Fake The Season Bright

Flock this.

With each passing year, the Christmas season creeps ever closer to the Christmas season before. I believe at this rate, if the world were to survive Global Warming, Armageddon or Nuclear Annihilation and make it another hundred years – by the time 2107 rolls around there will be no point in ever taking down your decorations. "If you think I'm getting up on that roof to take down the same lights I'm going to be putting "back" up in two weeks, you've had one too many cups of cheer, by Golly!" By then Microsoft and IBM stock will have plummeted and the barons of Wall Street will be the companies who produce Egg Nog and Candy Canes. Don't worry, I'm not gonna go off on some pissy rant about the shameless commercialization of Christmas and the resultant diminishing of our appreciation of the true meaning thereof. I'll leave that to the pinchfaces. The fact is that the folks who produce seasonal necessities from Poinsettias and Mistletoe to tinsel and balls, have got to make payroll and hence must "make hay while the Son shines." If you'll pardon the pa rum pum pum pun.

Hollywood is no help. I'd barely scrounged the last couple decent pieces of Halloween candy out of my daughters Trick or Treat bag before they unleashed Fred Claus on us unsuspecting Novemberists. Speaking of dredging the bottom of the bag, as far as Christmas flick premises go, the notion of Santa having a deadbeat, black sheep brother is something of desperate grasp at a straw. As it turns out Adam saw the film and reported in the most sober of tones that he'd seen documentaries on Darfur that were much funnier, and if it weren't for one classic bit about two/thirds of the way through, it's very possibly that Fred Claus may have ruined Christams. A bold statement as we were only two weeks into November at the time. Even though I'm a fan of both Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti, I'd seen the TV ads and the trailer and even "they" sucked. I figure if you can't slap together one or two humorous highlights for the TV ad it should be Midnight Clear to even the most casual movie fan, that it's time to mash the spuds and stir up some Stove Top because this years Butterball is coming courtesy of Warner Bros. My only beef with this turkey is explaining away this Fred character to the kids. It's fun to believe in Santa Claus, and I want my girls to keep the Jolly one alive in their imaginations. Still, they're getting to that age where they've begun to question the logistics - probably working Google for the straight dope behind my back. Somehow, I've got to spin a long lost drunk of a brother into the picture. Piece of cake. "See girls, that's how Santa is able to deliver gifts to every boy and girl in the world in just one night - y'see, not only does he have a reindeer with a red nose, now he's got a "brother" with one too.

Nothing's sacred in Tinseltown that's for sure. If Fred Claus makes a respectable profit, next year it'll be Ben Stiller starring as Fred Christ. We start off with the visual gags - Fred as a young lad smacking himself in the thumb with a hammer trying to prove to his Father that he has what it takes to make it in the family business. As Fred curses and throws the hammer to the dirt, we pull back to find Joseph whispering to Mary, "I hate to say this dear Wife, but I think we got Gentiled by that Adoption Agency!" "Oh Joseph, here we go again - they were a perfectly reputable "Jewish" agency - you act like we picked the child up at "Goys R Us." Fred is a good boy, he's just a late starter (poking Joseph playfully) like someone else I know." Joseph gives her a look then replies "I wish I had your patience - all I know is it looks like the poor kid was circumcized by a blind guy with a rock." Playing along now "Goodness no, what if all this time we've been giving our providence and love to a Phillistine?" "Oy vey - only a wife knows how to truly wound her husband - with talk like that you're liable to bring a curse upon us."

Next would be the first supper ever eaten upon a new table that Fred has built. Fred beams with pride behind his huge throbbing thumb. Soon however his smile fades as one by one cups and plates begin to slide off the wobbly table. Finally Joseph grudgingly remedies the problem by propping up the short leg with a sleeping goat. "Sorry Dad," mutters an embarrassed young Fred. As always when he finds himself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to him and, speaking words of wisdom she consoles, "don't worry Freddie, one day you will be the finest carpenter in all the land. Remember sweety - nobody's perfect." Alas, Fred would becomes a troubled adolescent with a huge wood-chip on his shoulder and when that night of all nights arrives he develops a doozy of an inferiority complex. "Hey, what's with all the angels – I didn't even get a "band" on my Bar Mitzvah?" Next thing you know he's acting out - sneaking off with his indolent buddies to smoke all the frankincense. (In those days getting "stoned" was definitely bad for your health) Thus lets say Fred and his buds got baked - and giddy and giggling they let loose an unholy barrage of snowballs at the Three Wise Men. No one escaped Fred's rebellious revelry, "Hey you, with the little drum – hit the road kid, y'suck." The tag-line on the movie poster would read. "He was just a mixed-up Jewish boy who threw a toga party in the last room at the Inn."

I guess I'd better leave off on this bit before those sensitive Californians choke the office with a litter of letters to the editor.

Regardless of the ever expanding season, for me, Christmas has always been about the tree. In fact I felt like a bit of a louse a few years back when we succumbed to convenience and opted for an artificial evergreen. It really is a nice one, but I still feel like I'm cheating my kids out of that Christmasy pine smell that only a fresh cut tree can cast awaft. Yes rather than the annual trek up the mountain to chop down a pinion or balsom, our family tradition is to bundle up and head on out through the family room to the garage. After hiking in, we set about rearranging enough crap and junk to allow us to liberate our trusty Astroturf Tannenbaum from the nether regions of the great indoors. The special part comes when we all hold tight to the tree while my wife fires up the leaf blower and blasts any bloody spiders or dust mites into next year. Ah the memories. Thank goodness for Al Gore. Killing real trees will probably become a global warming "no no." After all the North Pole will be one of the first places to feel the heat which might make faux firs such as ours tres chic. oui? Actually in my o-Pinion our fake tree is pretty cool. From five feet away you can't tell it's not real and since we never dismantle it, we never have to take the lights off of it. Over the years it's accumulated so many strands that we can no longer look directly at it without special sunglasses. Guests must sign a 3 page disclaimer with alot of fine print regarding permanent retina damage.

There was a time in my unusually long life when I was completely obsessed with Christmas trees, but I've learned from having younger sibs and kids of my own that they really don't care much about things like balance, symmetry and a tasteful aesthetic uniformity. Kids tend to redecorate a tree every couple of hours and I've good-naturedly suffered trees with Barney and Scooby Doo drawings stuck to a popsicle sticks. Not wanting to stifle my children's artistic expression I would allow their school-made paper-loop ornaments, threaded popcorn and pinwheel stars and have stoically abided decorations as morbidly inspired as a severed Barbie heads, as creep as a Smeigel action figure and as whimsical as a Cheeto skewered at either end with corn cob holders. As a consequence I care about as much about how our tree is trimmed as I do about one of those petrified French fries under the seat of my truck. But back in my day, I can tell you, I lorded over some of the most badass Christmas trees to ever shelter a gift. In this there is no jest.

Some of it might have been explained away by the fact that I was born on Christmas or that my enchanted-tree obsession coincided with the onset of puberty, because I liked my trees flocked and flocked hard. It's still a wonder to many how we ever managed to get these portly Ponderosas inside the house. But once the great white beasts were propped up in the living room, they were mine all mine and woe betide anyone in the family who might try to subvert my vision by attempting to hang some sorry piece of cutesy classroom-crafted crap. They might as well do it under the mistletoe, because they could kiss it goodbye. During this strange phase of my life, I liked my trees simple, elegant and badass. One color of lights (say light purple) is all a heavily flocked tree requires. And along with a judiciously balanced smattering of complementary-colored silk balls (perhaps forest green) I could put Michelangelo to shame. If one of my younger siblings would try to deface my creation with some homespun gingham bear or nutcracker man, they'd find their tacky little abominations missing – sometimes never to be seen again. I was all about arsty minimalism and I stood guard over my creations like a Nazi.

Once the entire tableau was at last in line with my heightened sense of artistic obsession, I'd kill every light in the house, put on some Nat Cole, get cozy on the couch and just stare at it for hours. It was a young age to discover such a state of absolute Zen - but that was my thing and it was as close to a religious experience I would encounter until I followed the Grateful Dead around a while ten years later. You see, my parents were experiencing marital difficulties when I was 13 – considering separation after nights of ugly wrangling and savage talk that I can still remember verbatim, and I guess those trees were the only way I had of maintaining a sense of order in a world that was falling down all around me.

You have to understand that there was only one other kid in my entire school who was the product of a broken home and, trust me, to have been suddenly lumped in with that booger-eatin' weirdo was a prospect almost as frightening as losing my Dad. I'm not kidding when I say that divorce was such an unknown phenomena in Cedar City (circa 1973) that most kids thought it was some sort of crime that carried jail time. In the end, my Mom and Dad would weather the storm and have always been terrific parents and though I can't credit the trees for saving my family, I suppose I could give a nod of thanks to the gentleman whom they represent. Drifting off into this safe Navidad Nirvana was a magical port in the storm and for several years thereafter, Christmas would be all about those enchanted trees and those two or three weeks where I could disappear into my own little world and just be gay. As in "don we now our gay apparel," – fa la la la la come on – just because I open up a little bit – jeez?

These days though, artificial trees really seem to be the ticket. What with our local forests being despoiled by some kind of bark beetles, coupled with global warming, chopping down a tree just so you can dress it up like a clown to get your holly jollies on for a couple of weeks seems awfully jackassinine. Then when it's served your needs and Christmas is over, you kick it to the curb where it stands out there half naked in the cold like a cheap hooker waiting for a taxi. "Happy New Year oh symbol of the everlasting redeemer." How lame is that? If you have to go green this Christmas – do the considerate thing and fake it.