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.
Category: Christmas
Pageant
When I was in school, a teacher thought it would look cool to have crepe paper ribbons tied to our wrists for the Thanksgiving Pageant.
As we moved our arms for the song, the ribbons crinkled and waved.
Some kids tripped over them. Others got behind other kids and tried to strangle them.
Because they were crepe paper, they’d snap, so no kids got hurt when they tripped, and no kids ended up strangled.
The teacher, on the other hand, was found hanging from their belt in the bathroom.
For Christmas Pageant, the substitute just had us sing Jingle Bells.
Cans
I never go outside. It’s not safe out there anymore.
I get everything delivered.
I know what time of year it is by the designs on the Coke cans.
They do those polar bears in winter, fireworks in summer, and scary stuff in Halloween time.
And Santa for Christmas.
A kid comes to deliver the Coke and groceries, and he takes the empties out to the corner for pickup.
“You drink so much of that stuff, why don’t you get the two-liter bottles?” says the kid.
I like it in cans.
And I told the store to send another kid.
Gift Giving
Back in the Seventies and Eighties, the Russians were known to put explosives in toys, scatter them over Afghanistan hotspots, and let kids bring those toys back to their homes where they’d blow up.
Sometimes, their mujahedeen fathers and brothers would be at home, and the explosion would take them out.
Other times, it would just kill the kid out there in the field of rocks.
So when NATO troops thought to dress up as Santa and hand out gifts to the locals, yeah, that explains why they opened fire on them.
Thank goodness the Santa costume belly-padding was Kevlar.
Ho Ho Hock Up A Lung
So, you got sick over the holidays?
Color me shocked. I’m not surprised.
I told you to boil and sterilize any and all Santas before sitting in their laps, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! you just had to tell Santa what you wanted right there and then without taking precautions… gah, you fool!
Wouldn’t even wear a big plastic trashbag or put down tissue-paper.
Sure enough, you catch the Santacrud.
It’s the third-leading disease of the holidays, right after drowning in wassail and choking on sugarplums! We must raise awareness! We-
We’re under mistletoe?
Go get a step ladder. I’ll take it down.
The Christmas Miracle
Something strange and wonderful is happening during the holidays.
People are reporting that gifts and important expensive purchases they’ve put on lay-a-way at Q-Mart have been paid off by total strangers.
“It’s a Christmas Miracle!” they say, hugging each other as they strap the baby crib to the roof, or stuff the trunk with shoes, jeans or other crap poor people give each other instead of real gifts.
That’s when the store chain started getting complaints. It turned out that their contractors in India had transposed a few digits, and it was a bunch of billing errors, not good Samaritans.
Nativity
Every December, we drag the Nativity scene out from the basement and assemble it in the front yard.
Problem is, there’s always something missing from it, like Joseph or a camel.
It’s not worth it to buy a new Nativity scene, only being used once a year, so we scrounge for replacements.
Using Grampa Eldon’s old lawn jockey as a replacement Wise Man kinda pissed off the Clevelands next door, although in my defense I did wrap it in Little Janey’s bathrobe and try to paint the face white with Liquid Paper.
Next year, we’ll just make snowmen, okay kids?
Christmas Tree Cookies
Looking down the list of the Cookie Exchange at the office, I read through notes each person gave their gift cookies.
The gingerbread men were delicious.
The frosted snowflakes were wonderful.
But those green pine trees were absolutely disgusting, and they made people sick.
I looked down the list… green pine trees… was Lisa.
She was in her office, and she asked me if she could have her tray back.
“What the heck did you put in those things?” I asked.
“Don’t they smell like trees?” she beamed. “Pine Sol has such a fine aroma.”
Next year, she’ll bring Oreos.
Watch The Clock
When Christmas approaches, online retailers see sales skyrocket, and so does the load on their servers.
Those who added memory and processing power, or shifted to scalable cloud solutions are running smoothly.
But others running sloppy code on overloaded old servers are crashing constantly.
And screaming at us in Support.
I look.
The server’s fine. The platform’s fine. The hardware’s fine.
You’re just slamming the crap out of it.
They say they can’t afford to buy upgrades or suffer any downtime, but we have to fix it.
I don’t have a magic wand, I tell them.
And watch the clock.
Ventilator
It was Christmas Eve. Grandma was in the hospital, so we brought the tree, presents and whole family to her room.
She’d had a stroke. A bad one.
But her living will told us to spare no effort, so there was the ventilator, pumping away, hiss hiss hiss.
It was sad.
That didn’t stop us, though. We sang Christmas carols, told stories.
“Let’s light the tree,” I said.
And I looked for an outlet.
Hrm. All full.
I pulled out what I thought was the lamp, plugged in the tree.
Everyone sang O Christmas Tree, and the ventilator went silent.