The Christmas Nightmares
A comedic tribute to those fabulous Sagittarius’s suffering the wicked, wretched birthday holiday season.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a confession to make. I’m that girl. That’s right, that girl, the one who hates Christmas. I didn’t intend it this way. I don’t think I was born to hate Christmas. I don’t think it’s in my genes to hate Christmas. So how did it come to this? I am the daughter of the Christmas NAZI, and my father is her evil henchman. Together, they have managed to manifest the most extreme Christmas in World History! How, you ask? Let me start by asking you a question: how far will someone go to create the ultimate Christmas? Well anybody ever seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? Remember the Griswold Family Christmas? Bah, humbug! The Griswolds were ameture next to the Christmas NAZI. And I can prove it.
Let’s start with our house. It’s Christmas 365 days a year. It’s red on the exterior with holly sprig green walls on the interior, and they didn’t miss the gold peaks on the roof.
Next come the lights. Ever seen the nuts who cover their house in Christmas lights so you can see them from space? Yep, that’s us, but we take it further. The Christmas NAZI puts even more lights on the inside of the house. It’s 2 AM, and you need sunglasses to watch TV.
Every Christmas, festive detail is considered, planned for, executed and exaggerated out of all proportion. No military operation can rival the Christmas NAZI at work in December. We got eggnog, Christmas punch, Christmas cookies, Christmas cakes, Christmas bow ties that flash when you push a button, Christmas sweaters and suits and an electronic Yule log burning our TV. (Dad recorded six hours of it on DVR.) Imagine your father prancing around in tight, green, leather pants with flashing Christmas lights attached to them. Folks, we even have a feeding trough on our roof for reindeer with actual reindeer feed in it (Yep, Mom found the feed on ebay.). So santa doesn’t burn his butt, Dad installed a spiral slide that leads from our roof to our living room window. This year, out of defiance, I installed a parking meter on the roof by the reindeer feed trough. It’s made eight bucks so far.
Christmas in our house is not optional; it is required. Every possible relative we have in the universe, even a 15th cousin 2nd removed, is forced to attend. Accommodations? No problem. We have a four bedroom house, perfect for the 35 guests expected. Kingons? Jabba the Hut? They’re all there every year to suffer their portion of our Christmas Hell. And how does the Christmas NAZI compel all these victims to endure our annual, festive nightmare? Why the ultimate weapon, of course: guilt! Think you’re going to escape our hell to a hotel room? Not allowed! To not sleep in our house shows you’re lacking love, festive spirit and family loyalty. If concentration camp and gulag inmates can stand the crowding, so can we. One year, we found a grand-uncle, 3rd removed, in the mop closet dead where he had been sleeping upright. The coroner said he’d been in there three days. I thought the closet smelled funny, but who could tell over scent of chestnuts roasting on the open fire in our gas fireplace.
But the most evil torture of all is the Christmas NAZI’s festive, family, Christmas schedule. It’s posted on the refrigerator and begins with midnight mass, the extra long kind, and followed by a reading of the “Night Before Christmas” at 2:30 AM on Christmas morning. Each section is assigned, and anyone who screws up their reading is forced to do it again. Finally, 4 AM arrives, and it’s time for sleep. Or, maybe not so much. Promptly at 6 AM, you are awakened for the Christmas gift opening ceremony. Attendance is required and taken. Each person gets to open one at a time, and appropriate appreciative noises are expected. Wrapping paper must be removed neatly, so it can be reused next year. This year the 6 AM wake up led to confrontation. I did not want to get out of that bed I was sharing with six other unfortunates. I tried telling the Christmas NAZI that I’m an adult, and would rather sleep through the gift opening, or at least let me out for a smoke first. She told me that that smoking is banned everywhere in the State of Minnesota, indoors or out. I told her, “Mom, I really don’t need a dozen more pairs of cheesy Santa underwear I get every year.” She told me that 1000s of starving children in Africa would be proud to wear that underwear. I told her, “So mail the underwear to Africa!” It was futile. I succumbed and endured the ritual. No folks, I didn’t get any Christmas underwear this year, but my weird Uncle Sherwood did give me a genuine reindeer dick vibrator. I was appalled. Mom thought it was fantastically festive.
Every moment of the rest of the entire day is planned to the minute. Christmas breakfast with green scrambled eggs molded into festive shapes are the main course. Then there is the eggnog time, the caroling time, the the Christmas dinner time, the Christmas movie time and the stories of Christmases past time. Let us not forget Christmas telephone time. Any relative fortunate enough, or smart enough, to avoid our Christmas hell, is called, the phone is passed and all 35 of us must say something festive and full of cheer to the victim on the other end of the line. The only unscheduled activity are the bathroom stops. Folks, with 35 people, two bathrooms and alcohol flowing, bathroom time is precious. Males, of course, have all the advantages. They can go out and use the yard. The disadvantage is that by the day after Christmas, we’re not just known for the exterior light show; we’re also known for the sea of yellow snow encircling our house. I have always wondered if the yellow ring has greater significance, like it wards off evil spirits or something. I know it wards off neighbors for weeks. Even the dogs cross to the other side of the street when passing our house. Men who can write “Merry Christmas” in the snow with one stream are awarded extra beer and Christmas cookies.
But I digress. Remember when I asked you how far someone will go to create the ultimate Christmas? Let me tell you how I came to be. Many years, ago, on Christmas Eve, my mother, the Christmas NAZI, went to the home improvement store. She bought a brand new toilet and installed it herself while she was nine months pregnant. The result? Me, on Christmas morning. Yes, folks, of course I’m a Christmas baby! Would the Christmas NAZI have it any other way?
And naturally, she took me home from the hospital in an appropriately festive, large Christmas stocking with flashing lights attached. I have not enjoyed a Christmas, or a birthday, since.
