind, the kind that piles up on rooftops and hides the worst parts of the city for a few months.  Instead, we get "New England Winter Mix."  They actually call it that.  What they mean is fucking sleet and snow, which comes down, coats everything in sheets of ice, then fucks off.  Make a snowball out of that shit, fling it at somebody, and half of it will knock a tooth out of their head, and the other half will run down the front of their coat straight down to their underpants.  This, while entertaining, still doesn't help.

God and his whole fucking fan club can go piss up a rope, I never cared much about it being Jesus's birthday party.  (What kind of birthday party is it when everybody ELSE gets presents, anyway?  I always figured that, if I ever had kids of my own, I'd teach 'em that, for Christmas, you wrapped up half of your toys (not the busted shit, the stuff somebody else might enjoy) and took 'em down to an orphanage or some shit.  GIVE, instead of gimme.  Ah, well, that's not happening, I guess.)  But, damn it, the lights, the Christmas trees, the snow...  It was PRETTY.

For a little while, people are supposed to care about each other, or at least pretend.  You're supposed to sit down in the same room with your cousins (you know, the ones you'd rather shoot with your brother's BB gun than have an actual conversation with), be nice to each other, open presents wrapped up in pretty paper, maybe stick a pretty ribbon on your head (yeah, I can actually get girly, sometimes, a statement which probably caused at least one person who knows me to burst out laughing), laugh, and just have FUN.

It's supposed to be a day you BELIEVE in something.

What is it now?

Sleet.  Slush.  It's all gray and dirty around the edges, and downright treacherous in the middle.

The season starts off with Black Friday, where people are encouraged to try to kill each other for ten bucks off a prepaid cell phone.  Assualt and battery over cheap, sleazy underwear.  It's all about "what did you buy me," not "what can I give?"  It's all "Mommy doesn't LOVE me, she didn't buy me the new iPad I wanted."  It's all "fuck my life, nobody bought me a car."

Fucking monkeys took the holiday I loved most as a kid and shat all over it.

Fuck Christmas, anyway.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Winter in Vermont looked like Christmas.  Trees, and snow.  That antiseptic smell of a nice winter morning, the low sifting sound as the snow came down, or the exciting blue pale of the moonlight. 

Winter in Boston looked like Christmas.  Newbury Street or Downtown Crossing with the lights up, clean white snow before it went February dirty gray, and the music making you feel like it was the NICE part of the 1950's again, not the sort of city Art sang about in "The Boxer"

In Providence the wind howls through the buildings like the dry wind through dead ziggurats.  It comes war now and again like the shoggoth rolled over in the canal and cut a fart.  There is no place for the clean New England winter here.  There is no grand thoroughfare for the lights and cheer like in Boston.  There is only the cyclopean twisting of the odd city plan.  Hell, maybe if I can get up hill without busting my ass I can get to one of the College hill bars, warm and welcoming, bereft of the usual younguns, finally properly partway deserted for a quiet drink, or a random chat if I feel like that.  Then it is back out into the desserted night.  Once again alone in the unoccupied ruins under the pale diffusion of cold stars.

Balls.  I've seen Providence, and it's EXACTLY how everyone sees Christmas when they close their eyes.  A smallish city in rolling hills.  Snow.  A fucking weirdass bronze pineapple for no fucking reason on Federal Hill.  Angry Italians.  Grey slush.  Bad drivers.  Rage.  Hate.  Hipsters singing Christmas Carols in shitty lava lamp bars.  Senseless violence.  The world's worst Cornish pasty.

Ah, the holidays.

As a citizen of the next state over, I'm not exactly sure about those pineapples either. I thought them confined to Newport and therefore some sort of harmless Naval tradition. At first. Remember though, that the first PDer I mailed was Nigel, and I mailed her from Newport. But now I discover that l'anana is all over Providence Plantations. Those pineapples are fucking evil. They promise "Welcome!" just as iron gates promise "Arbeit macht frei" over a German work camp.

[Luna]

That... went somewhere I had no idea it was going to go.

I think I need to get some sleep.

Or something.

[Richter]

Winter in Vermont looked like Christmas.  Trees, and snow.  That antiseptic smell of a nice winter morning, the low sifting sound as the snow came down, or the exciting blue pale of the moonlight. 

Winter in Boston looked like Christmas.  Newbury Street or Downtown Crossing with the lights up, clean white snow before it went February dirty gray, and the music making you feel like it was the NICE part of the 1950's again, not the sort of city Art sang about in "The Boxer"

In Providence the wind howls through the buildings like the dry wind through dead ziggurats.  It comes war now and again like the shoggoth rolled over in the canal and cut a fart.  There is no place for the clean New England winter here.  There is no grand thoroughfare for the lights and cheer like in Boston.  There is only the cyclopean twisting of the odd city plan.  Hell, maybe if I can get up hill without busting my ass I can get to one of the College hill bars, warm and welcoming, bereft of the usual younguns, finally properly partway deserted for a quiet drink, or a random chat if I feel like that.  Then it is back out into the desserted night.  Once again alone in the unoccupied ruins under the pale diffusion of cold stars.

Balls.  I've seen Providence, and it's EXACTLY how everyone sees Christmas when they close their eyes.  A smallish city in rolling hills.  Snow.  A fucking weirdass bronze pineapple for no fucking reason on Federal Hill.  Angry Italians.  Grey slush.  Bad drivers.  Rage.  Hate.  Hipsters singing Christmas Carols in shitty lava lamp bars.  Senseless violence.  The world's worst Cornish pasty.

Ah, the holidays.

Ethnicities you've never heard of, pissed that the white minority is acting weirder than usual.  Throwing cash around too.  Not at the usual things though, but at each OTHER.  Getting "Just the right" ham, tree, cake, garland, schnitzel, tuber....  No one wants to go through the "Dominic the Donkey: carwash ride that enterprising Joe put together in a hurry and he can't figure out why.

Th parents drag the lilly white spawn around a little harder, and scream at them a little louder. 

Some people are walking in a cloud.  Traipsing through the necessary buyings, for once ennobled by doing it out of LOVE for the people they buy for.  The others, who have no one to buy for, or who are too damaged or jaded to feel it are practically on a different planet.  Some fucked up socilogical expression of quantum physics.  In one world Schrodinger is on his way home to toss the cat a kipper, in another fluffy is DEAD, and he's goign to pull a bottle from that bag and drink until he can cry again.

Snow loosens feet from ground, wheels from road, and tempers from reality.  You think the tossers could driver in good weather, sober, with proper lighting.  Remove all three.  Exchangin insurance information amounts to admitting you need a stomping, or admitting you have a lead deficiency.  Even the most level headed Two-bit Tony will brandish a bat before the soccer mom starts her finger wagging tirade.  IT expedited the process to getting off the road and figuring out the paperwork later. 

Then it stops. 

The day happens, it's over, and we wait a week for a good bender.  After that?  Well THEN the snow seems a bit more gray.  The lights come down.  The spirits fade.  This is the cull, where we see whose wallet, patience, and will can cling to life through another hard freeze.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

That... went somewhere I had no idea it was going to go.

I think I need to get some sleep.

Or something.

sometime in the year 3461, a strangely preserved letter was found in the ruins of Providence, Rhode Island, in the immediate post-classical dialect of the English language.

Dear Luna,

I saw you the other day talking about the wintery New England mix. Well, here's the thing. We didn't always get WNEM. No, I remember a time when we called it snow. When we called it a blizzard. When a Nor'Easter meant "holy shit, we can't do a fucking thing!" instead of "dood, it fahkin sucks outside kehd, lets go to the packie and get some beeahz! Wull get wet but fahk it dood. Beeahz!"

I know that I am fairly notorious foe being of the Pagan persuasion, and more specifically, of the Alexandrianesque sort of background. Well, They say that the Oak King and the Holly King ever fight at the change of the season for dominance of the hemisphere. Except now, I think that the oil companies have put their money behind the Oak King.

Everyone likes warmth and good weather of course, but, they're expecting to check out before the Oak King lobs that nuke at the Holly King. Yeah, they'll have kids and junk but they don't care. They never did.

No.

The Oak King is the clear winner. He was as soon as they decided to throw a little money his way. They were considering the Holly King for quite a bit after WWII, but they decided that an all out nuclear exchange was not very profitable. You see the WNEM now, only in New England. But it won't be too long now before WNEM becomes merely Wintery Mix, and strangely it's raining warmly in Boston and Providence.

I honestly don't look forward to what that day and age's WNEM will be. I envy the South even less.

Hugs and Kisses Your Favorite Nephew,
-Twiddleton

[Richter]

Winter in Vermont looked like Christmas.  Trees, and snow.  That antiseptic smell of a nice winter morning, the low sifting sound as the snow came down, or the exciting blue pale of the moonlight. 

Winter in Boston looked like Christmas.  Newbury Street or Downtown Crossing with the lights up, clean white snow before it went February dirty gray, and the music making you feel like it was the NICE part of the 1950's again, not the sort of city Art sang about in "The Boxer"

In Providence the wind howls through the buildings like the dry wind through dead ziggurats.  It comes war now and again like the shoggoth rolled over in the canal and cut a fart.  There is no place for the clean New England winter here.  There is no grand thoroughfare for the lights and cheer like in Boston.  There is only the cyclopean twisting of the odd city plan.  Hell, maybe if I can get up hill without busting my ass I can get to one of the College hill bars, warm and welcoming, bereft of the usual younguns, finally properly partway deserted for a quiet drink, or a random chat if I feel like that.  Then it is back out into the desserted night.  Once again alone in the unoccupied ruins under the pale diffusion of cold stars.

Balls.  I've seen Providence, and it's EXACTLY how everyone sees Christmas when they close their eyes.  A smallish city in rolling hills.  Snow.  A fucking weirdass bronze pineapple for no fucking reason on Federal Hill.  Angry Italians.  Grey slush.  Bad drivers.  Rage.  Hate.  Hipsters singing Christmas Carols in shitty lava lamp bars.  Senseless violence.  The world's worst Cornish pasty.

Ah, the holidays.

No, Roger...  We haven't had a decent SNOW around here for Christmas for YEARS.  A dusting, an inch or two before Christmas, but it melts off before the day.

Mother Nature does it just to spite me, the hateful bitch.

See, I could handle just about anything at Christmas, if there was snow on the ground.  I'm talking about real snow, enough to go out in the yard or a park and build a snowman.  You know the kind, the kind that piles up on rooftops and hides the worst parts of the city for a few months.  Instead, we get "New England Winter Mix."  They actually call it that.  What they mean is fucking sleet and snow, which comes down, coats everything in sheets of ice, then fucks off.  Make a snowball out of that shit, fling it at somebody, and half of it will knock a tooth out of their head, and the other half will run down the front of their coat straight down to their underpants.  This, while entertaining, still doesn't help.

God and his whole fucking fan club can go piss up a rope, I never cared much about it being Jesus's birthday party.  (What kind of birthday party is it when everybody ELSE gets presents, anyway?  I always figured that, if I ever had kids of my own, I'd teach 'em that, for Christmas, you wrapped up half of your toys (not the busted shit, the stuff somebody else might enjoy) and took 'em down to an orphanage or some shit.  GIVE, instead of gimme.  Ah, well, that's not happening, I guess.)  But, damn it, the lights, the Christmas trees, the snow...  It was PRETTY.

For a little while, people are supposed to care about each other, or at least pretend.  You're supposed to sit down in the same room with your cousins (you know, the ones you'd rather shoot with your brother's BB gun than have an actual conversation with), be nice to each other, open presents wrapped up in pretty paper, maybe stick a pretty ribbon on your head (yeah, I can actually get girly, sometimes, a statement which probably caused at least one person who knows me to burst out laughing), laugh, and just have FUN.

It's supposed to be a day you BELIEVE in something.

What is it now?

Sleet.  Slush.  It's all gray and dirty around the edges, and downright treacherous in the middle.

The season starts off with Black Friday, where people are encouraged to try to kill each other for ten bucks off a prepaid cell phone.  Assualt and battery over cheap, sleazy underwear.  It's all about "what did you buy me," not "what can I give?"  It's all "Mommy doesn't LOVE me, she didn't buy me the new iPad I wanted."  It's all "fuck my life, nobody bought me a car."

Fucking monkeys took the holiday I loved most as a kid and shat all over it.

Fuck Christmas, anyway.

The expectation of the day irks me as much as the monkies you mention.  Not for myself, or for my own wants anymore.  The best gift I ever got is being able to take care of myself.  Anyways both my sister and I are not too keen on surprises.  It's the noise and the anticipation and all the other such.  The pressure of a "special" day, as if any other turning of the planet could be more important than any other.  It focuses us on what we have, and what we don't.  Makes us stare at our trouble, as Syrio Forrell might say.

Got your swords?  Come out and fence tomorrow if you can.  If not then, no worries, there are times on the weekend too, and swordplay is a great way to remember how to be in the moment.