Rasmenia

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”  – Charles M. Schulz

“What kind of Christmas present would Jesus ask Santa for?” – Salman Rushdie, Fury

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When I was a tiny, brand-new person, I knew what it felt like to be overwhelmed by music, cookies & twinkling lights. I knew the absolute joy that can only come from a tiny, brand-new person’s sense of wonder when presented with stories & images of magical elves, animals & places.

I knew Christmas magic. It was nothing less than magic.

Like any kid, I got excited about presents. But, wasn’t the anticipation & surprise always more fun than the actual object wrapped up inside all of that pretty paper?

I consider myself lucky that for the first few years of my life, I had grandparents who I always spent the holiday with & that they got more excited about Christmas than anyone I’ve ever met since. There was always an enormous tree, standing upon a big platform with an entire model town built on it… complete with the model train that would chug by, doing laps around the tree. There were cookies shaped like Santa Claus’ head, homemade candy & plenty of holiday music that my grandfather & I would yowl along to.

But… that was another time. The grandparents, the little model town & train are all gone. I am no longer a tiny, brand-new person, but am a big, grown-up person who no longer believes in elves, Santa Claus or that December 25th is Jesus’ birthday.

I am a big, grown-up person who knows that human beings do all of the rotten, terrible things in the world, not fantastic creatures & that it’s other human beings who do the few good things in the world, not mythical characters from stories that were written a long time ago.

Now, when Christmas rolls around, I am no longer overwhelmed by music, cookies & twinkling lights, but am beaten down by annoyance & loathing as I watch other big, supposedly grown-up people bickering about their imagined “War on Christmas.” I’m disgusted with the absurdity of holiday shopping – whether pepper spray is or isn’t involved. I’m saddened & sickened by how much I hear the word “want” for the last 2 months of the year. He wants she wants they want I want WANT WANT. “I want” seems to be said more than “I’m giving”. (Here’s the thing: if you say “want” more than “give” around the holidays, then you have failed at Christmas. You are doing it wrong.)

Over the years, I’ve morphed from being tiny & brand new to the jaded Scrooge I am now. I’ve been watching not only the dipshittery mentioned above, but also festive occasions where I have given a Christmas present to someone, only to have it insulted right to my face. (It wasn’t EXACTLY what they WANTED.) I have had my religious beliefs (& lack thereof) insulted & condescended to. Gifts I’ve given have been regifted back to me a year later.

What I’m getting at is, when I’ve seen the worst side of people, it’s usually been at Christmas.

Earlier this year, Olivier & I decided we weren’t going to be a part of this nonsense. We would not exchange gifts with each other. Instead, we decided to run away. We spent a few months tossing vacation ideas at one another.

“We could go to an island,” he said, scratching his beard. “We could be lazy & boozy. Cabana style.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t want to be summer. I still want to be winter. We could take a train to Switzerland & eat lots of fondue.”

“Uh. I dunno. We’ll think about it,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

This went on for months. Until we no longer had plenty of time. We could stay home, we decided, but really… that would just feel shitty. It was November. Holiday Hell was descending upon us.

Then on one average & unspecial Sunday afternoon, I asked my husband, “Remember when you were a tiny kid, how magic Christmas was, before the preaching, bitching & the wanting?”

“Yeah.” Olivier nodded. “It was. It was exciting & happy. It felt great. But, now… now it’s just fucked – nothing but resentment & stress.”

I thought about it for a few minutes, then I turned to my husband. “I know what we should do for Christmas.”

The answer was so obvious, we couldn’t believe how long it took us to see it.

We skipped the gifts, the tree & the decorations. We tried our best to avoid anyone who pissed & moaned about whether you should say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. We ignored everyone who wanted to lecture about “keeping Christ in Christmas” & closed our ears to talk of wanting & shopping. These are the people who suck the magic out of Christmas.

Instead, we contacted some local charities & asked them if we could lend a hand. We ended up working with Les petits frères des Pauvres (The Little Brothers of the Poor).

You may have already heard of it, but for those of you who haven’t, Les petits frères is an international non-profit that was founded here in France in 1946. They focus on aiding the elderly who may be ill, lonely or impoverished.

Our task was to fetch two elderly ladies from their homes on Christmas morning & take them to a restaurant where all of the volunteers & guests would share a repas de Noël.

We chatted on the way to the restaurant & after we arrived, we helped other volunteers to get several more guests inside & seated at their tables.

After everyone was settled, we had a nice meal with lamb, smoked salmon, red wine & brie. We listened to interesting stories. We joked & laughed & danced. We clapped & hooted as we watched dozens of elderly men & women in Santa hats dancing, singing & laughing like children.

I looked over at Olivier, who had been smiling all day… & I realized I’d had a silly grin on my face, too. I glanced over at two ladies, one of them 100 years old… the other, 106. I thought of what it might be like to live that long & I realized… I’m still just a brand-new person by comparison.

Standing there, with a goofy grin on my face, clapping my hands among all of that joy & merriment, I suddenly thought of how magical Christmas used to be & all of a sudden, it was again.

Later, on our way home, after we had delivered our two new friends safely to their respective homes, Olivier & I decided that we would be volunteering with Les petits frères again in the future.

If any of you are interested in volunteering with Les Petits Frères, click on the link below. They are in 8 different countries, so you may find them in your area.

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.”  – Steve Maraboli

“Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there’s nothing to be afraid of, I won’t know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to be terrified of.”

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

“So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion.”

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”

Christopher Hitchens

April 13, 1949 – December 15, 2011

If you have a little girl, don’t let her grow up to be a writer. You’ll only regret it.

Here’s what could happen: you could end up with a weirdo. A weirdo who sits alone in her room, scribbling in notebooks. A weirdo who you wish would try a little harder to be “normal”. But instead, you’ve got this strange little shit, sitting in her room, organizing these stacks of notebooks as if they actually meant something.

When her birthday rolls around, or Christmas, you hope that she’ll ask for one of those cute little fluffy whatever-the-hell those things are called because that’s what your friend’s daughter wants & they’re the same age, so… you hope. But, no. Your little freak asks for a typewriter.

Never mind that she doesn’t even know how to type. Whatever. You’ll buy her the damn thing and try not to stare at the awkward, hand-flying, key-banging style that she’s developing as she’s teaching herself to type.

Then you’ll notice she stopped reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books & started swiping your Stephen King books.

Appropriate reading for a 10 year-old? Yes. Yes it is.

You’ll wait for the phase to pass & as you wait, your weirdo is still collecting stacks of notebooks. She just sits on the corner of the couch, brooding & scribbling.

She takes a typing class at school, but continues to type countless pages of who knows what like a baboon having a seizure because it didn’t break her of that awkward style of typing she taught herself. Weirdo.

The worst part is, when she becomes an adult, it won’t stop. No, it only gets worse. She’ll write some more of her bullshit & broadcast it all over the Internet. She’ll write stories & they’ll show up in random places about how you’re a big fat fucking jerk for wanting her to not be such a weirdo & you will absolutely hate everything she writes, especially when there’s profanity or drugs or penises because you taught her better than that.

Why couldn’t she just want one of those cute little fluffy whatever-the-hell those things are called?

What were those things called? Who cares. Normal little girls had them. Yours won’t.

Don’t let your little girl grow up to be a writer. Everything she writes will only be another testament to your failure as a parent.

This could happen to you.

If you think it’ll be okay to get involved with some weirdo woman writer, think again.

Sure, she’ll seem smart enough at first. She’ll probably be pretty entertaining, too. But, trust me… no good can come from this.

It won’t matter how nice you are. It won’t matter how many selfless things you do. After it all falls apart – & it will fall apart – she’ll go from weirdo mode into full-blast, drunken-psycho-wreck mode.

She’ll take fragments of you & weave them into every horrible, despicable, rotten, rodent-faced fictional character that she makes up. She’ll tell everyone how you got so drunk that you licked spilled spaghetti sauce off of the kitchen floor with the dog. Everyone both of you know will find out about the time she caught you picking your nose, flicking it across the room & all of the other disgusting habits you let her see.

They’ll all get to read about all the stupid things you did, that you didn’t mean to do.

They’ll learn about all of the cruel things you said, that you really felt bad about later on.

Whatever you trusted her with, once it’s over, forget it. The weirdo had tucked it away & will use it all as writing fodder for the rest of her life.

But, not all of it. She won’t write anything about the time you showed up with a bottle of her favorite whiskey when she got fired from her job. She won’t mention the time you knocked on her door & surprised her with dinner while wearing a penguin costume.

She won’t say anything positive about you. She won’t write about anything good from your time with her because she’s a total mess who doesn’t find those happy things to be as meaningful. It’s really how bad you made her feel that’s worth remembering & writing about.

And it’s because, well fuck you because you should’ve known better than to get involved with some crazy writer.

If this happens to you, if you decide to ignore my warning, then try not to take it personally. This weirdo, this cannibalistic freak, she’s observing you, feeding off of you & everyone else she comes into contact with because that’s what she’s always done & there’s a stack of notebooks tucked away in her basement that she’s been accumulating for years & years to prove it.

Countless things you did. They're in here... somewhere.

So, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Then again, maybe you’re smart enough to know that being a weirdo isn’t a bad thing.