The Christmas Blog
It was my father a.k.a. the Monarch’s belief that nothing built character like responsibility. He himself had peddled newspapers and delivered groceries by bobsled, and look at him now! I decided that if hard work had forged his lovingly ferocious character, I wanted nothing to do with it. “Thanks but no thanks,” I said.
So, we continued throughout the fall season, responsibility free. I just stayed in school, gave them my grades, and said nothing else interesting to the Monarch. But, when christmas came along, all hell broke loose. For me at least. You see, I was having a hard time taking the education system seriously. For the most part. All the teachers knew my father was very passionate about plays and pageants, and they knew my father would eventually make me join the dreaded christmas pageant. The day to day anxyiety was bad enough without my teachers taking their feeble pot shots. If my math teacher we able to subtract the alcohol from his diet, he’d still be on the football field where he belonged; and my spanish teacher’s credentials were based on nothing more than a long weekend in Tijuana, as far as I could tell. I quit taking their tests and completing their homework assignments, accepting F’s rather than delivering the grades I thought might promote their repuatations as good teachers. It was a strategy that hurt only me, but I thought it cunning. It was when I received my report card that the monarch knew what had to be done. I had two options, both of which my father preferred. One. I can get an after school job, until the grades came up. Two. Volunteer to be in the christmas pageant. Now, to a 12 year old, this was an easy decision. I wanted to do neither, but if I had to choose….
I arrived to practice for the pageant early, to help Mrs. Kimbre decorate sets. The only reason I volunteered for this, was to woo Mrs. Kimbre, and bring down her husband Doug to smolder and rubble. A task I thought I could do well. Together, we made little ornaments, in an artsy craft, but could also be misinterpreted as junk. The other student volunteers felt comfortable enough, to, first of all, interupt Mrs. Kimbre and I from making ornaments, and, to play with them. Most of these kids I’d never seen before. It made me sad and desperate to see so many people, strangers whose sheer numbers eroded the sense of importance I worked so hard to invent. Where did they come from, and why couldn’t they just go home? These questions raced through my mind, until the director came along assigning parts. This is where the charm had to come on. If I could make Mrs. Kimbre smile, then I could surely make this director, who was surely gay, give me a good part. What do I get? Joseph. Most kids would shun the idea of playing the lead. Not me. I thought to myself, this is one of the moments is life that I can show people what a true entertainer is made of. Come opening night, the Monarch was so excited. “Go get em’ champ”, he’d say.
I was paired with Lois Burnswell, as The Virgin Mary. Virgin. Ha. A word Lois had never gotten the chance to hear.
Our audience was filled with drama teachers at local art schools, and, older kids, who knew what it took to make it in the real world. I worshipped these people. Lois slept with them.
It was decided that as traveling players, Lois and I would make our entrance tumbling onto the stage. When she complained that the grass was irritating her skin, the director examined the wee bumps on her ankle and decided that, from this point on, the players would enter skipping. I had rehearsed my tumble until my brain lost it’s mooring and could be heard rattling inside my skull, and now, on the basis on somplaint, we were skipping? He’d already cut all my speeches, leaving me with one line, “Aye, my lord”. That was it, three lousy syllables. A person could wrench more emotion out of a sneeze than all my dialogue put together. I hated having my life’s ambition reduced to the level of a common cold.
While the other shepards and wisemen were off practicing their lines before the performance, I skipped back and fourth across the parking lot repeating, “Aye, my lord”, in a voice that increasingly sounded like a trained parrot.
My part came and went, when Wendy Moore entered as the narrator. She wasn’t a bad person, Wendy. Someday the doctors might find a way to transplant a calf’s brain into a human skull, and then she’d be just as lively and intelligent as someone normal. She skipped out onstage, and paused, positioning herself on the edge of the desk as though she were posing for a portrait the federal govenment might use on a stamp commemorating gallantry. When, my life glimered. Wendy Moore, my nemesis, forgot her lines. She tried to ad-lib, but of course failed. I sat marveling at her naivete. Like all her previous anecdotes she told during class, this woman’s story was headed straight up her butt. She quicky remembered what point she had to get across. Oh yes, the nigerian dancers [we had very crafty writers]. Then, little boys dressed in silk and leder-hosen danced around the stage un-organized. And yes, I said boys. I wanted to slam their heads against the wall and scream. Then I’d noticed the bruises covering their bodies and realized that someone else had already tried that approach.
Then, the closing act. Danny Armstrong, singing a christmas carol I can only assume was Frosty, yet this play was about Jesus. Watching him was like opening the door to a singing telegram: you know it’s supposed to be entertainging, but you can’t get beyond the sad fact that this person actually thinks he’s bringing some joy into your life. Somewhere in the audience was his mother, who sat wondering when her son would come to his senses and swallow some drain cleaner.
Long story short, at the age of 12, the play was a hit, but now I know better. I go to children’s pageants now, expecting the worst. 80% of children plays today are bone-crushing. The type our ancient ancestors used to oppress their enemies before the invention of the stretching rack. They usually consist of the usual things. Joseph, Mary, Shepards, Wisemen, and Angel, and a cabbage patch kid, standing onstage. I had the unfortuante privelige this past year to see a pageant entitled “The Christmas Wish”, in which a young boy, who looked much like one of the Moffits, caught Santa in the act falling down the chimney. The play was opened by 4th graders dressed in caroling costumes, narrting the every movement of the action onstage. I swear, children should kill us for the things we make the do. Derek Goodriche tackled the role of Santa. The beard muffled his speech, but you could hear his chafing thighs all the way to the North Pole. He wobbled out of the chimney , “Ho, Ho, Ho!!!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. The little Moffit blackmailed the chump into giving him one of his reindeer, in exchange for not turning the photos he got on his Barbie Hollywood Star camera. By the end of the play, the child learned that Santa couldn’t deliver all the gifts without that reindeer, and he gave him back, and had learned a life lesson. Only to be jipped into finding out it was all a dream. If you played the tape of it backwards, you’de find that it actually has a plot.
I’ve never enjoyed christmas pageants, but I will forever continue to attend them. After all, they are the cure for chronic insomnia.
In France and Germany, gifts are exchanged on Christmas Eve, while in Holland, the children recieve presents on December 5th in celebration of Saint Nicholas Day. It sounded sound of quant until I spoke to a man named Juno, who was from Holland, who filled me in on a few of the details, which I found fascinating.
Unlike the jolly obese American Santa, Saint Nicholas was painfully thin, and dresses not unlike the pope. topping his robes with a tall hat resembling an embroidered tea cozy. The outfit, I was told, is a carry over from his former career, when he served as a bishop in Turkey.
One doesn’t want to be too much of a cultural chauvanist, but this seemed completely wrong to me. For starters, Sanata didn’t used to do, anything. He’s not retired, but more important, he has nothing to do with Turkey. The climates all wrong, and people wouldn’t appreciate him. When I asked Juno how Santa got from Turkey to the North Pole, he told me with complete conviction than Saint Nicholas resides in Spain, which again, is simply not true. While he could probably live wherever he wanted, Santa chose the North Pole specifically because of it is harsh and isolated. No one can spy on him, and he doesn’t have to worry about people coming to the door, and seeing him in his skivveys. Anyone can come to the door in Spain, and in his outfit, he’d most certainly be recognized. On top of that, aside from a few pleasentries, Santa doesn’t speak spanish. He’s knows enough to get by, but he’s not fluent, and he certainly doesn’t eat tapas.
While our Santa flies on a sled, Saint Nick arrives on a big boat, and then transfers to a white horse. The event is televised, and great crowds gather at the Waterfront to greet him. I’m not sure if there’s a set date, but he generally docks in late November, and spends a few weeks hanging out and asking people what they want.
“Is is just him alone? or does he come with back-up?” I asked Juno. His English was close to perfect, but he seemed thrown by a term normally used by police inforcement. “Helpers” I said, “Does he have any elves?” His face turned white, then he giggled like a japanese school girl. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive, but I couldn’t help feel personally insulted when Juno denounced the very idea as groutesque and unrealistic. “Elves, they’re just so silly”, he said. The words silly and unrealistic were re-defined when I learned that Saint Nicholas traveled with what was consistently described as “6 to 8 black men”. I looked online trying to find out a more narrowed down number, but no one could give me an exact number. It was always “6 to 8 black men”.
The “6 to 8 black men” were characterized as personal slaves until the mid-fifties, when the political climate changed, and it was decided that instead of being slaves, they were just good friends. I think history has proven that something usually comes between slavery and friendship, a period of time not marked by cookies and quiet time, but by bloodshed and musutal hostility. They have such violence is Holland, but, rather than duking it out themselves, Santa and his former slaves decided to take it to the public. In the early years, if a child was naughty, Saint Nicholas and his 6 to 8 black men would beat him with, what Juno described as “the small branch of a tree”. And if the youngster was really bad, they’de put him in a sack and take him to Spain. “Saint Nicholas would kick you?”, I asked. “Well, not anymore”, Juno replied, “Now he just pretends to kick you” “And the 6 to 8 black men?” I asked. “Them too.”, responded Juno.
He considered this to be progressive, but in a way, I think it’s more perverse than the original punishment. “I’m going to hurt you, but not really”. How many times have we fallen for that line? The fake slap invariably makes contact, adding the elements of shock and betrayal, to what had previously ben plain old-fashioned fear. What kind of Santa spends his time pretending to kick people before stuffing them into his canvas bag? Then, of course, you’ve got the 6 to 8 former slaves who could potenially go off at any moment. This, I think, is the greatest difference between us and the Dutch. While a certain segment of our population might be perfectly happy with the arrangement, if you told the average white American that 6 to 8 black men would be sneaking into his house in the middle of night, he would barricade the doors, and arm himself with whatever he could get his hands on. “6 to 8 did you say?”
In the years before central heating, Dutch children would leave their shoes b the fireplace, the promise that unless they planned to beat you, kick you, or stuff you into a sack, Saint Nicholas and his 6 to 8 black men would fill your clogs with presents. Aside from the threats of violence and kidnapping, it’s not much different from haning your stockings on the mantel. Saint Nicholas and his 6 to 8 black men would arrive on horseback, which jump from the yard onto the roof. At this point, I guess they either jump back down and use the door, or they just stay put and vaporize through the pipes and electrical wires. Juno wasn;t too clear about the particulars, after all, who could blame him? We have the same problem with our Santa. He’s suposed to come down the chimney, but if you don’t have one, he still manages to come down. It’s best not to think about it too hard.
While 8 flying reindeer are a hard pill to swallow, our Christmas story remains relstively simple. Santa lives with his wife in a remote polar village and spends one night a year traveling around the world. If your bad, he leaves you coal. If your good and live in America, he’ll give you just about anything you want. We tell our children to be good and send them off to bed, where they lie awake, anticipating their great bounty. A dutch parent has a decidedly hairier story to relate, telling his children, “Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop from Turkey will be coming with his 6 to 8 black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you in a bag and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don’t know for sure, but we want you to be prepared. “
This is a reward about living in Holland. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult, you get to turn around and repeat it. As an added bonus, the government has thrown in legalized drugs and prostitution-so what’s not to love about being Dutch?