The forgotten reasons, the magic receding

A young man’s evolving thoughts on Christmas.

“Wake up! — Santa came!” yelled my little brother.

His voice wore on my head like a coffee grinder. Coffee sounded good.

I ritualistically rolled out of bed onto the cold, wooden floor and peered out the window for it. There it sat— same as every year: his reindeer left us warm piles of excrement, littered with bits of crusty moss and silvery tinsel. The staged and dressed cow patties — a clever creation of my father’s — just weren’t as charming this year.

Last night I secretly tried scotch with my eggnog. It was delicious. Christmas buzzed, I found no sleazy comfort under the vulgar hang of the mistletoe. Instead, I annoyed everyone with my slurred thoughts on how we could fix the energy crisis.

“If he would just reveal how those mangy beasts achieve flight,” I vomited. “Bastard’s holdin’ out, is what he’s doin’.”

Yeah, morning’s here, cold, spinning, and bright. We listened to Willie sing ‘Blue Christmas’ on Dad’s cheap radio as we took a magnifying glass to the half eaten plate of cookies we left out, wishing we had the Jolly Old Elf’s dental records for comparison.

“ I know he has a lot of homes to hit, but does the son of a bitch have to be so wasteful with food?” I say. “ Is he too good to finish off a glass of almond milk?”

My brother just shrugged and fished a Pez dispenser from his stocking: Chewbacca. I would later steal it from him and add it to my collection. Continuing on, we examined the sooty bootprints left on the hearth of the chimney, and I wished I had left a fire going last night.

Then I thought about how Jesus Christ was born on Christmas; He died for my sins and rose again on Easter; and I got a Nintendo 64, to boot.