“So this is Christmas, and what have you done?” – John Lennon

Christmas is in a strange place for me.

Actually, I guess a lot of things are in a strange place for me. Like being 38 years old and collecting comic books of things like Samurai Rabbits. But since it’s Christmas Eve, I’ll expound on that subject this time around.

What happens between your childhood when Christmas is magical, (Sidebar: The word “magical” is one of my least favorite words of all time, so please forgive me this transgression … for the holidays and all) and when the same exact holiday brings so much annoyance and passiveness? It’s almost a pain in the ass nowadays.

I remember when I figured out that Santa was a single city girl from Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Like many of my peers, I liked putting out cookies & milk for Santa Claus for his long trip. I figured he MUST be hungry visiting those billion homes and such. But I also decided that I wanted to put carrots out for the reindeer. Mom, of course, wanted to discourage that.

“Don’t worry about the rein-dee-ah, Pumpkin… Santer will take good cay-ah of ‘em”.

(Sidebar 2: Why do us Bostonians sometimes put an “R” sound next to a word without one, but remove them from more than half of the words that actually HAVE an “R” in them? AND… Why on Earth would I just admit that my pet name was “Pumpkin”? These are questions that demand answers, methinks.)

After some coercing on my part, she finally conceded to allow me to put out one carrot for Rudolph. (Rudolph was my favorite reindeer. However, Blitzen was a close second. And no, I’m unfortunately not joking). In my early developing OCD habits, I counted the carrots after I took one for my red-nosed pal. There were 7 carrots left after my gift to Rudolph.

Wouldn’t you know, the next day after the hubbub I went into the fridge. And yes, I counted the fucking carrots. There they were… all 8 of the carrots that were there before I removed one. I went to mom and told her that I didn’t believe that Rudolph could put one of the carrots back, because he had hooves & couldn’t open the fridge! (What a fucking genius I was, huh?).

Keep in mind, this is the same woman that when I called her out on the Easter Bunny, she started hopping around the kitchen.

This is also the same woman who a few years ago had an unexpected Christmas movie double feature planned for the family and myself. The first film was called “Valentine”. I thought it was supposed to be a Christmas movie, so I asked her what it was about. I’ll paraphrase her reply:

“Well, it’s is about a young boy who’s at a dance who has some kids making fun of him and putting him down. So, the movie is about what happens when he’s old-ah.”

I look at the wife, shrug, & tell her to plug it in.

If you don’t know what Valentine is… let me share it with you. It’s a fucking SLASHER film!! The lil fella who gets picked on ends up going on a murderous rampage!

One minute the kid is at a dance, the next minute he’s putting a power drill through someone!! What the fuck? Hey, I love a good horror movie as much as the next guy, but how about being a little more topical? I could have brought It’s a Wonderful Life, you know! Sheesh!! And it was a crappy horror film to boot.

Oh, the second film was “The New Guy,” which was one of the worst ‘comedies’ I think I’ve ever seen. Awful.

So needless to say, she reluctantly coughed up that she was Santa Claus. And it all came together then for me. Of COURSE…. Why would Santa buy me underwear when I specifically asked for the Millennium Falcon all year? It all made sense now.

The good news is that I’m seeing the excitement in my daughter’s behavior, and it’s starting to revive some of the old feelings back again. And I always try to ask myself at the end of every year, what I was able to accomplish that year. And, what could I do the next year that is meaningful and hopefully productive to society. So it seems that the holiday for me has now become a cathartic experience. I become introspective and thoughtful. And I look to improve myself in one way.

But I won’t be improving my maturity… I refuse to stop collecting Usagi Yojimbo. So forget it!

I’d like to wish all of you season’s greetings in a way that nobody else has, but I just can’t think of one. So, I guess myself and the little alien here will have to wish you Happy Christmas and a great holiday and call it at that.