Ugly Undertones to Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

Twitter posts call out the nastiness underlying a perennial Christmas animated special; Huffington Post aggregates the observations to create a damning portrait.

And another cherished memory is spoiled. 

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-disturbing-details_us_5bfe058fe4b0f43bf2661c7f 

This follows the revelation that 1970's Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, also from cheesy animation studio Rankin-Bass, has some negative undertones of its own.

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/119079/a-very-gay-jewish-christmas 

In Sombertown, the evil ruler Burgermeister Meisterburger orders toys burned and children into forced labor. Ho ho ho! Try to sleep well now, woke kiddies.

The House from Hell

For nine years I lived in a freak house. I'm not talking about my family, necessarily, but about the house itself. I lived in one of the most upscale suburbs and school districts in the country--but our house was a falling-down rental at the end of a long, rutted driveway. It wasn't exactly The Glass Castle, more like Grey Gardens without the money.

My brother in our creepy driveway

Today that driveway is a smoothly paved road through a development of multimillion-dollar houses in Westchester County. But in my memory it lives on as a hellish byway of broken asphalt, ancient patch jobs and loose gravel that scared away parents and children, and ruined Halloween (and many an undercarriage).

Holidays in Hell

This site examines holidays as defined in American English: Thanksgiving, Independence Day, etc. But in British English, the word "holiday" means vacation. So, a hellish holiday can mean a really awful vacation - as described in this somewhat horrifying article.

Seriously? Who would choose any of these places over the South of France?

Halloween Date From Hell

It just seems wrong to complain about a Hellish Halloween. After all, isn't that the whole point? Yes, there are parades and parties and dressing up. But the holiday's very nature is to be creepy. It's about scaring small children, TPing and egging, eating too much candy, getting separated from your hard-to-recognize friends...there are so many ways this gruesome holiday can go bad. Here's one you may not have thought of before.

One October in my twenties I was single and going through a dry spell. OK, large chunks of my twenties were dry, but that's another (hellish) story. I went out to dinner with a couple of girlfriends, and one of them brought her brother, Andrew. Andrew was, like me, a writer, but unlike me he actually had published several books.

Andrew and I hit it off. Sure, he was short, pudgy and bald, but at least he was funny. Ask my friend Peter--my main dating credo is "As long as he's funny." I believe the way he put it was, "Well, no one could accuse you of having a physical 'type.'" Frankly, Peter was always unable to differentiate between laughing with my dates and laughing at them. But I digress.

Christmas Is Always Coming

No, you're not imagining things. Christmas consumerism comes earlier every year. And this year may set the record: Dollar Tree has just released its 2017 "Holiday Book."  

A Public Service Announcement: Emergency Communications

Being unable to find out if my mother was dead or alive in Puerto Rico for five days post-Maria was terrifying, especially because she had a broken leg and was housebound. I learned a lot from this horrendous experience, mostly that you need to have a plan in place BEFORE a disaster. And that plan has to be more than “Call me as soon as you can.”

Here are my hurricane-inspired guidelines for communication in emergency situations.

1. Phone. The most frustrating aspect of the Hurricane Maria emergency was the complete lack of working phones anywhere – not just on the island, but on widely shared lists of governmental aid agencies like FEMA. NONE of those numbers worked, even when their area codes were in places not affected by the hurricane. Here’s a newsflash: you will not be able to rely on the government for communication in case of an emergency. It will be private citizens and NGOs that make things happen.

That said, even though phone service may be out for days, phones are still your first line of defense. Create a network of friends and family in different states and even countries. If the person in the disaster zone can get through to even one, he or she can spread the word to the rest of the network. Create your own plan, with people you know and trust, and watch out for each other.

Note that sometimes texting works even when regular phone service doesn’t. Keep calling and texting. At some point, phones will come back online. Don't fill up voicemail in case others need to leave messages.  

Oh, and keep your phone charged! Have at least one portable charger like this one and keep it/them charged too.

A Democrat's Holiday Lament

It's Christmas 2016 and you're not feeling it. Somehow you've managed to throw up some decorations, bake some cookies and wrap some gifts. But the more you try to stoke the flames of holiday joy, the more apparent it becomes: This will be a sad one. SAD, as in Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD as in Sorrowful, Anguished, Distraught.

You've tried to get into the spirit, but instead of counting your blessings, you're counting the number of petitions you've signed, the horrifying cabinet appointments, the looming decades of despair. 

Your incoming president and his minions are laying the framework to destroy the few things you liked about the government. Every day brings another "Springtime for Hitler" moment, and you watch, agape, as another Worst Possible Thing happens. No wait, here's something even worse.

Your friends are sick of listening to you bitch, and vice versa. You all agree the wallowing has got to stop, but each new announcement brings fresh wails of pain.

Your once cohesive group of Facebook friends is now a tattered assemblage of groups you've painstakingly customized to see curated posts. Your Facebook feed is littered with threats, demands and nasty comment-based mudslinging. You've been unfriended and you've unfriended others - including some family members. And so you enter the holiday season with fewer friends, and even though that's only true in a virtual sense, it feels very IRL.

You've attempted a news blackout, swearing off CNN and MSNBC and changing your home page away from The New York Times because every story you forget to avoid punches you in the gut. You feel alternately sick and guilty: The gifting of our country to one percenters and science deniers should be energizing you to take action...but all those worsts have worn you down. So you're only watching Shark Tank and Big Bang Theory on regular TV, and binging on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. Amazon's cancellation of Good Girls Revolt at the moment you finished the first season hit you like a sucker punch.

You've gotten fewer Christmas cards this year, and those you did get came without a cheery Christmas newsletter because, well, no one's feeling that cheery and there isn't much good news.

The weather is making climate change doubters gleeful because it got cold again and that means the glaciers are saved, right? Drilling in the Arctic is back on, either way.

Sure, SNL is must-see again, but only because it makes you smile as it twists the knife. 

Satire is surely a goner. Fiction couldn't think up anything crazier than what's been going on this year.

Leonard Cohen, Prince and Bowie are silenced forever, while Kid Rock and Ted Nugent step back into the spotlight. 

Christmas 2016: The poster child for Hellish Holidays.

Unthankful

Parents go to a lot of trouble to give their kids delicious food, time with extended family and memorable experiences on Thanksgiving. Here's how some ungrateful wretches respond. (Caution: $#&;*$%^ language ahead)

That Darn Election

Those Darn Slackers

Irredeemable Slacker (Almost) Redeemed

Note: This guy has been on YouTube as long as Hellish Holidays has been publishing!

A Very Jimmy Halloween

The 6th anniversary of watching parents humiliate their kids and show off the poor parenting skills that created these tantrum-throwing sugar junkies.

Hungry for more? Here are the previous editions.

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

#ThanksgivingFail

Here we go again.

Glitches in plans longstanding and last-minute. 

Travel that dooms any sense of thankfulness and reinforces the theory that hell is other people. 

Family that threatens to do the same. 

Eating to the point of bursting seams, guilt and depression. 

Continued drought...or early snow. 

Black Friday mania and marketing run amok.

The dreary trek back home.

Happy Hellish Thanksgiving!

New Year's Resolution Song

"Just raise the bar to walk effortlessly underneath." Words to live by!

Dec. 26th Hellishness

Macy's shoe department. I took one look and ran!

Christmas for Atheists

Despite the title of my blog, I semi-love the holidays. Lighting the Hanukkah candles, baking cookies, wrapping carefully chosen gifts, decorating the house, creating Jib Jab cards with pictures of friends and family, Christmas Eve dinner at my aunt and uncle's house...when I'm not having an emotional breakdown tied to a broken oven or lost shipments, I mostly revel in the split personality of the Christmas/Hanukkah season.

Then there's the religious aspect. Sure, there's less and less "Christ" in "Christmas" every year, but Jesus' birthday is still the raison d'etre of the holiday. As an atheist with a Jewish son, I've carefully honed my skills at avoidance, denial and obliviousness. Fortunately, these come fairly naturally to me!

I grew up going to church, so carols and Christmas-themed hymns bring back vivid memories, and good or bad, those memories of our youth hold significant power. I recall the tension caused by my parents' different religions, the negative messages spoken and unspoken. I recall the last Christmas my parents were together (1972) and realize how hard they must have been trying to keep it together. And the first Christmas after they'd separated, how awkward to bisect our celebration.

Perhaps most vividly, I recall sitting with my mother and youngest sister in the front row at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church on Christmas Eve 28 years ago, right before I left New York for Los Angeles, and all of us sobbing uncontrollably at "Silent Night." (I had the same reaction to the movie Platoon around the same time. Hard to believe I had such mixed feelings about moving cross country!)

These days, I get lots of requests to participate in caroling, Christmas performances, such as Handel's Messiah - even midnight Mass. Occasionally I give in, and try to enjoy some bonding and/or aesthetic fulfillment. But since I'm not a believer, those songs ring hollow and feel like an uncomfortable melding of mawkish and fraudulent.

For atheists, 'tis the season for hiking and movies!

Hellish Letters to Santa

If you ever find yourself in northern Michigan, make sure to set your Waze for Frankenmuth. This year-round Christmas town features Bronner's Christmas Wonderland. Don't worry if it's July and you're covered in cherry juice from the roadside stands: At Bronner's it's always frosty and jolly in the most December 25th sense of that term. The place is a city-sized Christmas merch mecca.

According to Michigan-centric website MLive, Bronner's invites kids to submit letters to Santa and this year received the au courant yet typical marketing-driven pleadings for "iPods and iPhones, tablets, 'Frozen' paraphernalia, LEGOs and Zoomer — an interactive toy dog."

I've seen arm-length wish lists before, both from my own child and as a participant in a charity-sponsored event to purchase something for an underprivileged child.

I only did the Santa charity thing once because most of the lists asked for at least a dozen very specific and expensive items: video game systems and games, computers, electronic toys... Almost everything included a brand name. You just knew these kids were not going to be happy with some random gift from a toy drive. They wanted what they saw on TV and even the most well-meaning donor couldn't come close to satisfying their desires.

I realize that Christmas is commercialized. That it's (almost) all about the presents. But seeing wish lists adding up to many hundreds of dollars is depressing regardless of the financial situations of the children's families. I still wonder where I went wrong every time I look at what my own teen son craved, both in quantity and specificity.

Luckily the joy of Christmas morning comes from being with family and giving of yourself - not just taking. No matter how high the greed level and how impoverished the household, the magic can still happen. All it takes is a different kind of list.

A Musically Hellish Christmas (Videos)

Yes, the Chipmunks are always nauseating, but there’s plenty more hellish Christmas music.



It’s the acting that’s hellish, not the Ramones.

The new holiday classic!



Woof.



Ribbit.



Shake those Christmas disco balls!




The ultimate hodgepodge: jarring yet compelling.