CHARISMATIC MEGAFAUNA

By Quiconque

Ho, Ho, Ho!

As La Belle H�l�ne has written, Christmas preparations are in full swing at my house. The tree is up, the little snow village is arranged on the piano, and twinkle lights have been tied to the porch. Remnants of Christmas crafts litter every room: boxes of ink and glitter on the dining table, shredded paper in the living room, sewing notions strewn across the basement futon. Everybody loudly announces her presence upon entering a room so that she doesn�t unwittingly walk in on someone wrapping her Christmas gift.

We usually decorate the tree to the sounds of parang, but this year we were serenaded by Beck, Chris Cornell, and Remy Zero. Not exactly traditional, but Spanish-Caribbean folksongs warning a little chicken not to go into the forest lest it get eaten by a manicoo (opossum) is about as Christmassy as any lyric Beck Hansen has dreamed up. We don�t cling to holiday traditions in our family. We do something because it worked best that way for a while. Once circumstances change, we are comfortable changing along with them.

David Sedaris has written perhaps the best story about Christmas customs, "Six to Eight Black Men.� Prima and I were in Amsterdam one year around St. Nicholas Day and no one told us about the six-to-eight black men. All we saw were chocolate initials.

My family�s own Christmas story could be titled, �Two to Three �Hos.� Years ago, when my Granny lived with us, we were visited on Christmas morning not by an angel, or Santa, or even six to eight black men, but by a pimp and his two bitches. I blame Granny.

My sister and I rightly believe that we are the best of two bad bunches. My father�s side of the family is just as colorful and strange as my mother�s side, but we generally see less of them, and therefore are insulated from much of their mania. A lot of this changed when my father�s mother came to live with us eight years ago.

We usually spend Christmas morning in our pyjamas, opening presents. There�s no elaborate spread�just a ham and some coconut sweetbread that we graze on throughout the day. Dealing with the outside world, (e.g., going to Mass) is taken care of the night before.

That year, we�d finally convinced my father that no one was ever going to watch the incredibly boring home movies of us opening presents; so there wasn�t even a video camera to get dolled up for. Imagine our surprise when the doorbell rang around 9:30 a.m. We knew it was not SuperFudge and her family�no one expects them before noon. Lo and behold, my cousin, Granny�s grandson, coasted in, decked out in a black zoot suit with a scantily-clad hoochie on each arm. Cousin Pimp deposited the women on the couch right next to Granny, while he took the footstool near my father.

My sister and I looked at each other, the line from Hollywood Shuffle playing simultaneously in our heads, �Where beee myy biiiitches?� My father, clueless on purpose, airily asked Cousin Pimp how his wife was doing, at which point Cousin Pimp took my father into the kitchen to explain the �sichation.�

No one ever introduced the hos to us, but one of them had Cousin Pimp�s name tattooed to her lower back. Can you picture it? She was wearing so few clothes on Christmas morning, sitting next to my grandmother, that we could see her lower back tattoo from across the room. My sister, mother, and I, sat there making small talk to the women, trying hard not to ask them about their work or what they might have been doing the night before.

To further surrealize the morning, upon returning from the kitchen, Cousin Pimp whipped out a gangster roll of cash from his pocket, counted off $200, and pressed the wad of cash into Granny�s hand as if she were a valet at the Bellagio. And with that, he and his entourage left.

That all happened many years ago, and Granny no longer lives at my house, but whenever we hear a car radio blasting 50 Cent or Nate Dogg on Christmas morning, we rush to the window in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Cousin Pimp in his Humvee.

LINKS

DIARYRINGS

READING: Final exams.

WATCHING: The bloated, stupid, painfully embarrassing, and ultimately audience alienating Apprentice finale.