Dear Santa Flops:
Oh you darling fat fraud, there is only one thing I really want from you this Christmas, and that is that you keep far away from my holiday gift list. How am I supposed to train my relatives to give me useful things, like an online subscription to the Screaming Streaming Service and passwords to websites unfairly restricted to people twice my age if you keep chiming in with advice on giving me old, used stuff? I know my mother will probably get me more cute books with fluffy kitties instead of zombie rats in them, but I MAY have convinced my doddering grandfather that something high-tech can be sent by email and does not require wrapping, so kindly do not interfere with advice about pre-owned clutter. A Christmas without you would be like a gift of a thousand New Years.
IN GREAT HOPES FOR A SANTA-FREE DAY
Dear Ingrate:
It is always nice to hear from you, as it lends a personal touch to the holiday. It’s like seeing a grimy thumbprint on an otherwise pristine sugar cookie.
I am, however, rather surprised that you even bother to write, you being so modern and high tech. I suppose you still think that Elf on the Shelf is nothing but a bright-eyed chucklehead with no thought but to amuse and entertain. He has an advanced degree in all those modern technological wonders you adore, and has forwarded me your online wishlists and browsing history.
It pains me to point out inconsistencies in your hopes and dreams, but that IS part of the holiday tradition. You show an eager interest in movies which involve mortals who awaken ancient evil spirits, and you regularly check online auction sites for haunted dolls and artifacts with curses on them. Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. I hope not; sI need to fill the rest of this column somehow.
Perhaps you are simply taking your family too much for granted. You are so used to getting secondhand books with bunnies from your mother that you take no interest in the previous owners. Perhaps they were like you, Ingrate, and some of their frustration at not seeing decapitated gnomes or ravening bear ghosts lives on in those well-thumbed tomes.
Perhaps your doting grandfather, eschewing a digital passkey, will send you some postcards. Do NOT, Ingrate, just toss these aside saying “Confounded kitsch!” The message on the back may tell of treasure buried in an ancient burial ground, or hold coded clues to where something vile has been lurking in limbo, just waiting for some small, disappointed Christmas grumbler to speak the words “I am fine. How are you?” backward to activate the charm.
Christmas, my bitter dumpling, has always come with a streak of darkness: it is celebrated in the season of early sunsets and dark nights among people who believed that if they told stories of bloodthirsty creatures waiting just outside the door, those creatures would get the hint and move to the house of someone who had no respect for such ancient traditions. Not sending threats, Ingrate: just hints. Remember that one of the jauntiest of traditional English Christmas songs deals with the discovery and a skeleton in a forgotten room. Not everyone gets EXACTLY what they wanted or deserved (much as I know you’d love to find an ancient death in your toybox.)
I hope you will take whatever your family gives you this year in the right spirit. Surely someone of your basic temperament will be able to turn even fluffy bunnies and faded postcards into tools of terror. Show a little initiative, cyanide souffle; in the olden days, kids were expected to make their own terrors, and were perfectly happy with socks and underwear at the end of December. (Okay, maybe not PERFECTLY happy: your particular ancestor probably growled about getting pink undies instead of camo wear.)
Wishing you something terrifying and unexpected this holiday, and hoping you can respond with something equally surprising and horrifying for your family. (Try smiling. It’ll probably make them think twice before sampling the cranberry sauce.)
Blogsy Babbles 