Uncle Fun and Sparky Land

 

Greetings, Children of God,

     And I call you that because I don’t know you…I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. You could all be the illegitimate children of Wilt Chamberlain (whatever that means), as far as I’m concerned. In case you don’t know (and you obviously don’t, or I’d have heard from all of you…greeting cards and so forth -- baskets of fruit, exotic cheeses, that sort of thing), I am St. Nicholas, and this is my day.

     Yes, today -- December 6 -- not Christmas. I am NOT Santa Claus. What I am is the patron saint of children, among other things, those other things including (but not limited to) fishermen, sailors (the International Seafarers’ Union found out I was representing the fishermen, and charged me with restraint of trade…do not mess with the I.S.U., if you know what’s good for you), coopers (those are wooden barrel-makers, not wooden movie actors who needed to empty their minds of the wit and wisdom of Ayn Rand and fill them up with a few pointers on delivering their lines with conviction), broadcasters, the falsely accused, repentant thieves (same basic category for those last three), merchants (same as the last bunch, minus the “falsely” and “repentant” parts) and druggists (a group I find I have to seek out altogether too much after dealing with all those other ones). My one and only connection with Christmas is that I’m also the patron saint of pawnbrokers. I’m not talking about that O. Henry story with the watch and the combs, either -- these days, the true meaning of Christmas seems to be to get as far into hock as possible before the fiscal year draws to a close.

     As for Christmas, yes, I used to have the job of handing out presents, but thankfully that’s been handed over to that revoltingly jovial fellow Santa Claus -- who, I repeat, is not me, and bears as much resemblance to me as a mall Santa does towards…well, towards any recognizably human form of life. He can have the job, and he can keep it, and if he wants to give it back, he can go to some exchange counter with his gift receipt, and leave me holly-jolly well out of it.

     It’s not as if I asked to do it in the first place. I was…I believe the phrase I’m looking for is “army volunteered”. I should have known that something was up when I got wind that they were planning on giving me a feast day in December. (This is where St. Christopher has it over all the rest of us -- if I’d been patron saint of travellers, I’d have booked myself an extended vacation where no-one could find me.) One thing led to another, and after a lot of “since we’ve done something nice for you this close to Christmas, we thought you wouldn’t mind”, I’m stuck with a sack on my back and a list of addresses, and all without so much as a by-your-leave or a would-you-like-a-truss-to-go-with-that.

     It’s not as if other saints don’t have feast days a lot closer to Christmas -- but wouldn’t you know that St. Rufus, St. Lucian, St.Theodulus, St. Ammon, St. Bodagisil, St. Hunger, and all the rest of those goldbricks were conveniently absent when roll call was taken. (By the way, how does a saint named “Hunger” even rate a feast day? I really should speak to someone about that.) No -- what I got, along with a bag of trinkets and a hernia, was the lame explanation that I was the biggest sainted celebrity among December honorees, and thus to me fell this signal and dubious honour. Star power, and all that.

     To that I say “and what exactly is St. John the Apostle doing until his feast day on December 27th?” I can tell you what -- he's pulling rank on me…not to mention sitting with his feet up, sipping Galileean port, and having a grand old apostolic laugh at my expense, while I schlep around playing UPS man to an ungrateful human race. Forget a helping hand from any of the other Apostles, either -- loaves and fishes they can pitch in with…for me, nothing. Too busy speaking in tongues in an attic somewhere for the likes of me, I suppose.

     Would you like to know all the aid and comfort I ever had with all of this holiday haulage and cartage?

     I had a horse.

     A horse.

     One. Singular.

ONE.

Lousy.

HORSE.

     No sleigh, no team of reindeer -- just one single, solitary, broken-down, exhausted horse. If it wasn’t broken-down before Christmas, I can tell you that it finished as a total write-off. I went through a horse a year -- and with no chance of a decent trade-in, thanks to the condition they wound up in, thanks to you greedy lot.

     So Santa Claus can have the job, and six or seven others like it, if he wants to. I’m content to have this day (which nobody notices anyway -- would an e-mail kill you people? A text message? I’d settle for something that said nothing other than “LOL”, or was composed entirely of those little smiley faces made out of punctuation), get it out of the way, and spend the next two-and-a-half weeks looking for someplace to be where I don’t have to hear sleigh bells, hoofbeats on the roof, or any of the rest of that claptrap. The rest of you can have Santa. You deserve each other. Anyone who laughs “ho ho ho” should be relocated to a padded cell…or at the very least, be put to work selling frozen vegetables.

     Matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if that nutcase was moonlighting as the Green Giant. You can’t switch that level of jolliness on and off…it needs an outlet the other 364 days of the year. I mean, honestly -- do you know how giddy you would have to be to put up with living at the North Pole?

     Yours, etc. (oh, what do you care? I know I don’t),

Nicholas

(Saint and Christmas Present-lugger Emeritus)

 

P.S. A postcard...one miserable little postcard -- is that too much to ask?