Crapmas

When I was very little, mom took me to the mall. Two strangers picked me up and stuck me in Santa’s lap.
I screamed.
Santa asked me “What do you want for Christmas?”
“DON’T TOUCH ME!!” I yelled.
“No, what do you want for Christmas as a gift?”
I said “I already got Hanukkah gifts. Sucky socks and sweaters. I had to write thank you notes. Mom made me write them again because I said they sucked.”
Santa waved his hands angrily.
The strangers picked me up again, I yelled even louder, and we were thrown out of the mall.

Menorah

The kids hate going to visit their Grandmother in the rest home.
I don’t blame them. She was a royal bitch before the stroke, not much better now.
But if I don’t teach them to respect their elders, how will they treat me and their mother if something happens to us when we get old?
“See that pretty menorah?” I tell them. “We wouldn’t have it if your grandmother hadn’t have smuggled it out of Poland. Shoved up her ass.”
Okay, so she bought it for a wedding gift. And it’s fucking ugly.
But it sure shuts the kids up.

Holly Jolly

Most Christmas songs are stupid, but there’s one stupider than all the rest: Have A Holly Jolly Christmas.
I know what jolly means, but what the hell does holly mean?
Yes, I know it’s a plant. But in the context of the song, holly is meant to act as an adjective. Or as an adverb that modifies jolly.
When I last checked the dictionary, the only definition for holly is as a noun.
Can you have a holly jolly anything else?
Easter?
Birthday?
Blowjob?
Root canal?
No?
Then fuck you and your holly jolly Christmas.
I’m too busy celebrating Kwanzaa.

Day Thirteen

On the 13th day of Christmas, the woman who I thought was my true love left me.
After all I did for her, too.
The birds all went back to the pet store, and the nursery took back the tree.
The jewelers aren’t happy about the rings, so I filed a claim through American Express.
The maids went back to the dairy and took their cows with them.
The ladies, lords, pipers and drummers were just day hires. They went back home when the gig was over.
Okay, maybe not the drummers. They’re all sleeping on my couch.
Goddamn deadbeats.

Detroit

Everybody says that Detroit is dying, but nobody knows when to pull the plug.
Detroit isn’t any help. Detroit is in denial, insisting it’s fine, as the urban decay rots deeper and deeper.
None of its relatives are in any position to help out either. All those sister cities you see on WikiPedia don’t answer Detroit’s calls.
Neighbors? Forget about them.
Chicago is drowning in blood.
Washington is out of cash, so don’t count on a bailout.
Maybe the easiest decision will be what to do with the corpse, because the fire department left long ago.
Hand me a lighter.

Airplane Mode

Whenever I had to fly somewhere, there was something wrong with my seat’s in-flight entertainment center.
Sometimes, the screen is broken, so I don’t see the movie.
Other times, the audio jack is broken, so I can’t hear the movie or music.
Or it’s a cheap airline, and there is no in-flight entertainment.
That’s when I bought a smartphone that could play music and movies.
Of course, you have to turn off the phone antenna for these things. They call it “Airplane Mode.”
I flip the switch and match the airplane icon appear… and then the screaming baby sounds start.

The flight

I don’t know what is shaking harder: this plane or me.
I hate flying. I really hate flying.
Well, okay, it’s not the flying, as much as the taking off, landing, and turbulence.
It scares the crap out of me.
I’ve tried hypnosis, music, pills, and booze. None of it works.
So, I just suffer and write.
In fact, I write my best work while on a flight.
The worse the flight, the better the writing, my publisher says.
She pays for my tickets, pills, and booze.
The airlines all want me as their resident writer.
I want to retire.

Flying Reindeer

There’s nothing I hate more than when parents lie to their children and make them believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and Ben Affleck movies that don’t suck.
They’re all a lie.
North Pole? Santa?
All the crap we buy and give as gifts really comes from China.
Based on the wretched environmental conditions in China, imagine how much worse the North Pole would be.
It would be a toxic nightmare of a wasteland.
But then, it would explain the flying reindeer.
Would you want to step in any of that chemical crap?
I’d mutate and learn to fly, too.

Holiday Letters

The Post Office started Operation Santa Claus a few years back, where people could volunteer to answer letters that kids wrote to Santa Claus and stuck in a mailbox.
So, I signed up for it.
Now, I get stacks of letters to read, asking for all kinds of things.
I respond to every one of them with a simple form letter:
SANTA DOESN’T EXIST
And I sign it with my name, then I stick my response in the mail.
My son thinks I’m nuts for wasting my time on this, but it sure beats the hell out of answering prayers.

Nobles

They’re called nobles because of their hereditary titles, not because of how they act.
The Duke beats his servants with a mahogany cane.
The Baroness ordered her chef to be boiled alive in his cauldron.
The Earl had all of his gardeners planted in her garden.
And then there was… The King.
Oh, the horrible, cruel and disgusting things he did.
I swear, he could have walked from one end of the kingdom to the other on the backs of all of his victims.
One day, we will be free.
One day, we will own our lives.
Until then… survive.