And To All, A Good Night

Merry Christmas, Innernetz! I’m not just saying that, I really mean it — MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  And no, I’m not drunk on eggnog or the caustic homemade wine my uncle usually brings to family gatherings that smells like he mashed the grapes with his feet wrapped in rotten cheese and smegma.  I love Christmas.  I love lights, Christmas music, Love Actually, Christmas cookies, everything!  That’s not to say that all my Christmas memories are sugar-coated.  I was not privileged with a perfect childhood (in spite of the fact that I was a perfect child), so my childhood memories are mixed.

I have great memories of making Christmas cookies with The Cougar and wrapping presents. My favorite Christmas memories, however, are of the food baskets The Cougar would make for impoverished families.  You want a Christmas miracle?  It truly was a miracle how many turkeys, canned goods, pampers, boxes of formula, and packages of stuffing she was able to load into our broken down black conversion van with screen painted horses on the side.  Oh yes, Santa may have had his reindeer but we had a herd of wild mustangs. And a cobalt blue shag carpet interior.  The Cougar was a self-proclaimed Meals on Hot Wheels. 

The best thing, and what I didn’t appreciate until later, was that she insisted on being anonymous.  We’d drive around the asscrack of nowhere until The Cougar spotted a house in need of a holiday miracle.  Then, she’d park down the street and we’d sneak up and leave the box on the porch.  If the house had toys in the yard, she knew to put pampers and baby food in the box.  And she was fearless. Barking dogs at the end of long, prison-grade chain link leashes did not deter her.  With a wave of her hand, those slathering, razor sharp jaws would snap shut!  Cesar Milan, you are small potatoes.  The Cougar was thirty years ahead of you.  It wasn’t until many years later that I realized how lucky we were to sneak up on a home in the backwoods of the Land that Time Forgot and not get a face full of buckshot.  Or, even worse, we could have all wound up in some else’s food basket.  I’ve seen a lot of horror movies since then.

I don’t have many good Christmas memories of Jackass I.  He was either bitching about how putting up the Christmas lights was interfering with the football game or complaining that the Christmas music and singing interrupted his nap.  One year he surprised me with a handmade dollhouse.  That’s it.  That’s my best Christmas memory of Jackass I.  Oh, I have other memories.  There’s the time that Jackass II and I were so excited about the gifts that Santa left that we burst into our parent’s bedroom squealing with glee.  Jackass I got out of bed fumbling for his belt to give us a whippin’ for waking him up.  Then there was the time that we kept walking in front of the television while decorating the tree.  When he snapped off the television, Jackass II and I were so excited!  We thought he was going to help us put the ornaments in the places way up high where we couldn’t reach. Instead, he snatched the boxes of ornaments out of our hands and threw them into the trash.  Ahhh, good times.  Too bad The Cougar wasn’t quite as good with jackasses as she was with guard dogs.

That dollhouse was a good memory, but it would eventually be razed by a bad memory.  That dollhouse was around until about 5 years ago.  My nephew would use it as an “apartment” for his Metal Gear and G.I. Joe action figures.  Every now and then one of my niece’s Barbies would be allowed to visit, but it was pretty much a war-hero-only bachelor pad.  You know, where they could kick back after a secret mission and relive blowing off heads and survey the amputated appendages that littered the playroom floor with manly pride.  But Jackass I and Jackass II freaked out.  Fifty grown action figures living in a blue and white house could only mean one thing.  HOMO-SEX-YOU-AL-IT-EE!!  Oh, noes!  It was okay for my nephew to play at blowing up Polly Pockets and Ken (who, admit it, truly is gay) but seat G.I. Joe around the plastic dinner table with some friends, and katy-bar-the-door!  G.I. Joe may as well be playing footsie in an airport men’s room with a hole-saw for making glory holes in his rucksack!  If I remember correctly, that Christmas my nephew got more toy guns and a tank, but the Jackasses threw the dollhouse away.  I understand, though.  Little boys must be made to understand that real men are violent and homeless.  What, is living in your tank curled up with your Uzi not good enough for you?

But here is the thing: the good memories live on.  Even today, after Jackass I has made every effort to drive The Cougar to destitution, she still manages to make what little she has go far and at least once a month fixes dinner for all the servicemen and women in her area that are stationed away from home.  Word of mouth has caused these dinners to blossom to over thirty men and women in uniform who want a home cooked meal away from the base.  And she still goes around and leaves food baskets for the poor because she says as long as there is someone who has less than she has, she will give.

So, yeah, I don’t have only good Christmas memories, just like the rest of you.  But just as G.I. Joe ripped the heads of Polly Pockets and then settled down for a spot of tea in his A-frame townhouse, the good memories grind the bad memories to shreds.  And as long as we all do our best to keep the good memories happening today, the way The Cougar does, the spirit of Christmas lives on.

So, to my mom and my blogger friends and all the other sugarplums who make every day of my life sweet, thank you.  I love you.  You keep Christmas alive and well, and you are my Christmas miracle.

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