Don't Despair, Just Because It's Christmas

Well, as they say, the Christmas season is "upon us." Like a pestilence--a festive cloud of red and green striped Africanized killer bees supping from a trough of ebola egg nog--that magical time of year has descended upon us, like a plague of frogs upon Egypt. A pox on both of your houses!

In layman's terms, in case you're living on another planet, like, say, Mercury or Saudi Arabia, it's a time for miracles: two thousand some odd years ago a shining star that wasn't normally in the sky but was actually God's night light (installed by Mrs. God to keep him from pissing on the toilet seat), was plugged into the universal socket to shed light on the birth of a special baby. A baby born to without the musky stain of lowly human fucking, Jeebus emerged from the womb draped in white linen and smelling like Skittles. He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and to that end he's got his morbidly obese B&E man Santa Claus peeping through your windows to see if you've been naughty or nice. It's a time to rejoice, to cut down a perfectly good tree and surround it with the besparkled detritus of mass consumption. It's a time to sing songs, to wait in line for gift cards because you know that whatever you buy will be the wrong thing. It's a time of stress, loneliness, and whiskey diarrhea.

Hallelujah!

But let's keep it real kids, Jesus is the reason for the season:
Actually, I think that might be Dick Gregory. Maybe a young Red Foxx.

My daughter, Dolores, lost Santa Claus this year. She's nine, so I suppose it's about time. She cornered her mom one evening and said, "Mom, my friends say that Santa Claus is just your parents. Is that true?"

"Well, what do you think?" Kristina asked.

"I think it's you and dad that leave the presents."

This is one of those volatile, psyche-shaping moments that makes you glad when it falls on the other parent. Like in Full Metal Jacket when Animal Mother says, "better you than me."

"You're right," Kristina rather naively agreed.

Dolly launched into a five star tantrum, screaming in hysterics about how she hated the both of us for lying to her for nearly a decade. "What's the point of Christmas if there's no Santa?"

It's not as though she's never heard of Jesus, but launching into a story about an angel, an immaculate conception, and three wise Arabs bearing gifts would've been the wrong move. After all, she'd having been so rudely disabused of the notion of fat men who fit down chimneys and flying reindeer, magical babies made without sex would merely be supplanting one adult-perpetuated hoax with another.

Needless to say, I saved $20 for my half of the Santa photos at the mall this year.

The problem with Christmas is that we, collectively, as a society, went full retard. And everybody knows you never go full retard:

If you believe the old saw about the wise men, they each brought one gift. Something small, but precious. Something meaningful. What a trio of cunts. They could've done up Jesus's manger with a 50 inch 3D HD motherfuckin' flat screen, surround sound, tower speakers, and a stripper pole if they'd manned up and hit the Black Friday sales down at the Casbah. 'Stead they went all tasteful and shit.

Sure, it's facile of me to act all righteous and curmudgeonly about Christmas. I like stuff as much as the next motherfucker on the block--probably more. Nonetheless, when I see shit like this, I puke in my mouth a little. (Don't worry--this time of year it tastes like pumpkin pie.)

Despite my holiday blues and general shithouse attitude, I'm not entirely without the holiday spirit. Laura and I did a little yuletide photo shoot, complete with Santa pimp cups. ["Do not put pimp cup in dishwasher. Hand wash only. Do not swallow rhinestones."]

Yeah, those are grills.

After looking at the photos, I'm not so sure Santa doesn't exist. How else do you explain that belly besides Christmas magic? Plumper than a fuckin' pork bun.

Anyhow, thanks to the miracle of the modern interweb (Thank you Jesus! Thank you Lord!), we were able to have these made into some stunning Christmas cards, the likes of which even papa Bill O'Reilly would be proud of in their sheer efficacy against the infidels and their War on Christmas. (There's that pumpkin pie taste again.)
And with this spirit of "Fuck all y'all" in my heart, let me urge everyone reading this (Hi mom!) to start a new holiday tradition, one wherein we don't halfheartedly wish each other well for a few weeks of the year, all the while elbowing one another in the face for discounted Fushigis at the local Target. Let's return to a simpler time, a time when what really mattered wasn't what you could buy a loved one, but instead, how you could ruin their life through summoning unspeakable cosmic horrors.

This Christmas, all we are saying, is give Cthulhu a chance.