Joy to the World

 Joy To The Sane World

S. B. Julian

- Good Morning, Class! (bright voice) I'm Mary from Mental Health Militia's Christmas Crisis Centre, and your teacher Ms Shepherd has invited me to talk to you about the stress we're all under at this time of year. I call it “the Curse of Christmas”. We carry heavy burdens during the Holiday Season. Right? (silence) You need to get over the stigma of talking about it, Class. Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. Christmas is all about depression, anxiety and family conflict. (silence) So who wants to start? How about the girl in the middle there? You look sad.

-- I'm sad we're missing English, it's my favourite class.

-- English?

-- Yeah, you know, novels and poems and stuff. “Grammar and Literacy” the English Head calls it.

-- Well that's all fine but you need addiction-literacy, anxiety-literacy, bullying-and-exclusion-literacy ... the things that matter in life.

-- Oh. Could I go to the washroom please? (she leaves)

-- Who else would like to contribute? How about you at the back? Are you sitting apart because you feel excluded?

-- No.

-- Denial is a burden. You can safely unpack your misery here.  I'll give you the Christmas Crisis Line phone number so you can call in later. Make a note of this everyone: it's 01 - 888 -

-- Mary? (a student raises her hand) I need to leave for an appointment.

-- Really? Where? What could be more important than mental illness, depression, anxiety, mood swings, ADHD, addiction ...

-- 'scuse me Mary, but I don't have those things.

-- Of course you do. It's Christmas.

-- (another student speaks) Right. It's Christmas, so we must be suicidal.

-- Suicide is no joke, Class.

-- Actually I wasn't depressed until you arrived. (class laughs)

-- Is it the advertising? The commercialization? The burden on the poor?

-- No, it's you.

-- (another student chimes in) I love Christmas.

-- You think you do, but it's a well-known source of misery, loneliness, unpaid bills, over-eating...

-- Actually, for me it's the source of a decorated tree with a beautiful smell and colourfully-wrapped presents under it, and carol singing, and boxes of chocolate and home-made eggnog, and visits from grandparents who love me.

-- Let's unpack what those things really mean. For instance, when you say “carols” do you mean music which foists colonialist sentiments onto downtrodden races with other traditions?

-- No.

-- Because we all know that Christmas is merely a colonialist construct imposed on indigenous people who had never heard of it at the time of settler contact. We at Christmas Crisis Hotline help them deal with the trauma. There, you in the front row, you look indigenous. At least I hope you are, or that eagle feather and the First Nations T-shirt you're wearing would be pretty major cultural appropriations! (she laughs) So ... yes you are indigenous? And how is your family coping with the trauma of Christmas?

-- Umm ...

-- It's okay, you can speak, you're safe here. Have you got siblings at home?

-- Yeah. Tons.

-- And parents?

-- Mom. And sort of ... step-fathers.

-- And how does Mom cope with the trauma of Christmas?

-- Beer. (laughter from the class)

-- (Mary sighs) Poor woman. Driven to it. What does she think would help?

-- If the Food Bank carried it. (laughter)

-- Now class, let's not make fun of identifiable groups.

-- (student raises hand) Mary: we're not laughing at identifiable groups, we're laughing at you.

-- (flustered) Well that's a bit ... (pause) I mean, thank you for your honesty ... er ...

-- (another student raises her hand) Mary: I collect eagle feathers. They float to the ground at my grandparents' farm. They're everywhere. Why is liking eagle feathers cultural appropriation?

-- Umm ... Let's stay on topic, okay? The “Holiday Season”. Ask yourself what you need a holiday from. If it's the “Festive Season”, ask yourself why you don't feel festive.

-- (student raises his hand) I do feel festive.

-- No. Actually, you're suffering from the stress of pretending to like something which is exhausting, expensive, lonely, trans-phobic and competitive, when you have to buy presents for co-workers you hate, (voice rises) and you can't find a parking space, and it's freezing cold out and dark at 4:30 and you lose your gloves and those Salvation Army bells are driving you mad ... 

(Class is silent. A student rushes out, upset.)

-- Mary? (says another) Sorry for your troubles.

-- Well, it's not my troubles, it's society's. Now: let's form a circle and take turns revealing how Christmas triggers suicidal feelings. Put your smartphones away please. Now: the boy on my right, we'll start with you. What triggers your negative feelings?

-- Putting my smartphone away. (laughter from the class)

-- And what part of Christmas makes you smartphone-dependent?

-- (girl raises hand) Mary, I'll be major-triggered if I don't find a new smartphone in the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning. (other students cheer in agreement)

-- Yeah, and then she can like phone the Christmas Crisis Line when her sister steals all the cashews out of Santa's nut bowl. (laughter. Ms Shepherd the teacher calls for order.)

-- Well, there's a thought: food inequity. It's an aspect of worldwide injustice, and climate change only increases it ...

-- (sarcastically) And Christmas causes climate change.

-- Or what if Christmas solved it? What'd'ya think Mary? Like, what if we all drove flying Santa-sleighs instead of vehicles that run on fossil fuels?

-- Yeah! What if Amazon delivered parcels that way? Way cool eh!

-- (another girl replies) But if they were pulled by reindeer that would be animal exploitation.

-- Hey, Mary! Can I read my poem? It has rhymes for the name of each of the eight reindeer.

-- Not now Dear, that sounds rather frivolous for the Least Wonderful Time of the Year. Let's consider the pathology behind gift-giving.

-- Mary, why is your name Mary? It seems so old-fashioned.

-- Because I'm named after, you know ... Mary.

-- Oh. That must be traumatic if you hate the nativity season.

-- Mary, why is it that every nativity scene shows Joseph standing up? You never see him sitting on a bale of hay or anything.

-- (another student replies) Maybe he was a comedian. Like -- in “stand-up” -- get it? (laughter)

-- Yeah ... we get it. So is that why the best comics are Jewish? According to my Dad they are, anyway.

-- Does that mean he's racist? Hey Mary – her Dad's a racist!

-- Settle down, Class. What's your name, Dear?

-- Estuaria.

-- Ah. So you're named for a place where rivers of mental illness flow into seas of toxic Christmas expectations that mental health experts have proven are ... but wait, where are you going, Estuaria? Class: if you have trouble acknowledging repressed Christmas-misery you can be tested for mental illness for free. This is our prime misery-season, worse than summer holidays, back-to-school week, Halloween and Valentine's Day all rolled into one. This is when you need to guard against expectations of joy and examine cultural assumptions. The Christmas Crisis Centre can put you in touch with a therapist who ... (a man walks in, interrupting)

-- (The teacher, Ms Shepherd speaks up) Oh! Here is our principal: Mr. Barnes. Hello Mr. Barnes, we are discussing the emotional pitfalls of Christmas ...

-- Ms Shepherd, why has a stream of students from your class turned up weeping in my office?

                                         ******************

(This story first appeared in Short Humour Magazine: http://www.short-humour.org.uk )

Santa Claus's Resignation Letter

Dear World,

Oh boy, have things ever changed in the toy-delivery field. Remember when people wrote letters to Santa? You didn't expect to get one from me, but here goes ... I need to send you notice of my imminent retirement. I used to deliver a sleigh-full of dolls, teddy bears, train sets, roller skates and pencil sets every magical Christmas Eve. (Pencils! Can you imagine?) But no more: gifts have gone electronic. Now it's all game-boxes, fit-bits, gift cards and peculiar little digital devices that fall out of my bag and get lost on the floor of the sleigh.

I used to be able to park right beside the chimney I would be slipping down; now there are few chimneys. There's “smart heating” and roofs cluttered with solar panels. Last year, one had a poster on it saying “REINDEER SLEIGHS ABUSE UNGULATES”.

The few chimneys left have notes saying “VACCINE PASSPORT AND MASK REQUIRED”. A mask, on top of a beard like mine?! No one needs a mask who's already muffled by a deep white thicket of facial hair. 

I used to find treats like cookies and warm milk waiting for me beside people's hearths, but now they leave bizarre food I can't identify, like Guatemalan keto spice balls, and dirty-snow vegan gluten-free taro squares. Whatever happened to a nice cup of tea? Now I find notes advising me there's a Pomegranate Gingerbread Iced Latte in the 'fridge.

And no one's decently in bed taking their long winter nap while I lurk in their living rooms. They're all hunkered down in other rooms staring at smartphones. I see blue light from digital devices glowing under the doors. Even the kids aren't asleep, dreaming about full stockings while visions of sugar plums dance in their heads. They're texting their friends from under the covers. 

I remember when people used to hang real stockings at the fireplace, I mean stockings they would actually wear the next day to keep their feet warm. Now everyone hangs huge store-bought florescent plastic bag-like things sporting lewd or satirical jokes (satire! at Christmas?) which doesn't seem very traditional to me.

No: Christmas Eve isn't what it was when I started as apprentice to Great-Grandfather Claus. Nor is the elf staff the same! Not one knows how to wield a hammer and nail, and some can't even read. Being illiterate they can't copy out the lists I need, so I can't check them twice. Luckily every kid wants the same thing anyway: high-tech digital robotic Amazon-stuff. I might as well retire, and be replaced by a drone. I'm just not as jolly as I used to be. I guess drones do go further and faster than anything a bunch of reindeer would pull. They're much more efficient. So Tally-ho-ho-ho, Drones! 

But I can't help thinking something magical is being lost.

Yours truly,

Old Man in the Red Suit

The Night Before Virtual Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas …

In each bedroom and hall
the seniors were stirring, insomniacs all,
support hose was hung by the chimneys with care,
it helps folk a lot as they walk here and there
The grandkids were somewhere else, thank heaven,

dreaming (or streaming) from midnight 'til seven

Then out on the lawn I heard such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter
What to my short-sighted eyes should appear
but a miniature E-sleigh with battery-gear
The mechanical driver was shiny and slick,

I knew it too robotic to be St. Nick

More rapid than email with cursors it came
it called those who pulled the sleigh by name:
“Now Flasher, now Hacker,
now Zoom and Delete!
On, Android and Google!
On, Podcast and Tweet!
On to the porch and the top of the wall,

now flash away, blink away, bleep away all!”

So up to the rooftop the cursors they flew
with an E-sleigh of gadgets and the Robot too,
then as from the window I dizzily turned
it slid down the chimney, I quickly learned,
as a blinking metallic apparition --

and I blinked back, full of suspicion

A bundle of toys it began to unpack
like an Amazon delivery man with a sack
It filled the stockings that hung by the fire
and piled chocolate treats beyond all desire

Its lights how they twinkled, its buzzers were buzzy,
I think it spoke, but my memory's fuzzy
Then laying a finger on its A.I. nose

giving one more blink, up the chimney it rose

It sprang to the E-sleigh and quickly rebooted,
while a lively Help Function digitally hooted
as they flew to the stars and out of sight:

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!

The Plastic Aftermath of Christmas

The Owl and the Pussycat floated to sea 

in an ugly recycling bin 

It over-flowed with broken toys 

and plastic, paper and tin 

They sailed away on Boxing Day 

on a river of rubbish off-shore 

Large gifts they had bought but now they thought 

that with packaging, less is more 

They sailed for what seemed a year and a day 

and came to an island grim 

It rose as a mountain of styrofoam 

so big there was nowhere for fish to swim 

As night-time fell on the greasy sea 

and clouds obscured the moon, 

they threw the disposables overboard 

in fear they would capsize soon 

As water entered their plastic craft 

they used take-out cups to bail, 

but these broke into soggy flakes 

and they knew they couldn't but fail 

They spied a barge of digital waste 

for which the sea hadn't room 

Then a massive storm sent their bin to the deeps 

and they drowned by the light of the moon, 

the moon, 

they drowned ... by the light of the moon 

"Surviving" Christmas

    'Tis the season when magazines publish articles on how to "survive". At Christmas you won't, say the articles, come upon any midnights clear, you'll stumble into pitfalls social, emotional, financial, and political. Unfortunately the magazines seem to be right. To save your sanity, they recommend, make lists of guests and gifts. Make a to-buy list, to-bake list, political-topics-to-avoid list.

    At gatherings so many matters are triggering that you need a "Taboo Topics List". And you'd best check it twice. The taboo topics used to be sex, politics and religion; now they're identity, cultural appropriation and anything described as "systemic". As for variant behaviours, they're best ignored, like those of the cousin with so many allergies she's allergic to her own allergies and will claim to be allergic to your live fir tree. 

    Then there are acquaintances who refuse to call Christmas "Christmas", and only recognize a seasonal indigenous-inclusive non-binary non-colonial anti-privilege diversity-fest (not on any account a Mass for the birth of Christ).

    Then there's the guest who brings variant meat -- peppered grasshopper and fried slugs -- for the potluck. And the one who brings tattooed friends of variant gender who you can't greet because you fear to get their pronouns wrong. Some genders seem to change during the party itself.

    There are students who show up after their last university class in variant subjects you've never heard of, like Queering the Undead, and Acquiring Expert Venture Cognitions, and Critical Skills for Online Identity Management. 

    Why?? you ask.

    "They're pre-requisites for The Zombie in Woke Culture." 

    "I thought the whole point of Zombies was to be un-woke?" 

    "You mean un-AWAKE" 

    Quite.

    "These courses go toward a PhD in Fashion and Body Modification." 

    "Oh. Of course university teaching's so different now."

    "We don't have 'teaching', we have Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy."

    "Huh. And do you have jobs in the end?"

    "I have one already, as Exit Manager for Spaces Shoplifters and Non-vaccinated People Sneak Into."

    Ah. A bouncer. I almost wished I had one at my Christmas potluck. I guess one could bounce everyone out by saying someone had just "tested positive" for a variant of concern (concerning what, one needn't specify). That would clear the room. Except of course for the COVID-deniers. 

    Does the University teach a course in How To Be a Successful Hermit?

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A Concrete Discussion

-- Hello Sidewalk.

-- Hello Road.

-- We gotta stop meeting like this. 

-- But how else can we, stuck and immobilized as we are?

-- Quite. So, how are you?

-- Oh ... you know, still winding along.

-- Heard anything from below lately?

-- Yes! I heard from Soil. 

-- Soil is still down there?!

-- Yes, and it's hosting a worm-fest.

-- No! How?

-- After such a long summer drought the worms dug deep, even under concrete where it's dark and damp.

-- Clever!

-- Oh yeah … it's ancient knowledge, Road.

-- Of an ancient species. 

-- And now that the rains have come the worms are squirming across the hard surfaces. Very hazardous.

-- They'll get stepped on. Maybe they're not so smart …

-- Oh they are, Road, it's just they didn't evolve for the sudden new curse of concrete -- which is us -- they evolved for the ancient geology of soil.

-- So we're the enemy, really.

-- Yes. It's hard. 

-- WE are hard. Yet I'm cracking up.

-- Me too! It's liberating, isn't it?

-- And in the cracks, weeds appear! Green stuff, with tiny flowers on top. So life's not all ugly and hard, even we can be a bit softened and decorated, Sidewalk.

-- Yes, it's a relief, and you know what? A child was skipping along me one day, and as she hopped over a big crack she said the crack was my smile!

-- Smart kid.

-- Ancient knowledge …

   

The Pandemic of Logo-phobia

Is logo-phobia yet another new mental illness? Fearing, perhaps, to offend "persons of colour", are we becoming persons of colourless speech?

We fear words themselves -- pronouns, obviously -- but why are we anti-noun? We hate them so much we turn them into verbs -- always "efforting" and "expensing", "authoring" and "evidencing" -- even though misuse of the suffix "ing" does not a verb make. 

And who knew how malevolent a lowly preposition could be? Ask someone "where are you from?" and you could be labelled a right-wing anti-immigrant bigot. A polite conversational enquiry is attacked by the Language Police.

Remember when parents advised kids to "ask others about themselves, don't just talk about yourself"? Who knows what's polite now -- what's proper etiquette? "Etiquette" comes from the French word for "ticket". No one knows what our ticket out of Language Jail might be; no wonder we fear words. They're unexploded bombs: choose the wrong one and you can be blasted right off your platform.

In fear of the Language Police we call everybody persons-experiencing-things, rather than persons being things, i.e. noun-things with names, like "addict" for instance, rather than a person-experiencing-addiction. A shop-lifter, presumably, is a person-experiencing-kleptomania (and may be called a person-experiencing-marginalization-and-underprivilege, by persons-acting-diverse-and-inclusive).

 

So am I un-empathetically linking language with moral responsibility? Yup. (Sorry.) So avoiding clear language means avoiding moral responsibility? (A non-correct question if ever there was one. Our apologies.) 

Nothing's your fault if your pronoun is "they/them" -- it's theirs. Maybe avoiding being the Subject and hiding behind Object-hood is a survival strategy, but this refusal to let the ball of responsibility and fluency land in your court is causing certain others to experience depression -- and mystification. Why do we fear words, and fear meaning what words mean? Do we fear giving offense, or are we simply persons-experiencing-mass-censorship?

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