Bah Humbug

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Bah Humbug

Or

Wiesmann Wisdom

When you’re raised Catholic, one thing you take as gospel is that sooner or later you will leave the church; it’s just too damn much work. Another thing that is realized is that as you get older and have more time on your hands, you’ll be back.

In the interim you’ll remember all of the prayers that were beaten into your head, all the rituals and responses and especially all the ways that you were conditioned to celebrate holidays: the Easter bonnets and baskets; the giving up of things for lent; not eating meat on Fridays; dressing up for All Soul’s Day (Halloween) and saying grace before dinner. None are more demanding, competitive, and frustrating as the rituals I remember concerning Christmas.

First there’s the sending of the cards; remembering all those sent you last year that you owe reciprocation, those that you forgot, and to hell with those that sent you none. Pick out the cards, address, stamp and get them out in time enough to find out who’s else is keeping up this postal media blitz.

Next: that little 25 days until Christmas thingy where you open one window a day and see those wonderful things that you’ll never get; sending ‘Santa’ your wish list; remembering the stanzas to The Twelve Days of Christmas; the unearthing of the nativity scene that you so carefully wrapped up last year as well as the unraveling of the strings of twinkle lights that you swore should have unwound in an orderly fashion but certainly will not. The tree ornaments that each hold a special meaning and all the tinsel, sparkle and glitter that you also saved; and then there’s the contorted (from being folded in a box for a year) yellowed Angel that gets put atop that misfit mutant pine tree—last—as a kind of benediction. The anticipation of the midnight mass that you’re always too young, tired or drunk to attend. There’s the money put aside or granted you to purchase gifts that no one wants but are obligated to ooh and ahh over, the wrapping, labeling and hiding. The paranoia that you’re gonna screw this one up big time and Santa’s gonna leave bupkis for you.  

Then there’s the Christmas dinner menu. Turkey? No, we had that for Thanksgiving. Lamb? No, that’s for Easter. Goose? Who eats goose? Well I guess it’s ham again this year. You mean that unnaturally pink ham that you cut squares in the fat before cooking, place a clove in each square and have pineapple rings and maraschino cherries for the garnish, baked with brown sugar and nothing is finer served with sweet potatoes? That ham? Yeppers.

In my family we stressed from Thanksgiving until New Years Eve when all the adults got drunk and celebrated making it through another holiday season; congratulations, you’ve psychically damaged your kids for life.

My step father stole a tree every year on Christmas Eve, they invited Mr. Mendellcorn from next door over to help trim (for a Jewish guy, he had quite an eye). We enticed him over with a bottle of scotch, and we always woke up to a well dressed tree and an empty bottle of Cutty Sark. We never got what we truly wanted, as was threatened for the weeks leading up to ‘the day’; one year I really did get coal in my stocking.

When I was growing up the holiday season was filled with excessive drinking, arguments, questions on how we could afford to pull it off again, endless platters of deviled eggs and fist fights between relatives that got along fine the rest of the year.

I never got what I asked for: a pool table; a Sherman Tank; a sharkskin suit or a one way ticket anywhere away from these maniacs that called themselves my family. The food was good, I admit; but was it any wonder that I was a nervous skinny kid who chewed his nails, ran away from home often, was sent to a shrink, escaped to the Navy as soon as I turned seventeen, had voices in my head and an ulcer?

Nowadays it’s simpler: all I want to do is hit the lottery and buy myself a Wiesmann GT MF4 sports car or maybe three (over a hundred grand each). This, of course (red, I want a red one) is after I altruistically open an animal sanctuary, purchase an estate for all my friends to retire to, open the swankiest vegan restaurant/Jazz club this planet could ever hope to see, create a spa for the homeless and give Greta Thunberg enough money to save the planet.

“Christmas is for the kids” I often hear people say; I say “Bah Humbug!” Christmas creates competitiveness, greed, envy and insecurity in children: “will I get what I want? Have I been GOOD enough? Will Santa come down the chimney if I don’t have one and will he eat the cookies that I left? Is a Sherman Tank asking too much?  What will the neighbor’s kids get?” And all the while the greed suppliers-- big toy, cards, stamps, booze, decorations and even agribusiness companies reap huge profits using cheap materials and labor. Marketing profits alone could give clean water to Flint.

It’s not that I dislike all holidays; I put up my share of Christmas decorations, in fact, every year my house looks like a landing strip for UFOs, but basically I hide on Halloween, I come out for Thanksgiving and then hibernate until Valentines days. I admit it, Scrooge has nothing on me except, I’m not afraid of ghosts; however, just so that I don’t poop your party and in the Christmas spirit, don’t you think it best to give me my winning lottery tickets and send me on my way in one of my three Wiesmann? The red one preferably.