On TV, people usually realize the True Meaning of Christmas after enduring some hardship they bring on themselves because of a previously degenerate version of what Christmas is supposed to mean.

But the True Meaning of Christmas doesn't always reveal itself like that.


Sleep, War, Lust, and Independent Projects in State and Local Government (GO 303)

By Shawn McCormack

The last round of final exams began at 9:00, at which time I was expected to hand in a paper and give a brief presentation, then meet my Dad so he could drive me east in time to catch the last boat and be home a few days before Christmas. I had less than five hours to finish said paper and I was only on page 27 of a first draft.

Yes, around four in the morning, I was sitting at my desk in a cloud of cigarette smoke working through the finer points of the 1969 Metcalf and Eddy report regarding the future development of Martha's Vineyard. The report read like Nostradamus, prophesying unbelievable disasters that have all come to pass. I had been there all night and all of the preceding day, and all of the preceding night, and half of the day before that. I had been awake for 45 hours straight.

It was December 17, 1998 and in Iraq, we had resumed bombing and as of 1:30 a.m. EST, preliminary reports indicated that at least 45 civilians were dead, and at least 200 were wounded.

And then I got the e-mail.

shawn-
we have barely shared any remarkable conversation in this last year that we have silently observed one another... and yet i feel you will appreciate my thoughts. so here they are...

It was true that we had barely shared any conversations in this last year. It was also true that I had spent the last year "observing" her. The important revelation in the message was that she had noticed. She had noticed me!

To this day, I have never been awake for more than 49 hours and 59 minutes without sleep. I finished editing this paper around 8:30 am and decided to "rest my eyes" for 20 minutes before making the short trip from my room on campus to Ladd Hall.

I slept until noon. And that's when I discovered the True Meaning of Christmas.

A Very Special Christmas

By Orion Smith

It is ten o’clock on Christmas morning and I am reclining upon a large comfortable armchair in my parents’ house. The fireplace crackles and pops with the steam escaping the frozen logs as they soak us all with orange heat. Is there anything in this life more glorious, I ask myself, than coming back home for a country Christmas, surrounded by friends and family?

We sit about, content, no longer beholden to the youthful mandate that we arise at 6 a.m. and tear through presents. We eat warm popovers and sip mugs of coffee with a dash of Bailey’s. We exchange inexpensive yet meaningful gifts and share remembrances of past holidays. The aroma of a baked ham wafts in from the kitchen, mingling with the occasional puff of smoke from the fire.

Is there anything in this life more glorious, I ask myself, than sitting here with not a care in the world, wrapped in my bathrobe and curling my toes in my fleece-lined slippers? I look down to my slippers, scuffing them across the deep throw rug. As the sounds of laughter and presents being opened fill my ears, I see, from the corner of my eye, our German Shepherd -- Lexi -- ambling to the middle of the rug. Why is she lowering her muzzle like that? Why is she opening her mouth so low to the rug? And then it happens: “Blaaarrrrrrggggghhhh.” And out pours a veritable torrent of yellow dog vomit.

And after? Silence. You could hear a pin drop.

We all stare at the strangely turgid mound of vomit in the middle of our happy family circle, unsure of what comes next.

“Oh God!” yells my step-brother Paul. And to punctuate the moment, “Oh God!” again. He has gone slate-white, his hand shooting up to cover his mouth followed by a rapid gastrointestinal cacophony coming from his gut. His cheeks billow out and several small jets of vomit escape from between his fingers, sprinkling our legs and the dog. Paul runs, as if carried by immensely rapid currents, to the nearest sink.

Again, silence. The next step is again unclear.

“Paul! Honey!” shouts his mother, rising from her seat on the sofa, she takes a look down at the spreading pile of dog vomit. “Paul! Wait, let me... Oh God!” Her hand instantly shoots to her mouth, her cheeks puffing out in an all-to-familiar indicator. She runs to comfort her son, diligently retching in the other room. And then there is an uneasy calm, those of us who remain in the living room say not a word. The silence is punctuated by the muffled heaving coming from down the hall and the scratching of Lexi on the door, begging to be let out.

It was then that I realized, as I watched our small terrier Sam tentatively lick the pool of Lexi’s vomit, that I now knew the true meaning of Christmas.


The Chanukah Lady

By Keith Watkins

Most kids only believed in Santa; I was fortunate enough to have Santa and The Chanukah Lady. While Santa only came one night a year, The Chanukah Lady dropped gifts off in my house for eight straight nights. Santa was fat with a white beard and a goofy red suit. The Chanukah Lady was a goddess; although there was no definitive image of her, I imagined her as looking like Mary Poppins with a slightly bigger nose and substantially bigger knockers. Santa had let himself go a long time ago, so he was left cookies. The Chanukah Lady had one boy's fantasy to maintain -- she got matzah at every stop so she would stay slim.

For eight nights, the same the routine was followed. My mother would light the menorah and then tell me to go to my room so The Chanukah Lady could come. I'd sit in my room and eagerly await my gift. Somehow, she always seemed to know exactly what I wanted.

A beautiful woman who gave me everything I wanted led to one thing: love. I accepted the fact that she might not be interested in me because I was only 1/2 Jewish, but that never stopped me from dreams of her holding on to me with one arm, my head resting on her breasts, her magical umbrella in the other hand, as we flew from house to house.

In second grade, rumors that Santa wasn't real started to circulate. There was one kid who had a vindictive older sibling that found it necessary to ruin the spirit of the holidays for everyone. Being an impressionable kid, I bought into the hype. Santa wasn't real. But did that mean that The Chanukah Lady was fake too?

I asked my friend Zach. He had never heard of the Chanukah Lady. I wasn't ready to give up yet. Maybe she skipped his house by mistake.

That year, on the first night of Chanukah, my mother told me to go into my room. Instead of waiting for her cue, I snuck back downstairs. I was hoping for another Chanukah miracle, but instead I saw my mother placing a present on the table. I asked her what she was doing. She told me that I was supposed to be in my room. I asked her where the Chanukah Lady was. She told me that she couldn't make it because of the weather.

I knew she was lying. If The Chanukah Lady existed, her umbrella would have protected her from the snow. I went back to my room. I was too upset to open my present. There was no such thing as the Chanukah Lady. I had been the only person in the world who believed in the power and beauty of the Chanukah Lady. My mom always said I was special, but at that moment, I just felt different than all of the other children. I had finally learned the true meaning of Chanukah.


Epiphany Day

By Gareth Hughes

I think it is a shame that most people forget about the culmination of the Christmas season. No, this is not the early morning of the 25th, as Jesus is crying his first baby cries, Santa is landing safely in the North Pole, and the little kiddies are begging Ma and Pa to tear into this year’s loot. This is merely a climax that leads to the denouement that is January 6, The Twelfth Day of Christmas, Epiphany Day.

After the presents are unwrapped and returned, the hangover is gone, and work has been resumed with a fresh new desk pad calendar, this is one last day to try to get in some celebration, or as it was for the three wise men two thousand years ago or my parents two years ago, a chance to lay one last gift upon the first-born.

Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the wise men at the manger. Landing on January 6, it is twelve days after Christmas -- twelve days being the speed of camel travel from wherever wise men hang out together into Bethlehem, or the length of one long seasonal carol, or the span from Christmas morning to January 6. Nowadays, those who choose to celebrate this day, more than likely the French and a few Creoles in the South, do so with an Epiphany cake. It is a yeasted cake in the shape of a ring, decorated with icing or sugar, with a crown on top for the new King. For those Francophiles, it is called a King Cake, and decorated in the colors green, gold, and purple, signifying justice, power, and faith. Epiphany signals the start of Mardi Gras season, hence the colors of that season making their first appearance. Within the cake is hidden a small toy, nut, or bean, and whoever gets the piece with the surprise must make the cake for next year. In this way, the quaint tradition rivals Wal-Mart in anticipating the next holiday season, but I digress.

It was two years ago on this day, before I was too aware of its existence, that I conned my parents into going to see The Royal Tenenbaums. I had just moved home, and my 'post holiday blues' were more like acute depression. I was at a nadir in the period described previously in my impotence article. Without health insurance and newly unemployed from my job as a baker, a new Wes Anderson saga seemed the perfect distraction. Mom, Dad, and I drove through a light snow in Southwest Ohio, bound not for a distant star, but a glowing marquee behind a Bob Evans. A manger, no, but I’m sure Jesus would have loved their sausage gravy.

As we sat in the darkened theatre, and I watched this family tear itself apart and build itself back up in a way only the oddest and most quotidian of structures can, I was given the close and quiet time needed to chew over where I was. As Van Morrison played over Royal’s epitaph, ringing with an inspirational and delusional bravery, I figured it was as good a time as any to tell Mom and Dad that my dick didn’t work.

After a brief stop for gas, about halfway home, the ringing in my head was gonging like bells on Christmas morn. This was all I’d wanted for Christmas; I’d gotten a pile of books and a pile of clothes, but all I’d really wanted was what I’m sure had once been edited from some John Irving book (probably The Water Method Man): a new dick. I laughed at the thought, and the laughter bounced the shining pinball ringing through my head, lighting Christmas lights on houses blowing by, and down the chute, out my mouth. “Mom. Dad.” The oldies station played, my Dad at the wheel. I, their 22-year-old son, said, “Those prostate infections I had made my dick not work, and basically I’m impotent.”

The Mamas and The Papas and the wheels on wet pavement were the only sounds, and then my mama and papa spoke. Questions like "When?" and "For how long?" and then solutions: "We should renew insurance. Sue, you call when we get home."

And, like that night two thousand some odd years ago, it was an epiphany. Twelve days after Christmas it arrived, and I learned the true meaning of Christmas: Always hold out for what you really want, especially if it is a new and improved dick.

Written by The Logos Staff on Dec 01, 2003 | Profile | Print This Page | Tell a Friend

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