Yuletide blowback

by David Benjamin

 

“My road of good intentions/ Led where such roads always lead/ No good deed/ Goes unpunished … ”

— Idina Menzel, from Wicked

THE NORTH POLE — For a few days after Christmas Eve, Santa Claus is dead to the world, sleeping off his whirlwind journey, soothing the bruises from squeezing his ample and aging hindquarters down a million chimneys.

When he finally revives, he settles beside the fire with a spreadsheet, a bottle of Bushmill’s and Mrs. Claus. Together, they assess the emotional damage and bitter recrimination wreaked by another season of love, giving and goodwill toward men 

Blurry from his long winter’s nap, Santa scanned a scroll of holiday blunders, disappointments, complaints and ingratitude that stretched across the floor, more than twenty feet long. “Look at this,” he growled, pointing to the first item. 

Mrs. Claus had been studying the list for two days. “You mean tiny Tommy Tilden from Tulsa?”

“Judas priest!” exclaimed Santa, struggling to curb his language. “He’s bitching because the scooter I delivered to the little snot wasn’t motorized? He’s six years old. Give him a motor and he’ll run it into a tree. He’d kill himself.”

“Would that be such a loss?” asked Mrs. Claus. She pulled Tommy’s naughty/nice rap sheet from a folder.

“My God!” said Santa. “He put the cat into the microwave?”

Mrs. Claus smiled mirthlessly. “Blew the door right off. His mom is still scraping fur off the ceiling.”

“Why didn’t we just give the sadistic brat a stocking full of coal?”

“Nick!” said his wife. “You know we don’t do that any more. The litigation costs were killing us. Not to mention the time Greenpeace sank our coal barge.”

Santa fought the urge to toss the scroll into the fire. “Do we have any issues here that won’t give me a migraine?”

“Hardly,” said Mrs. Claus, handing Santa a brimming mug of hot whiskey. “Let’s start with little Bobby Shaftoe.”

Santa. “Bobby? What’s his beef? I got him what he wanted, didn’t I?”

“Well, sort of. He asked you for a radio-controlled firetruck.”

“And that’s what he got, dammit!” Santa drank half his glass in one gulp, burning his palate and barking in pain.

“Yes, but, the thing is,” said Mrs. Claus, “that was before the Apple people flooded his social media account with propaganda for the new iPhone 14, leaving Bobby terrified that he would be the laughingstock of third grade—using an out-of-date device—when he got back to school after New Year’s.”

“So, you’re telling me little Bobby wanted a phone instead of a toy truck?”

“At the last minute, yes,” said Mrs. Claus. “That’s how kids are.”

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know?”

“We texted your sleigh, Nick. You were … let’s see … ” Mrs. Claus riffled through Santa’s delivery manifest. “Probably somewhere over Schenectady.”

Santa shook his head. “You know how phone batteries freeze up and die, in the cold, over New York, in December. By then, I wasn’t getting any reception.”

“Well, maybe if you were using an iPhone 14?”

Santa scowled. “I can’t solve Bobby’s phone issues tonight. Too bad for him. What next?”

“Well, Bobby’s sister, Britney?”

“What about her?”

“She wanted to switch gifts, too,” said Mrs. Claus, tapping the next item. “She didn’t get the new set of skis and a round-trip ticket to St. Moritz that she wanted.”

“Well, of course, she didn’t get skis and a trip! She didn’t ask for that. Last time I knew, she was begging me for a fully furnished three-story, gabled Victorian dollhouse with silk wallpaper—which is exactly what I left under her tree. How could I forget? It took at least fifty elf-hours to put the damn monstrosity together!”

“I know, Santa baby. But two days before Christmas, Britney found out that her BFF, Ashley, was getting a trip to the Swiss Alps, with her new skis.”

“I knew what Ashley wanted. And she got her skis. I almost killed myself getting them down the chimney.”

“Only, well … ” Mrs. Claus sighed and poured more steaming Bushmill’s. “I know you tried, dear. But I’m afraid Ashley changed her mind about the skis, and about going to St. Moritz.”

“What the hell for? That’s expensive stuff. The kid is spoiled rotten.”

“Well, she is spoiled. That’s part of the the problem,” said Mrs. Claus. “But the main thing was Buzz.”

“Buzz?”

“Ashley’s new boyfriend. She wanted to stay home, so she could ride behind Buzz on the new Harley Davidson motorcycle he was getting for Christmas.”

“Just a goddamn minute,” said Santa. “I distinctly remember NOT delivering any Harley to any kid named Buzz.”

“Right again. No bike for Buzz,” said Mrs. Claus. “However, according to your final—revised—flight plan, you were supposed to give Ashley the Harley, so she could re-gift it to Buzz. There’s another message you missed, honey.”

“Ashley? I wouldn’t give that kid a motorcycle even if I knew she wanted one. She’s fourteen! You don’t give a 150-horsepower hog to an eighth-grade girl!”

“Ninth, actually,” said Mrs. Claus. “And you know darn well you can’t do anything about her parents. They give her anything she wants. Remember the pet baby elephant you had to smuggle out of Zimbabwe?”

“Oh, Christ,” said Santa, “do I remember? I was bailing elephant shit out of the sleigh all night long.”

As Santa and Mrs. Claus began to cope with hundreds of thousands of rejected, unwanted and misdirected Christmas presents, Santa had a brainstorm. “Wait. If Ashley’s not using the skis and the ticket to St, Moritz, why can’t Britney take her place?”

Mrs. Claus laughed, succumbing to sarcasm. “Fuggedaboudit, Nick,” she said. “Ashley’s and Britney’s parents haven’t spoken to one another for two years.”

“But they live right next-door.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Claus. “On opposite sides of the twelve-foot spite fence that Ashley’s dad built after Britney’s dad ripped up his lawn and replaced all that manicured grass with wildflowers, dandelions, prairie grasses and beehives.”

“Oh, that’s right. The Shaftoes went green,” Santa nodded. “I remember. And then Ashley’s dad sicced the Homeowners Association on Britney’s dad for violating community streetscape standards.”

“Yes, but then Britney’s dad took the Homeowners Association to court.”

“Right,” said Santa. “And when the Homeowners Association lost the case, Ashley’s dad was so pissed off he set fire to Britney’s dad’s prairie.”

“Which backfired,” said Mrs. Claus, “because the fire fed fresh nutrients into the soil, which stimulated the weeds to grow back bigger and healthier than ever, and spread their seeds onto Ashley’s dad’s lawn.”

“Which sent Ashley’s dad totally around the bend.”

“And he started lobbing cantaloupes, eggplants and rotten tomatoes over the fence.”

“After which,” said Santa, smiling nostalgically, “Britney’s dad bought three goats, who ate the fruits and veggies as soon as they cleared the fence.”

“Which brought the Homeowners Association back into the battle, because they were shocked—shocked!—at the presence of ruminant livestock in a gated community.”

“Except,” Santa recalled, “for the loophole. There’s no mention of goats in the Homeowners Association bylaws. Just cows, pigs and horses. Yahtzee!”

“So, last holiday season, Ashley’s dad walked nextdoor with his Christmas present (remember, Nick?)—a pump-action twelve-gauge over-and-under Remington shotgun—and blew all three goats to Kingdom come.”

“I remember the bloodstains on the siding,” said Santa wistfully.

“Oh, goodness!” said Mrs. Claus, standing up. “That reminds me.”

She toddled over to the magnificent North Pole Christmas tree and came back with a big gaily-wrapped package. “Merry Christmas, Nicky,” she cooed.

“For me?” said Santa.

“Open it, sweetie.”

As he beheld his gift, Santa’s eyes, how they twinkled, his dimples how merry! It was bright red with white fur trim, six XXXL (to accommodate his not-so-little round belly).

“Oh, you darling girl! Just what I wanted,” he said, kissing Mrs. Claus. “A bullet-proof vest!”