Ah, Christmas.

What a wonderful time of the year! Let’s all join hands and sing “Silent Night.”

Is that mistletoe? You scamp! Yes, more delicious eggnog for me, please!

This is my second B2L2 Christmas. I can’t remember what I wrote about last year. I’d look it up, but I’m just too dang busy having Christmas fun.

Let’s start a new tradition. Christmas is a great time of year to start new traditions. I’ve been kicking around a few ideas:

The Annual Obscenity-Laden Christmas Post

I try to avoid using obscene language in my work. Sometimes, however, one must drop a strategic f-bomb or something equally pungent in order to convey the full, uh, earthiness of one’s position.

Generally speaking, I don’t work blue, as the comics say. Swearing well comically is a talent. You must be a Carlin or a Pryor to pull it off. (Is it too early to add Louis C.K. to the pantheon? I think not. I’ll be throwing down my five bucks for the interweb special, Louis. But not right now. I’m slap-happy with Christmas cheer!)

But what if once a year – in the last post before Dec. 25, say – I just let it rip? Four-letter words, multisyllabic oedipal blasts, and good grief, Bob Johnson! I am busy trying to think up different ways to describe cursing without actually cursing! You are interfering with my steady progress toward a Nobel Prize, you insane mutt! Go chase a rabbit! (He never catches the rabbit.)

BoJo thinks he’s the center of the universe. It’s my fault. Clearly, I have failed to instill certain core values. In fact, Bob Johnson is a communist. He thinks everything belongs to everybody. If I make a sandwich, why, it’s everybody’s sandwich! If I don’t share my sandwich, Bob Johnson thinks I am being counter-revolutionary.

You try living with a communist dog. At Christmas. It’s enough to make anyone cuss.

Christmas in Paraguay  

Yes, I’m changing up the “Christmas in a cave in Chile” concept. Christmas in Paraguay is punchier, don’t you think?

Who can’t get behind a tradition as full of wonder and adventure as Christmas in Paraguay? Boring people, that’s who!

Thousands of square miles of deadly, uncharted jungle. Internecine tribal warfare. Nazis on the lam. Blowguns. Piranhas.

Stir in a little Santa and it’s a freakin’ wonderland.

Classic Punk Rock Caroling

Round up your friends and spread the good news like it’s 1981! Bona fide punk rock classics only. Sorry, kids, but Green Day doesn’t make the cut.

Treat your neighbors to a rousing rendition of Black Flag’s “TV Party.” Then run from the cops! Repeat until under arrest.

The Annual Cry for Help

Big-brained mammals do the craziest things. Like oversharing. But I think at least once a year we should be able to unload our deepest, darkest secrets without fear of scorn or ridicule, or scornicule, as they say in Paraguay:

“Another overcast day. The dead leaves remind me that I, too, will be dead soon enough. Life is meaningless and cruel. My dog is a communist. Were I not a loathsome coward, I would end it all immediately. Hemingway was right. Only three more shopping days. Utter despair. I would rather be a catfish than a man …”

Hit send and feel better immediately!

Top Ten Lists from Mars

Top Ten Disgusting Things Bob Johnson Ate This Year. Top Ten Songs About Toenails. Top Ten T.S. Eliot Fistfights. Top Ten Neurotic Vegetables. Top Ten Reasons To Take A Nap. Top Ten Moments At Food World. Top Ten Instances Of Massive Self-Delusion.

The Substitute Tradition

You can really spice up the Christmas season with this one! Just substitute a few choice words in those tired old salutations and wait for the look of wonderment and joy you will certainly receive.

Clerk: Merry Christmas, sir.

You: Merry Shovel to you, and a Happy New Ditch!

Or:

Clerk: Happy holidays.

You: Happy molecules to you, too!

Forging a new tradition is hard work. Should you attempt it, it is important to get up early, put on some real clothes, and eat a big breakfast.

I’m taking next week off. I will be driving aimlessly around the Deep South, listening to Six Foot Length of Rope by the Eddy Band and my custom mix of Bob Dylan songs from 1966.

Shalom.

____________________

John Hicks will return in 2012. Unless the Paraguayan Secret Service gets to him first.

About the Author

John Hicks

Havin' a wild weekend.

John Hicks lives outside the city limits, where eagles dare.

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