(Originally written 12/9/06)
Ah, Christmas. There's so much to loathe about the Yuletide holidays, isn't there? The mad shopping frenzies, the forced cheer, the way it seems to bring out the worst in family dysfunction -- not to mention dickless blowhards like Bill O'Reilly making a federal case out of whether or not Wal-Mart's greeters will say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" this year.
And yet, I friggin' LOVE Christmas. I'm not at all religious (at least in the Christian sense), and I rarely even see my family at Christmas anymore (trust me, it's for the best), yet Christmas always manages to infuse me with a warm glow. Even this year, at a time where I'm stressed to the max over multiple deadlines, my cat Mentos is worryingly ill, and Carole's Nissan has suddenly decided to stop working, I've still been enjoying the hell out of such classic Christmas records as John Fahey's The New Possibility, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass Christmas Album and Bing Crosby's Merry Christmas. In fact, I've got over 500 Christmas songs on my iPod as I write this, and I'm still scouring the internet for more.
As with so much else in this life, I think one's appreciation (or distaste) for Christmas comes down to one's childhood experiences. And while my childhood was fairly challenging at times, my Christmases were always pretty happy. The best one of all was in 1973, when I came out to LA for the first time. Up until then, I'd spent Christmas in New York, DC, Michigan, Wisconsin and Alabama -- white (and freezing) Christmases, all of them. Though I was only seven at the time, the memory of walking out of LAX in the middle of December and seeing the palm trees and the sunshine is incredibly vivid to this day, as is that of spying the Santa-and-his-reindeer decoration arching over Wilshire Blvd as my Aunt toni drove us to her duplex in the Fairfax District. I had no idea that it was possible to have Christmas with warm weather and no snow, and I was righteously pissed that my parents had kept this fact from me for so long. I think I knew at that moment that I was destined to someday live in Southern California.
The other thing I remember most from that Christmas is my Uncle John's extensive collection of EC horror and war comics -- not to mention several early Mad magazines -- which he graciously allowed me to dig through to my heart's content, and which thoroughly warped me forever.
Again, I have the most incredibly vivid memory of sitting with him in his living room, the sun shining in through the open windows, listening to Bing Crosby singing "Sleigh Ride" while reading the Vault of Horror (or Crypt of Terror, or Haunt of Fear) story called "The Thing in The Glades", wherein a malformed, slobbering, murderous hillbilly brute with the mind of a child literally tears people limb from limb. Oh by gosh by golly, it's time for mistletoe and holly!
Despite all there is out there to "Bah, Humbug" about, everytime I see the sun glinting off some tinsel wrapped around a palm tree, or whenever I hear some classic Christmas recording from the 50s or 60s, it takes me back to that original Christmas in LA, and fills me with good cheer, and makes me want to dig out my EC reprints. So Merry Christmas, everybody, Happy Holidays, whatever; I'm spending another holiday season in sunny Southern California, and I'm feelin' fine.
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