I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [3]
I didn’t take long walks, but I thought about it. And after a while I told him that I couldn’t write the kind of Christmas book that everyone else writes, and that even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. Then I told him what I thought I might be able to write about.
And you know what that idiot said?
He said it’s a book.
I hope he’s right, because here it is.
A WARNING TO THE READER FROM THE AUTHOR
Before you proceed, I want you to know that for those of you who have a deep attachment to the season that runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas, or an emotional connection to stores that sell Christmas stuff all year round, don’t read this book. These pages aren’t where you want to be. I am telling you as a friend. Books that will make you shit fruitcakes and gingerbread men and eggnog and holly are everywhere. They surround you like Christmas music in the elevator. This book has nothing to do with you, or with those of you for whom this holiday is one of the cornerstones you rest your life on. You’ll just make harrumphy noises when you read it. You won’t laugh. And you’ll end up hating me. I don’t need that.
This book is really for the rest of us.
A COUPLE MORE PROVISOS
This book contains, like the celebration of Christmas, only 2 percent religion. Think of it as the yuletide equivalent of low-fat milk.
This book also contains what some people call profanity. I think they’re full of shit.
’TIS THE SEASON
And so it begins anew each year, sometimes as early as August, or as late as just before Thanksgiving. Off in the distance we hear the faint sound of bells, a muffled drumbeat, and a barely audible choir humming a in harmony. What are those sounds? They’re the first sounds of Christmas, the carols that we can’t wait to hear, and they will be played into oblivion until our ear-drums rebel in rage, screaming for silence.
And is that an elf I see? By George, it is! But, for crying out loud, it’s Labor Day.
Whenever it starts, though, the Christmas season takes on a momentum all its own, like the running of the bulls. It stampedes through every street in every town, into every shop, every home, and every life, careening through our every waking moment. If we could harness its power, we would never again have to argue about fossil fuels or debate energy policy or worry about our carbon assprint.)
As this is happening, we Jews stand back and watch in awe. We are like the spectators who stand outside the fence and watch those idiots who have chosen to run with the bulls. And like many of you Christians at Christmastime, the runners are drunk and not thinking clearly. You and they are both trying to find the courage to overcome the fear of being gored, either by a bull or by an emotional verbal hatchet thrown at you by a loved one.
Why would you subject yourself to this kind of madness? Maybe that’s why we Jews are called the chosen people. Because we don’t have to celebrate Christmas, we only have to compete with it. And we don’t really even do that, as Chanukah is proof that we just gave up.
What’s extraordinary about this time of year to me is that not only has this year’s Christmas arrived, it’s as if every other Christmas that has ever happened before came along, too—the memory of every single one. And it’s not even just your own Christmas memories; it’s everybody’s. Christmas during the Korean Conflict. The Christmas truce of World War I. Christmas in Bucharest. Christmas during the Middle Ages. Christmas at the White House. The list is endless.
And if that weren’t enough, there are even fictional memories. White Christmas, the movie and the song. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (As I recall, that was some kind of hedge-fund Ponzi scheme.) A Very Brady Christmas. Or Norman Rockwell’s compendium of Christmastime paintings and magazine covers that made every American look as if they were made of cream cheese.
So many Christmas memories to contend with, so little time and emotional wherewithal to deal with them, it’s an overload. Christmas isn’t a holiday, it’s an emotional tsunami that