Left-Handed Engineers From MARZ
Christmas monologue
"I never really understood Santa Claus. My mother
never gave us enough presents to be able to pull off the whole Santa Claus
thing. I think we used to have a tree when I was very little, when we lived
in the city, but I can't recall ever finding mysterious presents under it
on Christmas morning. To me, Santa was just another storybook character,
like the Cat in the Hat.
"I think I was around 9 or 10 when I first heard people discussing whether
or not Santa was real. I thought they were delusional. Somebody once asked
me when I found out Santa wasn't real. I forget how I reacted, but I guess
it was pretty disrespectfully.
"I think I was 9 years old the one time my mother shlepped my sister and
me to the mall to sit on Santa's lap. He was this guy in his forties with
a shamefully fake-looking beard, but since I'd always thought of the whole
Santa thing as a big game, it didn't bother me. It was just nice to get
positive attention for all of two minutes. I'd never been asked what I wanted
for Christmas before, so I wasn't exactly prepared for the question. I ended
up asking for some books, some tools, a frying pan, and an older brother.
The frying pan request caused a bit of an uproar; my mother later beat
me for making a scene (although if you ask me, she was the one who made
the scene). But I really needed one! Our old one was long past usable,
and at that age just about everything I knew how to cook required one.
"After that, Christmases sort of went downhill. There was the one when
Mom got herself so smashed she got brought to the emergency room, and nobody
bothered to tell us. There was the one when Mom and Portia fought the entire
time, and I mean that literally. I think it was because of the gift Portia's
tattoo artist friend had given her. I can't remember if it was the dragonfly
on her left shoulder or the cobra on her right arm.
"I think my best Christmas moments, ironically, were at school. Almost
every year, somebody would bring in cookies and candy and the class would
have a party. Some years there would be games; usually we watched a movie.
It was nearly always the same one, some network reject with really bad animation.
The villain who was trying to destroy Christmas had a pet monster... it was
my favorite character. I always used to root for the monsters. The good
guys turned it into a puppy at the end, which infuriated me. Just what the
world needs, another puppy.
"When I moved away to college, Christmas faded away entirely. I was introduced
to people who didn't celebrate Christmas, Jews and a couple of Pagans (who
pretty much did do Christmas but called it something different and got all
uptight over the traditional imagery). I didn't know what Hanukkah was all
about until college. It sounded pretty nifty, but I doubt my family would
have been able to pull off a holiday that lasted eight days straight. Other
than that, the only thing memorable about Christmas at college was that Reg
and I were pretty much the only ones who stayed on campus.
"Hey, Reg, what do you remember?"
"Mmm....
"Rain.
"Fir. The...
...whole house smelled like fir."
"Fur?"
"Fir and smoke and perfume and cinnamon.
"Candles, with small flames. That flickered. The dripping wax made sculptures."
"Cool. We should get some candles."
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