A Different Kind of "Dear Santa" Letter

For the last month or so, Santa Claus has been receiving letters from children around the globe, asking for everything from Play-Station systems to Justin Bieber's phone number.  But according to an employee at the  North Pole Post Office whose name has been withheld at his request, Mr. Claus recently received, via registered mail, a letter of a different sort.

It reads as follows: 

Dear Santa,

Although you probably won't notice this until a day or two after Christmas since you're busy filling the sleigh, micro-managing the elves, and doing God-knows-what with the ho-ho-hos in the secretarial pool, I've packed my things and have moved out of the cottage.  Shortly after the holidays, you'll be hearing from my attorney about division of property and what-not, but in the meantime I'll be staying with my mother in Tampa.  I've had more than enough crappy North Pole weather as it is.

This is not a decision I've arrived at lightly.  For years, I've put up with you sitting on your fat ass for eleven months eating Hostess cupcakes and watching the Food Network followed by a one-month period of work-related stress and hostility.  I find it ironic, and morbidly amusing, that kids all over the world view you as the very picture of kindness and generosity when we both know that it's all an act.  Sure, you're all smiles and merriment for them, but take off the red coat and phony beard and you're nothing but a cynical, grouchy old bastard.  Why is it, for example, that you'll eat any stale cookie the kids' grubby hands leave for you on Christmas Eve, but if I so much as burn one Snickerdoodle you practically have an aneurysm?  You've built an entire career around knowing who's been naughty and who's been nice but take a look at yourself.  You're about ten percent "jolly old elf" and ninety percent "bitter old drunk."  It's a good thing children aren't privy to Santa's Dark Side.  "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night" plays a lot better than "Get me another beer, bitch, or you're getting the reindeer whip again."  I'd love to tell the world what a cranky SOB you are, but I wouldn't want to destroy their delusions.  Between you and me, you're nothing but a holly, jolly asshole.

I'll tell you, mister, I'm sick of your condescension, treating me like I'm the hired help.  Just because the elves' union won't allow them to clean up reindeer shit doesn't mean I should do it instead.  I don't have the time or the inclination to be a stable maid.  You keep me busy enough baking gingerbread, decorating the cottage, and altering your suit to accommodate your ever-expanding gut.  I'm done shoveling Donner muffins.

The next couple things might sound petty, but they've been bothering me for a long time.  Why is it that you can remember the names of every single boy and girl in the world and know if they've been bad or good, yet you can't remember to put the toilet seat down after you take a whiz?  And really, you give millions of kids wonderful presents each year, fulfilling their every Christmas wish, but remember what you gave ME last year?  A fucking vacuum cleaner.

I didn't want to stoop to this, but as long as I'm laying it out there, I may as well get it off my chest.  Our sex life is pathetic.  I don't know where you got the idea that you're the man of every woman's dreams, but that "Hey, baby, how'd you like to see my North Pole" line wasn't charming in 1843 and it's not charming now.  I also don't appreciate your repeated hounding me to try something called "Reverse Sleigh Ride."  I have no idea what that means, but it sounds far too kinky for my taste.  Truth be told, I haven't enjoyed the physical part of our relationship for decades, not just because of your chauvinistic attitude, but also because that "belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly" isn't so festive when it's bouncing on top of me.  That moaning sound you hear isn't ecstasy, it's pain.  And not the good kind.  Oh, one more thing, and I hope this doesn't insult your manhood.  You're not the only one who "comes just once a year."  'Nuff said.

I've already filed for divorce, so you should be receiving notice in the near future.  Please do not attempt to contact me directly, as I have no interest in discussing this further.  I do, however, wish you a safe journey this Christmas Eve, and please send my best regards to Rudolph.  I always kinda liked that little guy.

Sincerely,

Bernice Huffstetter-Claus

Warning: Grandma Will Get You What You Ask For

When we were young, my brother Eric was our family's Eeyore -- pessimistic, rather gloomy.  Experience taught him early on that if something bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to him.  Most of the time it wasn't even his fault, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, fall victim to a misunderstanding, or suffer some other stroke of random misfortune like putting his arm through a window or sliding down a wooden bench and getting a foot long splinter embedded in his thigh. 

One Saturday afternoon when I was thirteen and Eric was nine, our dad came home with two bikes that were given to him by a friend whose kids had outgrown them.  One was a sleek metallic blue five-speed with a banana seat and hand brakes, the other was a small turtle-shit green K-mart model with coaster brakes and a basket on the handlebars.  In retrospect, Dad should've decided beforehand which of us was going to get which bike.  Maybe he was hoping it would work out naturally, but whatever the case, Dad committed one of the Cardinal Sins of Fatherhood -- he asked both of us which bike we wanted.  The result was not a surprise.

"I want the blue one," I said.

"No, I want the blue one," said Eric.

After several minutes of arguing back and forth, firing phrases like "I'm older, I should get it," and "No fair, you always get your way," at each other, Dad decided to flip a coin.

"Chris, you call it," he said.

"Why doe HE get to call it?" asked Eric.

"Fine, you call it then," I said.

"Heads," said Eric.

Dad tossed the coin, caught it, and flipped it over on the back of his hand.

"It's tails.  Chris, you get to pick your bike."

I'd like to say that I took this golden opportunity to be the bigger person, to set aside my own selfish desires and accept the turtle-shit green K-Mart clunker so my little brother could have the bike of his dreams, to be a thoughtful and caring big brother who Eric would look up to for the rest of his life.

But I think we all know what really happened.

"I'll take the blue one."

Eric, predictably, pitched a hissy fit and ran upstairs to our bedroom.  I felt guilty for about eight seconds, then I hopped on my bike and rode to my friend Paul's house, shifting gears the whole way.

A similar incident had occurred a few years prior only instead of bicycles, the subject was Halloween costumes.  Most years, our Aunt Patti took me, Eric, and our youngest brother Bobby to FAO Schwarz in New York to pick out really cool outfits to wear for Trick or Treat.  One year I was an astronaut, another time Eric was a snazzy-looking Canadian Mountie, and Bobby spent Halloween 1975 gathering Tootsie Pops and Milky Ways decked out as a four-foot tall Spiderman.

One year, though, all we had to choose from was the family's Costumes of Halloweens Past, those that were recycled year to year and passed along as hand-me-downs.  Bobby was a tiger, I was Batman, and Eric was a clown.

Eric, however, had absolutely no interest in being a clown.  He griped, he grumbled, he pouted.  To this day, no one is sure why he was so against the idea, but it may have had something to do with the time we were all kidnapped by Giggles McYukyuk at one of our mom's Cub Scout leaders' meetings.

It gets worse.

Not only did Eric have to don the clown suit, Mom insisted on stuffing the front of the costume with balloons so he resembled one of those inflatable punching bags.  As a result, Eric is the only child in Halloween history to sulk his way through Trick or Treating.

It also led to the most hilarious picture in our family's scrapbook:

So yeah, Eric always seemed to be the one getting the bum deal, which makes what happened on Christmas 1979 all the more pitiful.

Every Christmas, we'd wake up at the crack of dawn, roust our parents out of bed and storm downstairs to unwrap our presents.  Once the gifts were opened, Mom would whip up a batch of Pillsbury orange danish and we'd spend the rest of the morning playing with our new toys.  In the early afternoon, we'd drive across town to our grandmother's house for round two.

Traditionally, Grandma would give us each a stocking full of candy and small toys, a couple mid-level gifts (clothes were the most common in this category), and finally, our one "big" present.  Grandma had a fairly close relationship with Santa Claus, so we always knew that the main gift was going to be something really cool.  One year I got a complete set of barbells, another time it was a guitar, and when I got a bit older, I received a top-of-the-line Texas Instruments digital watch.

The 70's were a much simpler time.

So anyway, on the Christmas That Will Live in Infamy, we'd plowed through the preliminary presents and were ready for the main event.  Family policy required us to open our presents one at a time, so we all got to see what the others had received.  Also, it made the process last longer than twelve seconds.

"Okay, who wants to open their big gift first?" asked Dad, clearly forgetting about the bicycle incident of a year earlier.

"I do!" said Bobby.

"Me!" I shouted.

"Here we go again," muttered Eric.

Since there were three of us involved in this decision coin-flipping wasn't an option, so Dad wrote down the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on slips of paper and put them into a bowl.  Eric drew first and pulled out the number 3.

"What a surprise, I'm last," he said.

Bobby had drawn the number 1, so he retrieved his gift from under the tree and ripped off the red and gold wrapping paper.

"Cool!  A Johnny Lightning racing set!  Thanks, Grandma!"  He reluctantly set the box aside so he could watch me unwrap my present.

Mine was wrapped in green paper with snowmen all over it.  I tore it open, to reveal the gift I'd been asking for since August.

"An Atari video game set with five game cartridges!" I said.  "Pacman, Adventure, Kaboom, bowling, and Tank Battle!  This is great, thanks, Grandma!"

By this point, Eric was practically bursting with anticipation.  Seeing Bobby and I hit the jackpot with Johnny Lightning and Atari, he just knew his present was going to be something spectacular.  Taking his time, he removed the silver paper from the box, revealing his special gift.  It was exactly what he'd asked for . . .

A few months earlier, Eric and Mom were watching television when a commercial came on advertising an innovative new product.  It was an item that Eric did indeed have a particular need for, even if it wasn't something most ten year olds would have any interest in.  As kind of a joke, he said to Mom, "Hey, look at that, maybe Santa can bring me one of those for Christmas."  Mom, however, didn't realize he was kidding, so she passed this information along to Grandma who went out and bought Eric the gift he was now looking at with a puzzled and somewhat somber expression on his face.

The Foot Fixer, by Clairol.

Think about this for a minute.  Here's a ten-year-old kid who's just seen his brothers open a brand-new video game system and a racing set where you can actually juice up the cars and they rip around the track on their own.  It's Christmas, the highlight of every kid's year, and what does he have to show for it?

A flippin' Foot Fixer.

All things considered, the kid handled it pretty damn well.  He didn't burst into tears, he didn't throw the thing across the living room, he didn't look at Grandma and ask, "What the hell is THIS?"  He just let out a pathetic sigh and said, "A Foot Fixer.  Thanks, Grandma."

He wanted to cry, though, you could tell.

Here's the rest of the story.

Eric had flat feet.  He was always quick to point this out, and he often used it as an excuse to get out of doing household chores, kind of like a ten-year-old on disability.

"Eric, it's your turn to bring in the trash cans."

"I can't, my feet hurt.  I have flat feet, you know."

"Eric, it's time to set the dinner table."

"My feet hurt, I'll do it later.  I have flat feet, you know."

Truthfully, he did suffer through bouts with foot pain from time to time, especially at night while trying to get to sleep.  So when he and Mom saw the Foot Fixer commercial on TV, he thought it might be something that would help.

But not as his Christmas present.

The real victim here, though, is our grandmother.  She genuinely believed that Eric wanted The Foot Fixer, and once she realized how disappointed the poor kid was, that it was all a big mistake, she felt terrible.  I don't recall what happened in the aftermath, but I'm sure it involved taking Eric to Toys R Us and letting him pick out whatever he wanted.

But to be honest about it, The Foot Fixer wasn't a total loss.  If you filled it up with water and plugged it in, the resulting vibrations caused a tsunami that was great for capsizing our toy battleships.


Note: In no way is Grandma at fault for this.  She was absolutely the kindest, most thoughtful, and most wonderful human being to ever grace the planet.  Her role in the Foot Fixer Incident of 1979 was simply to provide her grandsons with whatever they asked for.  The misunderstanding was absolutely not on her.  No, the blame lies somewhere else entirely.

I'm looking at YOU, Mom. 


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Jiffy Pop Roasting on an Open Fire

Well, here it is Christmas Eve, and I'm officially sick of Christmas music.  It's been on the radio since Halloween, and in early December I made my cheery yuletide iPod playlist full of the holiday classics.  Winter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride, fa la la la frickin' la.

If you listen to these songs long enough, the lyrics get stuck in your head.  I've actually started to analyze the meaning of some of these tunes, and I'll tell ya . . . it's starting to annoy me.  First of all, what the hell is figgy pudding?  And those little bastards singing, "we won't go until we get some", well, guess what kids?  I have no fucking figgy pudding, and if you don't go right Goddamn now, you'll be singing All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, because I'm gonna bust you in the chops with a petrified fruitcake.

My favorite Christmas song of all is The Christmas Song by Mel Torme.  I have several versions of this one on the aforementioned iPod playlist; Frank Sinatra, James Taylor, Vince Guaraldi.  By now, I've heard it so many times that I've probably over-thought the implications set forth in the lyrics.

Let's take a look, shall we?


The Christmas Song 
by Mel Torme

"The" Christmas song, Mel?  Really?  Isn't that a bit cocky?  I mean, I love ya, but there are lots of Christmas songs more popular than this one.  Some would consider Jingle Bells to be "the" Christmas song.  Others might go with Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  The point is, there are lots of classics and it's pretty much a matter of opinion as to which is the quintessential holiday ditty.  You'd have been better served to call this "A" Christmas Song, or simply Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, which is what most people think the title is anyway. 

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose

Okay, show of hands, who has ever actually roasted a chestnut?(1)  Marshmallows, of course.  Hot dogs, absolutely.  Jiffy Pop popcorn roasting on an open fire is simply divine.  But chestnuts?  And Jack Frost nipping at your nose?  If you're sitting in front of an open fire popping Jiffy Pop, the searing flame and popping embers will ward off any potential nose-nipping.   


Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos

First of all, I think we're calling them Inuit-Americans now, aren't we?  And I've never seen a picture of an Inuit-American dressed in a red sweater with a goofy reindeer on it, or wearing a scarf festooned with puffy balls and jingle bells.  "Folks dressed up like friggin' dorks" is more like it.  Anyway, yuletide carols are more typically sung by little kids and drunken co-workers than by choirs these days. 

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe
Help to make the season bright

I've always had a problem with the phrase "everybody knows".  People are generally stupid, so I don't think we can assume that EVERYBODY knows anything.  EVERYBODY doesn't know that you shouldn't drive 45 miles an hour in the fast lane.  EVERYBODY doesn't know that if you let TV and video games raise your toddler he's going to be eating paste in kindergarten.  EVERYBODY doesn't know that if you fuck around on your hot blonde wife with an endless parade of cocktail waitresses and then proceed to leave voicemails on their cell phones, you'll eventually have to forfeit a bazillion dollars in endorsement money and give up golfing for a while.  While some people are indeed aware that turkey and mistletoe help to make the season bright, I wouldn't dare assume that EVERYBODY knows that. 


Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight

Well, sure they will.  They've been scarfing candy canes and sugar cookies since Thanksgiving.  They'll find it hard to sleep until March. 

They know that Santa's on his way
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh

When I was a kid, we'd always put a long pause after "he's loaded" to make it sound like Santa was on dope.  We cracked ourselves up.  The question here, though, is this: Is it, in fact, Santa himself who is in charge of the toy-and-goodie-loading?  It's always been my understanding that Santa's elves are the ones who do the heavy lifting.  Let's give those pint-sized lackeys some credit.  They're the ones busting their yuletide butts every year. 


And every mother's child is gonna spy
To see if reindeer really know how to fly

We've already established that they "know that Santa's on his way", right?  Well, if the kids are buying into the Santa thing, they may as well go the whole way and believe in the flying reindeer without having to go all James Bond and spy on them.  Just go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt.

And what's with the "every MOTHER'S child?"  What, fathers don't count anymore?  What do moms have to do with Christmas, anyway?  They do the shopping, fine, but what woman is going to complain about "having" to shop?  It's what women do best!(2)  It's the fathers who have the real chore at Christmas, assembling bicycles, hanging the lights, and scraping unpopped Jiffy Pop kernels out of the fireplace. 

And so I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two

Apparently, Kirk Douglas and Olivia de Havilland can go screw themselves.(3) 

Although it's been said many times, many ways
Merry Christmas to you 

Have a great Christmas, you Knuckleheads!  You know I love ya!


(1) Put your hand down, Moog, those aren't chestnuts.

 (2) Okay, it's what MOST women do best.  I'm sure there are exceptions.  Relax, ladies.

 (3) Kirk Douglas (b. 12/9/16) and Olivia de Havilland (b. 7/1/16) are both 93 years old.

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The Ghost of Christmas Presents

As far back as I can remember, Christmas has been a magical time of year, where we celebrate the joy of crowded shopping malls, the Yuletide glow of sky-rocketing Visa bills, and the youthful choir of children's voices singing out, "I didn't get what I REEEEEALLY wanted!"

As I reflect upon the Christmases of my childhood, I remember with fondness the presents I received under our family's Christmas tree.  While our holiday was always filled with gifts and stockings full of candy (as well as socks, walnuts, and oranges, yes Mom, I remember) there are a few presents that stand out in my mind.

When I was about six, Santa brought me a Spirograph.  It was basically a pad of paper, a package of colored pens, and lots of plastic disks.  Using this high-tech graphic arts equipment, I was able to draw swirls of all shapes and sizes.  I think I spent about an hour on Christmas morning working on these designs, and never touched the thing again.  Well, that's not entirely true.  My brothers and I used the plastic Spiro-disks as weapons, chucking them at each other and leaving them on the floor for my barefoot dad to step on in the middle of the night.  Dad hated Spiro-disks, Legos, and plastic army men for that very reason.

A couple years later, I got my first full set of Hot Wheels cars and tracks.  Now this is something that got a lot of use around my house.  I'd set up a series of loops, curves, and hills, and send my Hot Wheels cars zooming around the track for hours on end.  One of the sets had a station where you could press a button to propel your car every lap around the track.  We'd have tournaments, stunt shows, we'd even race for imaginary "pink slips" where the winner would keep the loser's car.  Oh, the merriment!

But there was a dark side to our Hot Wheels sets.  It didn't take long for my mom to discover that an orange Hot Wheels track makes a damn fine weapon for beating a kid's bottom.  One night, my brother Eric and I were in our room racing for "pinks", and he'd just won the rights to my candy apple red 1967 Ford Mustang.  I wasn't happy about it, so I grabbed the car back from him.  He pitched a fit, hollering something about "winning it fair and square", and Mom came upstairs to see what the problem was.  By the time she got there, Eric and I were throwing cars at each other and wrestling around on the floor..

Without a word, Mom disassembled the front straightaway and whipped me across my pajama-clad butt with it.  A new day had dawned in punishment-land.

Every Christmas, we'd get new "add-ons" for our Hot Wheels collection.  While we loved the cars and tracks, there were always mixed emotions when we unwrapped them.  Sort of a "wow, that's gonna be fun . . . but the banked corner is gonna HURT!"

One Christmas, I got a Joe Namath football uniform, complete with jersey, pants, shoulder pads, and helmet.  Sadly, it did not come with the Joe Namath-approved accessories -- a bottle of Jack Daniels and two gorgeous up-and-coming actresses.

I liked the present anyway.

I wore the complete outfit all day on Christmas, including the helmet.  It wasn't easy to eat dinner that evening, but I managed to get the fork between the bars of the facemask without making too much of a mess.

Incidentally, this is the very same "not a protective helmet" that rose to fame the following spring when my friend Mike the Whip wore it while doing his best Evel Knievel imitation.

I outgrew the Jets uniform rather quickly, so a couple years later my Dad bought Eric and me brand new football gear.  I got a Redskins helmet and jersey, and Eric got the Steelers.  While I liked the colors, I never was a 'Skins fan, so I peeled the logo off the helmet after a week or so and had my dad paint the number 23 on it instead (matching the number on the jersey).  It ended up looking like the Alabama Crimson Tide uniform.  My brother Eric, on the other hand, instantly became a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and remains one to this very day.

In the 1970's, there was one game that every boy between the ages of 7 and 16 had to have: Electric Football.  This classic included a vibrating metal football field and two teams of tiny players affixed to miniature plastic bases.  We set up our teams for each play, turned on the field, and away they went.  The play ended when the ball-carrier's base was touched by a defender's base.  The format of Electric Football really emphasized the running game.  Each team came with a separate quarterback/kicker, so you could try a pass, but it was almost impossible to fling the felt football from the quarterback's plastic hand with any accuracy at all.

Also, you couldn't really control the direction that your players ran.  More often than not, my running back would head straight for the sideline and bump against the metal frame.  Or just spin around in circles.  Or fall over.

Still, it was a lot of fun, and that game stuck around for years.

Which brings us to my family's very first video game.

It was called Odyssey, and its main feature was a version of the classic arcade game Pong  You remember Pong, right?  Each player controlled a white rectangular "paddle" and attempted to hit the blip/ball back and forth.  Well, not only did Odyssey have Pong, you could also play Haunted House, roulette, hockey, and even football.

Sounds amazing, right?

Uh, not so much.

You see, every Odyssey game had the same basic "look" to it -- a white square moving around or a white paddle hitting some sort of blip.  To play the different games, you had to tape a cellophane sheet over your TV screen.  There was a haunted house sheet, a football field sheet, a hockey rink sheet, etc.  They were pretty lame, so my brothers and I simply played Pong all the time.

And to think, nowadays kids complain if the Playstation image of Peyton Manning has a bigger nose than the actual Peyton Manning.  In my day, Peyton Manning would've been a white square.  Which, come to think of it, he kinda is.

There are a few other toys I need to give a nod to here, kind of like a list of "honorable mentions".  In no specific order, these would be Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, Simon, Slinky, Lite Brite, and Trouble.  Remember those?

I can't help but look at the gifts I've gotten for my kids and wonder, will they look back at their Nintendo Wii the same way I remember our Odyssey?  Will their Madden Football games seem as cheesy as Electric Football?  Of course, even forty years later, there's one present that has remained constant.

The Hot Wheels sets.

Because you can't spank a kid with a Playstation.

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