I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [34]
I can’t put my finger on it, but as I stand there, I think that maybe things used to be more Christmassy in the good old days, back when women wore hoopskirts and people uttered words like “poppycock.” Not like today, where it’s entirely possible that the men are wearing the hoopskirts and the “poppycock” is some kind of Internet porn sensation, or the name of a gay snack food. Information traveled so slowly in those days that it must have been a world of continual discovery. It must have seemed like a miracle to see people you know all gathered in one place. And if one could believe in Jesus, surely one could believe in Santa. It was a time when one wore so many clothes, and had to make sure that the horse and carriage were taken care of when you went to Aunt Pittypat’s for Christmas dinner. The snow was snowier then because there were fewer chemicals in it. So by the time one finally got settled around the hearth and raised a glass in toast, one truly felt thankful to have gotten there at all.
“My stars, Jeremiah! The womenfolk were certain the trip was too arduous and insisted you wouldn’t make it for the festivities. But I said balderdash to that kind of talk. Balderdash I say again—and Merry Christmas to one and all.”
Nowadays, Christmas seems to be a backdrop, in front of which we band of merry old souls gather. We are not so immersed in the holiday spirit as we would have been in times past. In fact, we’re separated from it. We can point at it and comment on it, but not really wrap ourselves up in it the way our grandparents could.
No, I am not stoned.
“Maybe the folks in the apartment a few floors above us are more immersed in holiday cheer,” I think. “They could be using up all the Christmas in the building. Maybe they are so desperate to enjoy themselves, they took more than their fair share of the holiday. Maybe Christmas is like oxygen in a confined space, and there is only so much to go around.”
No, that’s insane. Maybe I should be stoned.
“Well, for God’s sakes, Mr. Black, of course there’s an existential feel in the festive holiday air that we Christians share, for you, my friend, are a Jewww.”
That’s not the reason. I know it isn’t.
“Maybe you have arrived on the scene after the joy of Noël had come and gone,” you say.
No. They don’t open their gifts until after we have our Christmas dinner. That’s when I know it’s time to leave. I don’t need to sit through the icy stares of Gus and Leo and whatever other children are there whom I haven’t gotten a gift for.
“Existential? How? In what way? Maybe next Christmas you should give Gus and Leo copies of Sartre and Camus, Uncle Stranger.”
It’s about this time that I wonder if maybe I just have the flu.
And then there are my good friends Willie and Jenny, the ones who gather this tribe together.
Jenny was raised in New York, too, and by a couple of geniuses, no less. Willie was raised by wolves. (I’m kidding. It would be fun, though, to be raised by wolves—until the authorities came and grabbed you and shot your parents, of course. That would suck. Willie was actually raised in New Jersey, which is, contrary to popular belief, very nice. But I’d still rather be raised by wolves.)
I have known Willie for thirty years. He is the head writer of the New Electric Company and has spent years composing musicals with his brother, Rob. He is also the founder of The 52nd Street Project, a mentoring program for the kids in that neighborhood. For that he was given one of those MacArthur “genius” grants. Trust me, he is no genius. Ingenious, but not a genius.
Willie is married to Jenny, who is a lovely woman with brain power to spare. Now, if she were the reason they said Will was a genius, I would concur. I would concur wholeheartedly. To be absolutely fair, however, that he was able to hide his myriad faults long enough to trick her into marriage