Why I Hate Christmahanukkwanzadan

Posted on December 22, 2006

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    All around me fall my friends and family, stricken by a flu we barely understand through the smudged lenses of our American science education. As far as we know, we’ve upset the gods again. Goddam dark-lord Shasta, I swear we didn’t ignore you in favor of your Bacchian brother Fanta¹! Why make my throat sore? Don’t you like my singing?
    Which reminds me. I hate Christmahanukkwanzadan. I an fully aware that I sound every but the Achmedezar Scrooge, but holiday pressure and personal history combine to fill my holidays with hate.
    When I was a child of just 13 years, on the third day of Christmahanukkwanzadan, when we recite the third principle of blackness, light the third candle on baby Jesus’ birthday cake and eagerly wait for sundown and the blessed introduction of cranberry sauce to our upper GI tract, my father put on the Santamoccasins and padded out into the leafy snow to roast the family almonds on the old DeSoto engine block. He never came back, although we later found the almonds.
    As an adult I simply find the whole thing a hassle. Every extranuclear family member thinks that they are due my nuclear family’s specific and undivided attention on their chosen day of Christmahanukkwanzadan, and I’m already annoyed by all the money I’m spending and the food I’m not eating. As I stand on the front porch of my brother-in-law’s home, stomach rumbling, the soft foam antlers drooping in front of my eyes while their not-so-soft headband digs into my temples, I curse Mohamed for telling Jesus about his damn weight loss plan.
    I just want to go to sleep.
1 – Yes, I used one god as an adjective for another god. In my defense the second god is known mainly for his carbonated mead.