(3:45 a.m.)
(Singin')
It's a quarter to three
I've been wrapping presents
under the tree
So set 'em up Joe,
I really don't mind you
sayin' ho! ho! ho!
Later
Dear ______,
Merry Christmas to all my kith & kin across the land. Almost didn't write a Christmas letter this year. Why, you ask? Well I've waited ‘til the 11th hour. I'm like the guy you get a Christmas card in the mail from, on Dec. 26. But the annual Christmas parody letter is a tradition and isn't it sacrosanct that we maintain tradition? I remember my mother was big on tradition. Like when the toy train that had been working since she and her brother were kids would choo choo around the Christmas tree at Grandma Mac's house. The grandparents always had a real tree. It was at my "modern" house where we had an artificial tree.
But as I was saying, if you thought you'd never lose your virginity, that professional soccer would never return to Wichita, that the Eagles would never tour again or that (Holy Virginia!) there is no Santa Claus, well you were wrong because I am proceeding with the Christmas letter.
As you know in past years, I have written personality profiles and investigative exposes for Esquire, The Atlantic & Rolling Stone. And remember when I went out drinking with Pope Francis and smoked dope with Patti Smith all in the same year? Well, this is a hard time to be a journalist. Even the major magazines screw you and your small town papers are being turned into remote ghost papers by the same three Media Monopolies that keep seizing them from their hometowns. Well anyhow, I'm writing about ribbon cuttings and garden shows now in Worthington, Kan. for the Worthington Daily Dispatch. And if I didn't previously feel like a whore...
Well, I officially became the parent of an adult this year when my oldest turned 18. My son, Max, (just a disclaimer, I long ago started using pseudonyms for my friends and family members so they wouldn't be so pissed off when I wrote about them) will graduate from high school this coming spring. He was on his school's debate team last fall and this spring, he will again be in forensics, in which he hopes to do dramatic impersonation. You know, he and the girl have been listening to me recite "The Gettysburg Address" around the house for years.
He drives a Mustang given to him by his maternal grandfather who doesn’t drive anymore. My dad & step-mom no longer drive at night. As Dad would tell me, “that’s life.”
I was speaking of the girl earlier. My Gabby is your next door, All-American candy store girl - who happens to wear a stocking cap bearing the words, "I'm not Okay." She sings alto in her school's choir, which this year, is in Worthington, Kan., and maybe next year as well, but one never knows as when you're a poor bastard like me, you move around a lot.
She cried when I set up mouse traps, said the mice were cute and and upon finding one of the little rodents beneath the kill bar with its spine split, she cried, but I consoled her. "Little girl, those little bastards would eat and shit in all our food, given the chance." Anyhow, the girl wanted a cat, but the landlady said no.
Oh yeah, and I took Gabby to the local Parade of Christmas Homes in town this year. I was trying to give my girl a treat, but it wasn’t really for kids. I just spent money I didn’t have (which will, fortunately, go to needy children in the community) to watch a bunch of rich people show off their big ass productions and talk to each other about what they have and wish they had while they ignore you to your face. You’d do better to drive around and look at Christmas lights on houses. I remember doing just that with a girl one Christmas about 30 years ago. We cruised around in her car, eating tacos, gazing at the rich folks’s Christmas lights and later going back to our small town and a place from which there is no return.
I guess I get that way and perhaps it’s particular to this year - the emotion of nostalgia - that mixed feeling of joy and sadness - for Christmases past with my family. Vodka, gin, fake wood paneling, batteries, poker chips, china brought in from Vietnam, ten-penny pitch, the sober one making an emergency run to the Kwiki Mart for a carton of Marlboro Lights or a box of tampons, someone getting arrested for assaulting someone else with a turkey.
Sure, I miss the hell out of Mom. Her laugh. All her tacky Christmas baubles. A china plate with Santa Claus praying over the baby Jesus. Nativity sets in the living room, kitchen and in the bathroom next to the toothbrushes, hairspray and Santa’s Naughty List toilet paper. The scariest looking, black suited, Medieval-like Santa figurine you’d ever seen. An ugly abominable snowman looking toy that you wound up and it played Jimmy Durante singing “Frosty the Snowman.”
Well, usually, I close these things with a video of some song like “Christmas in Jail” or “Hanky the Christmas Poo.” But I thought about Mom passing away and considered presenting something more reverent like my favorite Christmas song, “O Holy Night.” Then I thought again.
I remember Mom getting pissed at me and my siblings' music and railing about how it was the downfall of our country and a sign of the Last Days. I remember when I was 18 or 19, went to a Christmas party in El Dorado, got trashed on straight tequila and a friend bringing me home to Mom. The next day when she drove me to get my car, I kept moaning and groaning with the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life. “I don’t feel a bit sorry for you,” she said, scoldingly. “You got what you deserved.” Years later we’d take the keys away when Mom’s memory slipped further and she could no longer drive safely. What I’d give to hear that voice now.
In the New Year, let’s be nicer to each other. A Mennonite pastor friend of mine posted to Facebook - “Make America Civil Again.” I’m all for that. Let’s think Big for a change. I mean, really start dreaming again. No more racism, war, homelessness and poverty. I know those feelings died out 50 years ago, but why not give Peace a chance again.
I’m outa here. Sam & Kenzie, in my life, I love you more.
Your friend,
Jeff
"Truth Hurts" - Lizzo
She was on the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live (w/ Eddie Murphy hosting) last week. That's good enough for me.
And Mom would hate it.