‘Twas the night before Christmas…
By the time next weekend’s newsletter hits your inbox, Christmas will be over. So that makes this edition the Christmas Edition. Buckle up.
Back at Wake Forest, my fraternity had a tradition called the Christmas Cocktail poem. The poem was a re-writing of Clement Moore’s famous A Visit From St. Nicholas (‘Twas the night before Christmas…), that made fun of everybody’s embarrassments from the past year and was read, quite cruelly, in front of our entire year-end Christmas party. I had the pleasure of writing it my Senior year.
The tradition has continued, on and off, since then, and has unfortunately developed into a useless talent of mine – a quick rendering of the AABB rhyme scheme for a variety of occasions. I’ve done it as a Valentine’s gift for Anne and for my grandfather’s 85th birthday. I’ve even brought back the slightly offensive version for a Christmas party in 2018 (apologies again!).
Well, if I went down that route here I’d risk losing my valuable readers. So this is slightly different. But it wouldn’t be a Christmas to me without cheesy poetry. Enjoy!
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And the East Coast was dreaming.
But in a small town in Jersey
A young wife lay awake, steaming.
Beside her slept a man,
Whose snoring made the windows shake,
And whose periodic flatulence
Smelled like last night’s cheesesteak.
After hours awake,
Next to his deep nasal drone,
She heard the strangest sound
Coming from her brand new iPhone.
In her exhausted stupor
She wracked every inch of her brain,
Trying her hardest to remember
From which app it came.
It was a new one, kind of cute,
Like a ping-ping, ping-ping
When suddenly she remembered,
It was from their newly installed Ring!
“What the hell?” she thought
As she tapped at the screen.
“A visitor, this late on Christmas?
That’s just absolutely obscene!”
So she opened the app,
To pull up their front door cam,
And staring back at her, unsmiling
Was a strange looking, thin man.
“Hey lady, open up quick,”
He said without an intro.
“I got held up in traffic,
And got a lotta places to go!”
So she wracked her brain, furrowed her brow
And she took a deep pause.
When suddenly it hit her:
“Are you… Santa Claus?”
“Yea no shit – pardon my French –
But I don’t need any sass.
The Tahoe’s idling on the street
And I just filled her up with gas.”
This felt wrong, she was sure
So she came up with a test.
A way to make sure that this Santa Claus
Wasn’t some unwanted houseguest.
“If you’re Santa, please tell me,
Why you’re so awfully skinny,
And why you haven’t got hair,
On your chinny-chin-chinny.”
“This is quarantine, stupid,
There’s been nothing else to do.
You think I’m up north
Sitting around my igloo?”
“I’ve been running each day,
I have a new lease on life.
Plus I’ll do anything to escape
From my naggy old wife.”
“As for the beard – are you kidding?
You think I wanted to shave?
Mrs. Claus forced my hand,
‘Cause at home I’m her slave.”
The woman felt much better
What a plausible explanation!
But some details still struck her
And caused great hesitation.
“What was that thing you said earlier
About how you got here?
You said something about a Tahoe
And nothing about your reindeer.”
“Reindeer are outdated –
Have you seen how much they shit?
They stink and they’re stubborn
And they’re absolute halfwits.”
“This year I put my foot down,
And went to the dealership.
I slapped my card on the counter
And said Get Santa a new whip!“
The woman felt better –
She trusted his little boy grin.
So she got out of bed, put on slippers,
And went to let him in.
Once the door was unlocked,
She jumped back in surprise.
All the boxes behind him
Said Amazon Prime!
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, please calm down!
I assure you there’s nothing to fear.
All of this makes more sense
Than it might at first appear.”
“You see Santa was approached, back in August
By a venture capital firm.
Who saw value to be unlocked
By disrupting this thing long-term.”
“So they convinced good old Santa
To raise his first Series A.
And to liquidate assets
Like his rusty old sleigh.”
“Then they sent in a team
Of world-class MBAs,
Who hired millions like me
At minimum wage pay.”
“I know that you’re shocked,
but that’s the honest-to-God-truth.
I’m a gig economy worker
Trained by a 26-year-old from Booth.”
“All those questions you asked
Were in my introductory pack.
But really, now that you’ve caught me
My name’s Harvey Jack.”
The woman was shocked –
Why had Christmas been destroyed?
All for some rich men
And their economies-of-scale toys?
She started to speak, stuttered really,
To give him a piece of her mind.
To tell this odd Scrooge
How he had corrupted mankind.
But Harvey spoke first
And said “Oh, lady please!
Don’t you dare look at me
Like I’m some kind of Christmas disease.”
“If I may take a guess,
Without seeming quite rude…
Is it true that you often use DoorDash
for your family’s food?”
“And when you ordered a tree, late last week,
After your husband raised a fuss,
I assume you placed your order on a phone,
through an app like Trees-R-Us?”
“Even in that photo – right there! –
You have hung on the wall,
Your family’s wearing Swetr,
A direct-to-consumer business that bypasses the mall.”
“This one might be a stretch,
But you look like the type.
Did Santa’s milk and cookies
Also come via swipe?”
“I know that seems crazy
But it made someone quite wealthy.
To offer delivery snacks
That show Santa you’re healthy.”
“Anyway, enough chit-chat,
I must be on my way.
If my metrics take a dive
Then I’ll have to work Christmas Day.”
So the man turned and left
Just as quick as he came,
And left our poor Jersey woman
To sit there in shame.
But this was Christmas, after all,
And she had two kids she adored.
She couldn’t give them presents
Adorned in Amazon’s cardboard.
So she stayed up even later
Wrapping away.
Baking cookies, making pancakes,
And preparing the day.
Then at some point, once finished,
She sat down in a chair,
And the next thing she knew
A kid was pulling her hair.
“Hey honey, Merry Christmas,
Why’d you spend the night downstairs?
Do I not make enough money
To keep you from sleeping in chairs?”
“You know Christmas is tough,
It’s a lot of work to take on.
Just ask one of your friends
If there’s a company that will hire someone.”
So the kids had their Christmas
And her husband was sated
But deep down inside
The woman’s conscience was irritated.
She gave it some thought
Was on the verge of something devastating.
When suddenly ping! went her phone
And on her screen “Give Santa a Rating!”
Tools of the Trade
In a 2019 interview, Neil Gaiman, author of Stardust, Coraline and American Gods, said this about notebooks:
“I’m writing the current novel in these beautiful books that I bought in a stationery shop in Venice, built into a bridge. Somewhere in Venice there’s a little stationery shop on a bridge, and they have these beautiful leather-bound blank books that just look like hardback books, but they’re blank pages. I wrote The Graveyard Book in one of those. I bought four of them, and now I’m using the next one on the next novel.”
A search of other famous writers and their tools yields similar proclivities: Stephen King’s fountain pens, Mark Twain’s custom notebooks, J.K. Rowling’s loose-leaf paper. Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) apparently writes with Pilot G2 pens.
Well I’m not a professional writer, so my tools don’t matter to anyone but myself. But they do matter. Since I’ve taken up journaling, I’ve written in black Moleskine notebooks with mostly black Cristal Bic pens. Most writing for this website has been done on an iPad with an external keyboard.
This month I decided to buy myself a new laptop, replacing the one I’ve had since 2013 that’s been collecting dust under my nightstand. It’s a new Macbook Air, and it’s a beautiful writing machine.
I won’t pretend that a simple tool can generate creativity, or harden discipline, or commit a process. But I do think periodic investments in a hobby are necessary to take it to the next level, and that’s what I’m expecting this new laptop to be.
I have a few big ideas for 2021, and the end of the year feels like the perfect time for an upgrade.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and wonderful New Year!
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
NYC & Baltimore Graffiti – Part 6 – Fall in New York and Baltimore
A little ol’ internet scam – There is absolutely going to be a great doubt and distrust in your heart in respect of this email
What I’m Reading:
Bro Culture, Fitness, Chivalry, and American Identity – Patrick Wyman
“That’s a quintessentially American value: the idea that anybody can make something of themselves if they work hard enough, move enough weight, run fast enough, practice enough to shoot a tight grouping, make the right sacrifices.”
What I’m Listening To: Christmas music!