Christmas, Alternatively
Dec. 12th, 2004 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitriChristmas, Alternatively
The thing about being a member of the Clause family is that there's so much traditional generational stuff. I mean, every family has its traditions and all, particularly about Christmas, but how many families have had their traditions for over fifteen hundred years? And on top of that, how many families dress in perfect coordination year round?
And let me tell you something about red velvet and white fur trim: it itches. A lot.
And it doesn't even keep you that warm.
Stupid North Pole.
#
The thing about being a Claus and living in the North Pole is that it pretty much negates any chance of what you would call a normal teenage life. For one thing, growing up all my playmates were elves and flying reindeer. For another, there's no such thing as going to hang out at a mall or anything, though again it's not like there's anyone to hang out with. The elves are making toys all year round, the reindeer are practicing for their Games,
and once a year the Eskimos come by to party, but how much fun can be had by
celebrating a feast with the delicacy of whale blubber?
Not. Much.
(And just as an FYI, whale blubber tastes like steak. A very chewy, inexplicably squishy, steak. Yup. Ew.)
On the plus side, we didn't suffer a serious lack of technological advances. The thing about Dad's magic sack is that it is a, y'know, magic sack. You can pull what you want out of it. And if what you want is a world-region dvd player and all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on dvd, boom! There you go.
We may be at the North Pole, but thank God for satellites and cable.
Although then again, cable is what put the final nail in my emotional coffin as it were. You know what Dad's favorite Christmas special of all time is? The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The original one, you know, with Tony the Tiger singing all the songs. And guess who his favorite character is? Cindy Loo Who.
And guess what he did when given the opportunity of naming a little girl baby with fuzzy yellow hair?
Oh yeah. Cindy Loo Who Claus, at your service.
#
So what do you think would upset your parents more: dying your hair green, or all your clothes black, or announcing you hadn't decided whether to change your name to Rasputina or Suspiria but that at any rate you definitely were not answering to Cindy Loo anymore?
To be fair, my parents are unusually easy-going and jolly people, for obvious reasons, but even I have to admit that the newly-dyed black velvet with gray-black fur trim (which was now all matted, because let's face it, I am only fifteen and only know what I'm doing part of the time) wasn't the best fashion statement in the world. On the other hand, I had enough pride(stupidity...pride...whatever) to go ahead and actually wear what I made, so, y'know, fair's fair.
"But Cindy--"
"Ma!"
"Fine, Suspiriatina then, why didn't you just get new clothes from Papa's sack? Wouldn't that have been easier?"
Well, yeah, if you want things to be easy. But who wants that?
Besides, I asked the dyes from the sack, and that's half-way there, right?
#
The other handy technological advance we have is the Internet. Ma loves Ebay, but seldom buys anything for obvious reasons, the major one of which is the whole shipping thing. FedEx has no love for the N. Pole.
Besides, on the computer I can talk to normal people...
SleighGirl enters the room.
SleighGirl: What's up?
Hot_Elf_32: Hey, babe, wanna see my candy-cane?
SleighGirl exits the room.
Yeah, well, normalcy is only a theory, right?
#
It's when Dad gets the flu on the 23rd I start to get the feeling I could be in some serious doo-doo. My older brothers Nick and Kris are off at college somewhere below the Arctic Circle (geography: strangely enough, not my thing) and won't be home until late on the 24th, when Dad already has to have been working for 12 hours--it's the International Date Line, y'know.
Why my parents think a fifteen year old who can't even make fashion statements sucessfully could make a trip around the world to deliver various material goods to the wee people, I don't know. But the next thing I know is I'm out in the yard, getting a talking-to from Rudolph.
"Look, kid," he says, his nose blinking urgently in frustration and making that annoying shrill beeping sound--you think the noise it made on the old cartoon was bad, you should try this--he says, "It's not that friggin' hard, okay? We're professionals, we fly the thing, you just hold on and jump down the chimney once in a while. Non una problema." And why Rudolph has
an old smoker's voice and speaks Italian with a New York accent, I really don't know and don't think I want to.
"But, Rudolph," I say with a little tremor, because I'm scared almost to the point of tears having to do this all by myself, "how do I get back up the chimney?"
Rudolph gives a very reindeer shrug, and that's when my stomach starts to hurt.
Some stocking-stuffing tips from Dad, a not very good nap, and what amounts to a force-fed breakfast from Mom later, I am holding on to the sleigh for dear life. I've ridden the sleigh before,I've just never, y'know, driven it. And despite the reassurances from the reindeer and the two elves riding shotgun in the back, I do not think I am doing well at all. Not even if all I have to do
is just hold onto the reins, which I hold in a death-grip.
"Jesus, kid, loosen up there, you're chokin' me!" I vaguely identify the voice as Blitzen's.
"Sorry!" I yell back.
"Quit being such a pussy," says Comet, "she's only a kid." It takes me a moment to realize he's talking to Blitzen, not me.
Phew.
I think.
"Are they always like this?" I yell over the wind back to the Elves, Crumpet and Marley. They are holding on, like the old pros they are, to the back of the sleigh and aren't really in it at all, even.
"Nah, sometimes they're rude," says Marley. "Oy, check it out, Crumpet, I think we've just crossed into Norway."
I don't look down. I looked down once, and I learned.
"How can ya tell, Marley?"
"Easy. The shape of the land mass."
"Nice!"
Yup, no looking down for me.
#
The first house is always the hardest. It's the getting up the nerve to jump down the chimney, it takes me a few minutes.
Gravity.
I hate it.
I hit the bottom of the fireplace hard, puffs of old ash floating up and choking me. I feel that big breakfast trying to make its way back up again, swallow resolutely, and rub the grit out of my eyes.
"Oy, kid!" yells Crumpet from above.
"Shh!" I look up. "What?" I do my best to yell in a whisper.
"Ya forgot somethin." And he throws the magic sack, which hits me in the face. It's empty at the moment because I haven't thought to ask it for anything yet, so it's not like it's a major injury or anything, but all the same it is a kind of heavy bag and what with me still being disoriented from flying for a few hours and then the jumping down the chimney and all, I'm all disoriented. I lose my balance, and fall.
Um, loudly.
"Daaaaaaaaaaa!" I hear a little boy's voice screaming, and wouldn't you scream too if someone with green hair and black clothes and covered in gritty ash with a bag on their head came out of your fireplace?
All the same, this could get bad. I hurriedly think of things and pull them out of the sack: a toy train, a fruit basket, some miscellaneous wrapped things, and shove them under the tree as fast as I can while monitoring the thump-thumps upstairs signalling the imminent arrival of grown-ups, possibly with armaments.
Finished, I run back into the fireplace.
"Help me get outta here!" I scream, not even bothering with a fake-whisper. The thump-thumps are getting louder and closer and there are voices too. Not good signs, not at all.
Marley's head appears. "Just say 'up' is all," he says, "and ya better hurry about it!" Then he disappears.
"Up?!" I say in disbelief, but then I find myself propelled up and out, fast as the cork in a shaken champagne bottle, spitting me out of the chimney and onto the snow-covered roof. I roll a little bit, coming to a stop a few feet from the edge.
"C'mon, kid, we don't got all night!" says Crumpet.
"Well, technically we do--" starts Marley, but I'm already running and throwing myself into the sleigh.
"GEE-YAP!" I yell, snapping the reins, and up, up, and away goes the team.
"Now that's more like it," says Blitzen.
"Harder, harder!" squeals Cupid, who's a masochist.
"Shut-up!" orders Rudolph, and they subside, the only sound the tinkling of sleighbells and the giggles of Crumpet and Marley.
#
Thirty-six hours and some 6 billion visitations later--and that's as probably accurate as approximate, and it sure feels like it, it is officially Christmas morning in the western hemisphere and I am back home, so tired I'm shaking.
Nick and Kris run out to meet me with a bunch of elves, who are eager to carry away Crumpet and Marley, who don't seem tired at all, but would much rather regale them our adventures--particularly the one in Chicago where I tripped up some security alarms in a high-rise and lets just stop right there, shall we?
"Check you out!" says Nick. "Gothica Clause!"
"Rasputina," I correct.
"Cindy," says Kris, whom I kick. Hard.
"Ow!"
Nick's laughing. "Oh you poor kid! We tried changing our plane tickets but it was just a no-go. When Snowball and Ginger picked us up at Barrow, they told us you got sent. How'd it go?"
"I'm still here," I said.
"Yeah, who's a badass motherf--" Kris broke off as Mom came out with a huge tray of mugs of coccoa, shoving one into my hands.
"Our lil sister's all grown up," Nick said, in a mock-crying voice.
"And delivering presents," said Kris in the same tone.
"Oh!" they sound in unison and begin to fake cry into their mugs. "Our baby!" "So wonderful!"
"Shut-urp," I grumble. I'm totalling pretending like I hate it all, though once I got the hang of it, it was pretty fun.
"Hey, you should get used to it," whispers Nick. "We're thinking about grad school!"
"You mean--" And my tummy starts doing nervous flip-flops, half excited, half fearful.
"Yup," says Kris, "you, Cindy Loo Who Suspiria Rasputina Gothica Clause, may be doing this for a living."
I start to protest, then stop. Instead I start really thinking, and I can see my growing smirk is causing nervous looks. Christmas traditions are a wonderful thing, but now and then, change is good.
And I can start with the colors...
Rudolph catches me eyeing his glowing nose. "Kid," he says gruffly, "don't even t'ink aboud it."
I look innocent as Mom brings us inside and Dad, with loads of Robitussin in his system, tells us how proud he is of us all.
Nothing's written in stone yet.
But after breakfast I am so asking the magic sack for some more dye.
/End.
The thing about being a member of the Clause family is that there's so much traditional generational stuff. I mean, every family has its traditions and all, particularly about Christmas, but how many families have had their traditions for over fifteen hundred years? And on top of that, how many families dress in perfect coordination year round?
And let me tell you something about red velvet and white fur trim: it itches. A lot.
And it doesn't even keep you that warm.
Stupid North Pole.
#
The thing about being a Claus and living in the North Pole is that it pretty much negates any chance of what you would call a normal teenage life. For one thing, growing up all my playmates were elves and flying reindeer. For another, there's no such thing as going to hang out at a mall or anything, though again it's not like there's anyone to hang out with. The elves are making toys all year round, the reindeer are practicing for their Games,
and once a year the Eskimos come by to party, but how much fun can be had by
celebrating a feast with the delicacy of whale blubber?
Not. Much.
(And just as an FYI, whale blubber tastes like steak. A very chewy, inexplicably squishy, steak. Yup. Ew.)
On the plus side, we didn't suffer a serious lack of technological advances. The thing about Dad's magic sack is that it is a, y'know, magic sack. You can pull what you want out of it. And if what you want is a world-region dvd player and all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on dvd, boom! There you go.
We may be at the North Pole, but thank God for satellites and cable.
Although then again, cable is what put the final nail in my emotional coffin as it were. You know what Dad's favorite Christmas special of all time is? The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The original one, you know, with Tony the Tiger singing all the songs. And guess who his favorite character is? Cindy Loo Who.
And guess what he did when given the opportunity of naming a little girl baby with fuzzy yellow hair?
Oh yeah. Cindy Loo Who Claus, at your service.
#
So what do you think would upset your parents more: dying your hair green, or all your clothes black, or announcing you hadn't decided whether to change your name to Rasputina or Suspiria but that at any rate you definitely were not answering to Cindy Loo anymore?
To be fair, my parents are unusually easy-going and jolly people, for obvious reasons, but even I have to admit that the newly-dyed black velvet with gray-black fur trim (which was now all matted, because let's face it, I am only fifteen and only know what I'm doing part of the time) wasn't the best fashion statement in the world. On the other hand, I had enough pride(stupidity...pride...whatever) to go ahead and actually wear what I made, so, y'know, fair's fair.
"But Cindy--"
"Ma!"
"Fine, Suspiriatina then, why didn't you just get new clothes from Papa's sack? Wouldn't that have been easier?"
Well, yeah, if you want things to be easy. But who wants that?
Besides, I asked the dyes from the sack, and that's half-way there, right?
#
The other handy technological advance we have is the Internet. Ma loves Ebay, but seldom buys anything for obvious reasons, the major one of which is the whole shipping thing. FedEx has no love for the N. Pole.
Besides, on the computer I can talk to normal people...
SleighGirl enters the room.
SleighGirl: What's up?
Hot_Elf_32: Hey, babe, wanna see my candy-cane?
SleighGirl exits the room.
Yeah, well, normalcy is only a theory, right?
#
It's when Dad gets the flu on the 23rd I start to get the feeling I could be in some serious doo-doo. My older brothers Nick and Kris are off at college somewhere below the Arctic Circle (geography: strangely enough, not my thing) and won't be home until late on the 24th, when Dad already has to have been working for 12 hours--it's the International Date Line, y'know.
Why my parents think a fifteen year old who can't even make fashion statements sucessfully could make a trip around the world to deliver various material goods to the wee people, I don't know. But the next thing I know is I'm out in the yard, getting a talking-to from Rudolph.
"Look, kid," he says, his nose blinking urgently in frustration and making that annoying shrill beeping sound--you think the noise it made on the old cartoon was bad, you should try this--he says, "It's not that friggin' hard, okay? We're professionals, we fly the thing, you just hold on and jump down the chimney once in a while. Non una problema." And why Rudolph has
an old smoker's voice and speaks Italian with a New York accent, I really don't know and don't think I want to.
"But, Rudolph," I say with a little tremor, because I'm scared almost to the point of tears having to do this all by myself, "how do I get back up the chimney?"
Rudolph gives a very reindeer shrug, and that's when my stomach starts to hurt.
Some stocking-stuffing tips from Dad, a not very good nap, and what amounts to a force-fed breakfast from Mom later, I am holding on to the sleigh for dear life. I've ridden the sleigh before,I've just never, y'know, driven it. And despite the reassurances from the reindeer and the two elves riding shotgun in the back, I do not think I am doing well at all. Not even if all I have to do
is just hold onto the reins, which I hold in a death-grip.
"Jesus, kid, loosen up there, you're chokin' me!" I vaguely identify the voice as Blitzen's.
"Sorry!" I yell back.
"Quit being such a pussy," says Comet, "she's only a kid." It takes me a moment to realize he's talking to Blitzen, not me.
Phew.
I think.
"Are they always like this?" I yell over the wind back to the Elves, Crumpet and Marley. They are holding on, like the old pros they are, to the back of the sleigh and aren't really in it at all, even.
"Nah, sometimes they're rude," says Marley. "Oy, check it out, Crumpet, I think we've just crossed into Norway."
I don't look down. I looked down once, and I learned.
"How can ya tell, Marley?"
"Easy. The shape of the land mass."
"Nice!"
Yup, no looking down for me.
#
The first house is always the hardest. It's the getting up the nerve to jump down the chimney, it takes me a few minutes.
Gravity.
I hate it.
I hit the bottom of the fireplace hard, puffs of old ash floating up and choking me. I feel that big breakfast trying to make its way back up again, swallow resolutely, and rub the grit out of my eyes.
"Oy, kid!" yells Crumpet from above.
"Shh!" I look up. "What?" I do my best to yell in a whisper.
"Ya forgot somethin." And he throws the magic sack, which hits me in the face. It's empty at the moment because I haven't thought to ask it for anything yet, so it's not like it's a major injury or anything, but all the same it is a kind of heavy bag and what with me still being disoriented from flying for a few hours and then the jumping down the chimney and all, I'm all disoriented. I lose my balance, and fall.
Um, loudly.
"Daaaaaaaaaaa!" I hear a little boy's voice screaming, and wouldn't you scream too if someone with green hair and black clothes and covered in gritty ash with a bag on their head came out of your fireplace?
All the same, this could get bad. I hurriedly think of things and pull them out of the sack: a toy train, a fruit basket, some miscellaneous wrapped things, and shove them under the tree as fast as I can while monitoring the thump-thumps upstairs signalling the imminent arrival of grown-ups, possibly with armaments.
Finished, I run back into the fireplace.
"Help me get outta here!" I scream, not even bothering with a fake-whisper. The thump-thumps are getting louder and closer and there are voices too. Not good signs, not at all.
Marley's head appears. "Just say 'up' is all," he says, "and ya better hurry about it!" Then he disappears.
"Up?!" I say in disbelief, but then I find myself propelled up and out, fast as the cork in a shaken champagne bottle, spitting me out of the chimney and onto the snow-covered roof. I roll a little bit, coming to a stop a few feet from the edge.
"C'mon, kid, we don't got all night!" says Crumpet.
"Well, technically we do--" starts Marley, but I'm already running and throwing myself into the sleigh.
"GEE-YAP!" I yell, snapping the reins, and up, up, and away goes the team.
"Now that's more like it," says Blitzen.
"Harder, harder!" squeals Cupid, who's a masochist.
"Shut-up!" orders Rudolph, and they subside, the only sound the tinkling of sleighbells and the giggles of Crumpet and Marley.
#
Thirty-six hours and some 6 billion visitations later--and that's as probably accurate as approximate, and it sure feels like it, it is officially Christmas morning in the western hemisphere and I am back home, so tired I'm shaking.
Nick and Kris run out to meet me with a bunch of elves, who are eager to carry away Crumpet and Marley, who don't seem tired at all, but would much rather regale them our adventures--particularly the one in Chicago where I tripped up some security alarms in a high-rise and lets just stop right there, shall we?
"Check you out!" says Nick. "Gothica Clause!"
"Rasputina," I correct.
"Cindy," says Kris, whom I kick. Hard.
"Ow!"
Nick's laughing. "Oh you poor kid! We tried changing our plane tickets but it was just a no-go. When Snowball and Ginger picked us up at Barrow, they told us you got sent. How'd it go?"
"I'm still here," I said.
"Yeah, who's a badass motherf--" Kris broke off as Mom came out with a huge tray of mugs of coccoa, shoving one into my hands.
"Our lil sister's all grown up," Nick said, in a mock-crying voice.
"And delivering presents," said Kris in the same tone.
"Oh!" they sound in unison and begin to fake cry into their mugs. "Our baby!" "So wonderful!"
"Shut-urp," I grumble. I'm totalling pretending like I hate it all, though once I got the hang of it, it was pretty fun.
"Hey, you should get used to it," whispers Nick. "We're thinking about grad school!"
"You mean--" And my tummy starts doing nervous flip-flops, half excited, half fearful.
"Yup," says Kris, "you, Cindy Loo Who Suspiria Rasputina Gothica Clause, may be doing this for a living."
I start to protest, then stop. Instead I start really thinking, and I can see my growing smirk is causing nervous looks. Christmas traditions are a wonderful thing, but now and then, change is good.
And I can start with the colors...
Rudolph catches me eyeing his glowing nose. "Kid," he says gruffly, "don't even t'ink aboud it."
I look innocent as Mom brings us inside and Dad, with loads of Robitussin in his system, tells us how proud he is of us all.
Nothing's written in stone yet.
But after breakfast I am so asking the magic sack for some more dye.
/End.
