Celebrating Brendan

I’ve always hated it, I always will and there’s nothing anyone’s going to be able to do about that.

And by the way, consider that I know how this story ends and that’s still the line I’ve chosen to lead off with. So if you’re looking for redemption or some kind of Scrooge-tastic epiphany, off you pop. I’m going to conclude a few pages hence as unredeemed as ever and unapologetically so.

It’s not because I had a terrible childhood, or because a parent left the rest of the family on Christmas Eve, or that a faulty set of Christmas tree lights set my house ablaze one year. Nothing that dramatic. I’m also not one of those who’s particularly offended by the crass commercialization. If you want to spend hundreds of dollars on easy-break ovens, water-absorbent electronics and fast-rip pants, have at it.

It’s not the weather either. I have no beef with Winter; in fact it’s my favorite season, because it’s the only one that seems satisfied with what it is. Forget about the others. Summer is just a people-pleasing brown-noser, and as for Spring and Fall, don’t get me started.

-         Okay, get me started - if Spring and Fall were people, they’d be in constant therapy trying to figure out what they should be doing. “Wah, I feel like raining, wah, I feel like sun, wah, I feel like snow, wah wah wah!” They’re like self-absorbed teenagers trying to “find themselves”. Selfish bastards.

Winter knows itself. It doesn’t care what you think, it’s the ultimate bad guy and fine with it. Respect.

Why do I hate Christmas then? I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m Goddamned Santa Claus.

Not a metaphor.

Years ago someone, probably the Bezos of the day, sprung the idea of Saint Nicholas transforming into a bearded, corpulent red clown, some mystical fairy-like creature granted a wish, and I came into being. No childhood, no nurturing, no days out at the park, no Nintendo Switches or piano lessons. One day, nothing, the next day, ho ho frickin’ ho. No idea where I’d come from or where I’d been, but somehow blessed with knowledge of super practical things like elf-wrangling, reindeer avionics, chimney architecture and how to properly lube a sleigh. Also, the less said about my digestive system the better. All those leaving me skimmed milk or vegan cookies, by the way, you should be ashamed of yourselves and I hope you lose a toe in a freak gardening incident.

In other words, I had little choice when it came to a career; these skills aren’t exactly useful in the real world, and since I looked and felt about 58 years old when I was “born”, it’s not like there was likely to be a line of professionals highly motivated to teach this already crusty old bastard how to fuse atoms or cure a disease. Side note: those would have been far more useful skills for that dumb fairy to grant me, but whatever. Suffice to say that Christmas might only be a day for you, but it’s a constant year-round grind for me, full of annoyance and frustration. I’ll break down some of the “highlights”

We’ll start with elves. A properly motivated elf can manufacture five thousand toys a day, but they’re so high maintenance, it’s like trying to wrangle a million little divas at once, all with their own elfy peccadillos. I have a pretty good Elvan Resources team to handle the ever-evolving wishlist, but since that team is also comprised of some of these same pint-sized prima donnas, I then need a second team to handle the first team, and a third to handle the second, and, well, you can see how that can spiral.

They’re also utterly obsessed with shoes. Not the little curly ones with bells on either. I’m talking Air Jordans and LeBron XXs and the like. High end, the rarer the better. They sleep in them. I’ve had to make a deal with the Nike guys just to keep them happy. Cost me a fortune and a piece of my soul.

At least they are neat freaks, which is a plus, unlike those cantankerous, antler-wearing, poo-shooting quadrupeds that taxi me around. Honestly, there are week-old dead bodies with better hygiene. On top of that, they will eat ANYTHING. Including, occasionally, elves. So that’s not great obviously.

I usually have to lie to the elves when one of them goes “missing”, but they’re not idiots, and it’s led to a kind of reindeer-elf cold war that I’m stuck in the middle of, forever trying to avert Armageddon. You’ve heard, I’m sure, of Rudolph, right? Nose wasn’t always red. That was a partially successful elf incursion; they were trying to incinerate him and got as far as the nose before I intervened. Cost me a pair of Kobe Bryant game-used Jordan 7s, MSRP $171,000, before they’d back off. As to Rudy, what you see now is a prosthetic. We added a bulb later to make it glow, and to stop his incessant whining about it. The other reindeer call him Boo-Hoo-Hoo-dolph because of all his complaining.

Probably the most tedious thing about my life though is all the paperwork. Elf/reindeer politics is not for the faint of heart, but it’s at least rarely uninteresting. The naughty-nice list though, ugh. Think of a Proust novel sprinkled with the confusion of an IKEA instruction manual, contained within the monologue of a toddler and you’re not even close to understanding how unspeakably, mind-numbingly boring it is going through that giant data dump of character flaws.

I’ll be honest, and you may have noticed this yourselves, I’m totally mailing it in now. I mark everyone nice unless they’re an out and out serial killing rapist or something equivalent. It’s the main reason the coal industry is struggling as much as it is; I’m not even their biggest client anymore. Last year, some thirteen-year-old kid from Milwaukee called Zachary spent the entire year relentlessly bullying literally dozens of other kids, setting fire to their toys, stealing their lunch money, racial slurs, you name it, and still received a PlayStation from yours truly. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but you have to understand the workload necessitates some short cuts and there are going to be casualties.

You might be wondering about Mrs. Claus and how she fits in to all this. Unfortunately, not all that well.

Until a bitter divorce about ten years ago, she was my one full-size/two-legged companion, having been created as a result of the great strike of 1940. It was the only time I managed to forge a truce between the reindeer and elves long enough for all of us to dig our heels in and lucidly present our list of demands. The elves, as usual, wanted more shoes. The reindeer wanted a political prisoner released (Comet, before the depths of his psychopathy were truly known) and I wanted someone I could talk to without bending down or holding my nose. This extreme, but well organized unionization eventually served to summon the fairy-creature from corporate. Before we knew it, hey presto, an increased shoe budget for the elves, a deranged reindeer free to kill again, and Mrs. Claus.

While I was mildly irritated that she wasn’t given a first name and steadfastly refused to accept being called anything other than “Mrs”, outside of that, the first few months were like… well, after years of being alone, I’m sure you can imagine what they were like. Great conversation, warm fires, and almost non-stop, very adventurous, and never Christmas-themed sex.

Unfortunately, after those first early, carefree months, it started to become apparent that Mrs. Claus may have arrived from the factory with something of a flaw, that being her irrational and frequently illogical jealousy. I reminded her that not only was she my only partner, ever, but that I also never even left the North Pole, where there were no other humans (or whatever the eff she and I are), except on Christmas Eve, so the concept of an affair of any kind was absurd. Unfortunately, that just meant she was absolutely convinced that on December 24^th, instead of, you know, doing my job, I was out and about spreading my Christmas cheer to every eligible bachelorette south of, well, home. Which is all of them.

I tried to explain that, even accepting for a moment the idea that my jolly self might be somehow irresistible to the average human woman, delivering billions of toys left little in the way of free time for me to be partaking in any extra-curriculars. It made no difference. The recriminations would start almost as soon as I arrived back home and usually didn’t subside until about February.

Finally, one year, I’d had enough and asked her to leave. Or to be more precise, she kicked me out. Now I live just down the way from the main complex in a small hut I had the elves whip up on a Thursday afternoon. We were divorced officially by Prancer, who was also the one that had married us – he’s the only one at the Pole with any legal training, as well as being an ordained minister – and now we largely stay out of each other’s way, unless one or other of us has too much egg nog, in which case, well, you know. Usually brief and unsatisfying, it does at least keep the demons at bay for a short time.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m an ungrateful SOB. I bring joy to billions of children every year after all. Surely it’s not magical creature peacekeeping and alimony payments all the time?

Fair enough, and in fact, there is one day I really do celebrate every year, honestly and sincerely; the tiny light at the end of my year long tunnel of reindeer feces and shoe fetishes. I’m speaking of course of December 26^th. My one day off. Some people call it Boxing Day. I just call it awesome.

Let me take you through it: I get home, winterize the sleigh, throw some raw meat at the reindeer, and drop off the consignment from Nike with the elves, which I’ve picked up from Hank at the Oregon home office as usual; my last stop before home. Then I lock myself in my hut, temporarily severing all contact with other living beings, and I walk into the bathroom and shave my beard off, finishing up by straight-edging right down to the bare skin and liberally applying some Aqua Velva.

You know what I look like without a beard? Brendan Gleeson, the actor. I like Brendan Gleeson. I liked him in Harry Potter and I liked him in In Bruges as well. For one day I walk around the hut and pretend to be him (the beard usually takes about 48 hours to grow back). I’m surly and weather beaten, and I affect a velvety Irish accent. And then I watch his movies. Maybe Gangs of New York, maybe Goblet of Fire. Not The Smurfs.

That’s not all of it though. Before spending about twelve hours watching Gleeson, I do flick on a Christmas parade or two; sometimes I even watch a whole Christmas movie. The Christmas Chronicles is a wildly inaccurate but entertaining romp, although don’t ever watch that with an actual elf; they will just get pissed off at the footwear, as well as the language the elves speak, which they claim is riddled with grammatical errors. Plus any time the reindeer make an appearance, they just become very offensive and spiteful.

I might also watch a couple of local news stories about strangers showing Christmas kindness – the elf-boosted satellite reception is the best in the world, so I can pretty much pick up any channel I want – and I don’t dislike them. In fact, you might even say I halfway depend on them.

I still hate Christmas, you can’t say I didn’t warn you that, but I love having done Christmas. The marathon is over, and I always cherish sitting back and enjoying the results for a little while, before having to worry about getting ready for the next one. It’s reason to be thankful. Maybe even reason to celebrate.

Or maybe it’s just the egg nog. Wonder what Mrs. Claus is up to.