Clickable Advent Calendar, 24: “A Download From St. Nicholas” and other stocking-stuffers
December 24, 2008 at 7:09 am by Curt Holman in A&E
The Clickable Advent Calendar is almost over for 2008, so here are some items I couldn’t get to, in the spirit of “stocking stuffers.”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention humorist David Sedaris, who made his name with acerbic commentaries on Christmas, particularly The Santaland Diaries (the theatrical version of which currently runs at Horizon Theatre and stars Harold Leaver, whom I interviewed in 2004). This year, for some reason I’m flashing on Sedaris’s “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol” in which a typically caustic theater critic takes on a school pageant.
Other favorite holiday TV shows include “Justice League’s” Christmas-themed “Comfort and Joy” (which features a great subplot in which the Flash and a bad guy called the Ultra-Humanite team up to give some orphans an impossible-to-find Christmas gift), the “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special” and pretty much any “South Park” Christmas installment. (I found this video of Cartman’s “Swiss Colony Beef Log” via a The Onion A.V. Club.)
Slate has “A slide show of some of America’s weirdest holiday light displays” (I particularly like #2, from Batesville, Miss.)
The blog Musical Fruitcake lives up to its billing as “A collection of the worst Christmas songs ever recorded.” Hear a girl sing “Mom and Dad, Please Don’t Steal for Me This Christmas.” Speaking of Christmas music, Andisheh drew my attention to WFMU’s Beware of the Blog post on MORE Christmas Disco!
Alejandro pointed out the Elf Yourself site, and since I saw it, I know at least one friend who’s elfed-up her family.
For atheists and agonistics alienated at advent, here’s Thomas Bell’s secular variation on “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” “Yes Shirley, There is a wide body of evidence suggesting there may be a higher order to the universe.”
And finally, for your Christmas Eve reading, “A Download from St. Nicholas:”
‘Twas the holiday eve, when all through the house
Not a user was clicking on a cordless mouse;
Our wish-lists were sent with care through e-mail
With hopes St. Nick would scan them without fail.
The children lay snug with quilts over their bods
While thousands of songs played on their iPods.
Switching off lights throughout our abode,
I looked forward to shutting down to sleep mode.
When from the home office there arose such a clatter
I nearly tripped over the three-prong adapter!
My flat-screen monitor came on with a zap
Disturbing our cat from its long winter’s nap.
When what to my wondering eyes should I see
But a diminutive hologram — in perfect 3-D!
I found myself start to go weak in the legs
When I saw the strange figure, and eight prancing JPEGs.
He’d updated his look, but anyone would know
That this jolly pop-up was St. Nick 2.0.
More rapid than DSL his icons they came
And with Flash animation he spelled out each name.
“Now eBay! Now Netflix! Now Powells and Amazon!
On Kozmo! On SafePets, PayPal and Half.com!”
He halted his team with a series of whistles
And I looked at Kris Kringle, now made from pixels.
His coat was as red as the Scarlet Pimpernel
And he wore an arm splint to prevent carpal tunnel.
He dragged over his pack from a close data port
(And, frankly, could’ve used some lumbar support).
He moved swiftly across my computer’s desktop
And opened some Zip files with a sound-effect “pop.”
Booting up the mail software, he moved quick as a fox
And downloaded gift credits into every inbox.
He glanced back my way, and with an emoticon wink ;-)
He compressed himself before I could think.
But he left a sound file, as he departed our lives,
That said, “Happy e-holidays! Back up your hard drives!”
Photo by Joeff Davis
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