Merry Christ-mess

A toy store has exploded in our living room, or rather, where the living room used to be. Now only a wasteland remains, littered with torn plastic, wrapping paper and other holiday debris. Every few yards a toy peeks out, tossed aside by its elfin master for a newer, better one.

Only the brave dare wade through the knee-high bog of Christmas past. At any moment you could be seriously maimed by stepping into a hidden Lego minefield. It’s rumored that two skateboards also lurk beneath the rubble. A misstep onto one of those could send you flying into shards of thick, ragged plastic, or impale you on an army of tiny Viking warriors, the pain of which would only be surpassed by the giggles of the emergency room nurse as she removes their wee little Norse spears from your backside. Truly no place for faint hearts or sensitive feet.

This is a holiday hangover that can’t be cured with aspirin, but maybe with a snow shovel, a stealth shovel, because the first sound of clean-up is sure to bring the creators of this biohazard raging to its defense. If Santa was dumb enough to give them weapons, they will turn them on you. Otherwise, they’ll resort to whining and pleading at a pitch that sends the dog running for cover. A real Christmas, they’ll howl, is messy.

And they’re right. We’re so entrenched in the stereotypical postcard Christmas that the stress and strain to make our holiday perfect puts us all in a foul mood by Boxing Day. The real Christmas is not tidy packages under a perfect tree, a silent night, a shiny home. The first Christmas was a mess – no vacancies, hay everywhere, guests arriving really late, and the cow snored worse than my dad.

I heard it was great.