'Back for Christmas'

 

Frequent New Yorker contributor John Collier wrote a nasty little story, "Back for Christmas" (1939) that has become an atypical holiday favorite. 

Last year, it was featured in American Christmas Stories, a Library of America volume edited by Connie Willis. Despite the story's title, it has little to do with Christmas. The protagonist's wife promises the couple will return from America in time to celebrate the holiday in England, but the setting is actually several months earlier. 

I first learned of "Back for Christmas" from one of its radio adaptations. It has been featured three times on Suspense and once on Escape. In the script, writer Robert Tallman changed the main character from a medical doctor to a professor of botany and added some business about a devil's garden in the basement. Both revisions are effective. 

The Suspense episode starring Peter Lorre is justly praised as a classic. However, I prefer the Escape episode with Paul Frees in the title role. Lorre sounds too creepy from the start, so his descent into homicidal madness isn't as shocking as Frees's. The listener is still able to muster some sympathy for Frees's doctor, despite his crime. Not so with Lorre's portrayal. (Sirius XM's Radio Classics is playing the Lorre version several times this week; it's also available on demand to subscribers.) 

All of the radio adaptations do justice to Collier's work, but searching out the original story is still worthwhile.  

A Suspect Santa

For somebody who professes to dislike Christmas, I've sure written about it enough. This holiday-themed column is from The Alliance Review in 2014. 

I guess I’m playing Santa this year.

Some people say this whenever they hand out gifts, but I mean it literally. My mom has invested in a suit and beard and wants me to play the jolly old elf for my two-year-old niece. That’s the upper age limit of anybody who will be fooled by my imitation, to be sure.

Unbeknownst to me, I’ve been preparing for the role all year. Over the past twelve months, I’ve packed on about twenty pounds. While I have a way to go before I’m truly in Santa’s weight class, I still should require fewer pillows to create Claus’s trademark plumpness.

In terms of Santa’s characterization, I’d like to say I’m from the Marlon Brando and Daniel Day-Lewis school of method acting. Those two gentlemen get into character and stay in character — past tense in the case of Brando, who died in 2004 — whether the cameras are rolling or not.

If I followed their lead between now and Christmas Eve, I’d be Santa fulltime, booming out a baritone “Ho! Ho! Ho!” to students on exam day, yelling encouragement to Rudolph when accelerating my Neon down the street, and giving out candy canes to stray passersby.

However, with only one suit, I’m afraid I might start to smell a little ripe before Christmas, like a fruitcake gone horribly bad. And playing Santa without a suit is like playing Tiny Tim without the crutch or Little Ralphie without a Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with the compass in the stock. It can’t be done.

Instead, I’m steeping myself in the classics in hopes that the characterizations will rub off. Last weekend, I watched Tim Allen in “The Santa Clause,” a movie about a down-on-his-luck schlep who magically transforms into Santa after his marriage goes sour and he loses custody of his kid. A real upbeat holiday film, that.

Then there is “Miracle of 34th Street,” about a department store Santa who thinks he is the real thing. He ends up in court, trying to prove he’s not insane. Another heartwarming hit.

Maybe I’d have better luck sticking to Santa stories in print. L. Frank Baum, the creator of “The Wizard of Oz,” wrote a novel called “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus,” but I’ve never been able to get past the first couple of chapters. Imagine Santa as delineated by J.R.R. Tolkien after a night of heavy drinking and you’ll get the general drift.

Then there’s Dr. Seuss’s classic, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” about another crazed character who gets his Santa fix by dressing up as Anti Claus and stealing an entire town’s Christmas. Yeah, sure, he gives it all back and the Whos even invite him to carve the roast beast, but I’m sure that on Dec. 26 they arrest him for multiple B&E’s and throw the book at him. Because they’re white and he’s green, he probably gets choked out for “resisting arrest” or spends the rest of his life as Charles Manson’s cellmate.

Hey, what is it with all these Santa stories and delusional, tragic characters? Is my mother trying to tell me something?

Maybe I should stick with Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” better known as “The Night Before Christmas.” It’s probably the most quoted poem in the English language, which doesn’t say too much for America’s taste in verse. But at least the Santa it presents is of the non-postmodernist, non-ironic, Victorian variety: He’s (ital.) really (end ital.) St. Nick, and nobody carts him off to the asylum halfway through or threatens legal action when he slips down their chimneys and eats their cookies.

He’s also mostly silent, other than a few shouts to his reindeer. In many ways, this is good news. I don’t have to disguise my voice, learn any lines or, worst of all, offer any extemporaneous comments, like railing against crass consumerism (which Santa represents) or criticizing the military-industrial complex. When I go off script is when I get myself in trouble. Santa as the strong and silent type. That’s the ticket.

As long as I don’t get him confused with Brando and start screaming, “Hey, STELLA!,” halfway through handing out presents, I think I’ll get through this without permanently scarring any children.

Here’s hoping.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com

cschillig on Twitter

A 'perfect' Christmas

This was originally published in The Alliance Review waaaaay back in 2006. My definition of a perfect Christmas has changed a little. Maybe. 

A wise person – if not Gandhi, then probably Dear Abby – once wrote that the perfect Christmas could take more than one year to celebrate.

Important and time-consuming elements can be parceled out over several years to avoid fatigue: One year to put up the perfect tree and bake cookies, the next to focus on outdoor lighting and Christmas carols, a third to doll up gifts with ribbons and bows, and so on.

When one looks back over the years, these memories will blur together to create the “perfect” Christmas.

I can buy that – a slacker philosophy disguised as new-age wisdom.

That being the case, I guess this is my year for outdoor lighting and Christmas carols, not because last year I erected a pristine tree and baked 50 dozen gingerbread men, but because the weather was accommodating for the lights and I can’t escape the carols if I tried.

Temperatures approached 60 degrees the day I decked my halls, leading to two firsts – the first time I have decorated wearing only a T-shirt (OK, I wore pants and shoes, too, but you knew that, didn’t you?) and the first time I ventured on top of the porch roof.

My porch isn’t high, but for a guy who cries “Mommy” when he gets to the third rung on a step ladder, tiptoeing onto it is akin to rappelling down the side of the Alps.

It didn’t help that I had three strands of icicle lights underfoot and a wife who kept calling up from the safety of the ground, “Be careful. Your cousin’s porch is the same height, and somebody died falling off of it.”

(Little plastic fixtures under the shingles: $5. Holiday lights: $25. A loving and supportive spouse: Priceless. For everything else…)

Obviously, I survived. If the weather holds, the silly things are coming down next Tuesday, before an ice storm or some other freak of nature cements them up there until Easter, no matter how Grinchly it makes me look in the neighborhood,.

But I said this is also my year for Christmas carols. Friends and family need not worry: I’m not singing door to door. I know my voice can curl an elephant’s nose hairs, falling as it does somewhere between Michael Bolton and truly awful. (Not that Bolton is far from truly awful himself, but I digress.)

No, I’ve been (ital.) listening (end ital.) to carols this year, which puts me more in mind of Groundhog’s Day than Christmas, since there are only about a dozen songs that get played to death between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Take “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” – please (with apologies to Henny Youngman). We have perfectly acceptable Perry Como versions (he recorded two), a not-quite-so-acceptable Carpenters version, and a truly frightening Jim Nabors’ rendition, which proves that even a guy with great pipes can’t escape the long shadow of Gomer Pyle, USMC.

I’ve heard all of them this season, and I could probably live a long and happy life without ever hearing any of them again.

Not all carols affect me that way. I like “Silent Night” (the less instrumentation the better), “Deck the Halls” (those fa-la-la’s get me every time), and even “Frosty the Snowman,” although it’s more of a winter song with a little snatch of Christmas thrown in at the end.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been listening to albums by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a mostly Christmas hard rock/heavy metal band that dresses up classical pieces with a lot of three-chord bombast, cheesy lyrics, and production values reminiscent of Queen. The results are sometimes tacky and gaudy, but it stirs blood made sluggish by too much eggnog, I tell ya.

Yet even those guys I’m weary of by Dec. 25. I’m fickle that way.

Probably the only Christmas song I can listen to repeatedly, even in June, is “Father Christmas” by the Kinks. It perfectly captures the madness of the holiday consumer season and the gulf between the haves and have-nots.

The song is loud and a little depressing, just like Christmas is sometimes, even when you’re assigning parts to different years to avoid total Yuletide burnout.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, and if you see some guy being pushed down the street in a full body cast next week, humming disjointed lyrics like “Father Christmas, give me some money!” that will be me.

At least you’ll know I took down my lights.

Readers Sound Off on Tipping Mickeys

For Those Who Came in Late: A few weeks back, I wrote about tipping costumed characters in New York City.

I had a close encounter with five such folks − Elmo, Mickey, two Minnies and a Grinch − on Thanksgiving morning. One of them used my phone to snap a photo of me with the other four. I tipped five bucks. They insisted, loudly, that the interaction was worth $20. Nevertheless, I held firm with my original tip.

I asked readers whether five dollars was an acceptable gratuity and why (or why not).

Thirty-seven readers responded to the survey, a big reality check since I had been expecting tens of thousands of people to weigh in on a topic so vital to the future of civilized society. My wife, who excels at keeping me grounded, said without guile that 36 was twice as many as she had expected.

Despite the miniscule numbers, I was gratified that the statement “Chris’s five-dollar tip was JUST RIGHT” attracted a razor-thin majority, 51.4%. If I had been a candidate in Georgia, I wouldn’t have needed a run-off.

I’m compelled to note that in last week’s run-off in the Peach State, Raphael Warnock, as honest and upright a candidate as one could find anywhere, corralled the same percentage, which means that 48.6% still voted for Herschel Walker, werewolf hunter, who lives just a few doors down from Beelzebub.

My own 48.6% broke down differently between the two remaining choices.

Surprisingly, 37.8% of respondents agreed with “Hey, they asked Chris for a picture! He should have tipped LESS than five dollars.”

Only 10.8% of readers clicked, “Chris was a scrooge! He should have tipped twenty dollars or MORE.”

Because I’m more of a qualitative than quantitative guy, I was especially interested in the comments. Readers didn’t disappoint.

“Elmo should have at least combed his face. He deserves none of the $5,” wrote one.

“They prey on tourists,” said another. “You weren’t even a memory when they left you. They were on their way to another victim.”

“These costumers didn't drive in from Ohio,” wrote a cartoon-character sympathizer. “They most probably live in the Big Apple, and life expenses for them are a lot more comparatively than a dinky little town such as Alliance.” Later, the same commenter opined that “if you couldn't afford to give that much, you should have not agreed to have had any pictures taken.”

Another offered a similar observation: “In NYC $20 is like $5 here in flyover land. When in Rome …”

A couple respondents further noted that Starbucks, which I had just exited, bag in hand, when my tale of mouse tails (and Grinch feet and ticklish Elmos) began, was more expensive than Starbucks here in northeast Ohio. So my tip should have been larger, too.

Point taken.

But I would also argue that, if costumed mice made me say cheese in the greater Alliance area, I would have tipped a dollar or two. So I did inflate my tip because of geography.

Finally, one respondent shared a similar encounter in the Philippines, in the company of a group of fellow Marines. A street hustler painted a young Marine’s tennis shoes with white dye, effectively ruining the shoes.

“With age comes wisdom,” the reader said, “and I can say with relative confidence that you have a greater sense of tact and social grace than that young Marine had at the time. But an ass kicking seems an appropriate response in both cases.”

In closing, let me reiterate I tip generously in most situations, and I urge readers to do the same.

Especially at the holidays, when tempers are short and patience wears thin, support the people who are doing their best to make your interactions merry and bright.

Even if one of them is dressed like Elmo with an unkempt face. Maybe especially then.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

Poem of the Year written 150 years early

Tell all the truth but tell it slant -

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind -

— Emily Dickinson

It’s the time of year for dictionary publishers to announce their Word of the Year selections.

Merriam-Webster chose “gaslighting.” Cambridge Dictionary went with “homer,” the Wordle answer on May 5 that garnered more lookups than any other word. Oxford Dictionary is leaving the choice to readers, who can vote for one of three options: metaverse, #IStandWith, and Goblin Mode.

I don’t know if there is a Poem of the Year, but if so, I vote for Emily Dickinson’s verse above, often known by its first line since the author declined to title her work.

Dickinson scholars estimate “Tell all the truth but tell it slant -” was written in 1872, but some date it several decades earlier. It wasn’t published until after the poet’s death in 1886. (Dickinson’s long, strange road to publication is just as fascinating as her singular life and work.)

So, what makes a 150-year-old poem speak to our cultural moment in 2022?

For one thing, it’s still important to be diplomatic when telling the truth. There is truth, unvarnished truth, and truth that leads the hearer to understand the unvarnished truth.

Many spouses can attest to the importance of “slant” when their significant others ask, “How do I look in this?” While the fate of the universe doesn’t hinge on the answer, the fate of the relationship might.

The recent election, too, speaks to a gradual dazzling of the truth. For many voters, the truth about the kinds of people running for various positions up and down the ticket may have finally dawned on them.

It can be fun for a while to back mavericks, conspiracy theorists and so-called straight shooters, but not at the expense of our system of government, of democracy itself. What is sometimes mischaracterized as refreshing honesty in a candidate is often nothing more than cold-heartedness writ large and shouted through a microphone.

In the weeks after the midterm election, the nominal leader of this certain category of politicians continues to tell the American public who he is, not even bothering to slant the truth anymore. The question is whether more Americans will believe what he is saying when he breaks bread with a white nationalist/Holocaust denier and an antisemite, or espouses the belief that even the Constitution itself should be set aside to allow him to remain in office.

Ultimately, Dickinson’s poem speaks to those who have not been bedazzled by false promises, serving as a reminder of how to speak to those who have.

It’s not easy to deprogram a cult member. Likewise, it’s not easy to steer family and friends back into the mainstream after they have been besotted by demagogues. “Success in circuit” means starting small, finding areas of agreement and building from there.

The sort of dissatisfaction with the economy and culture that led to such a severe break didn’t happen overnight. It won’t be healed overnight either. Certainly, a holiday party is not the place to unleash “the Truth’s superb surprise.” Save that for the New Year.

Dickinson was a famous recluse. We don’t have to be to avoid tough talk. Nor do we have to lie.

But telling all the truth means providing a little slant, or spin, that makes everybody more amenable to the lesson.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Was I Santa or Scrooge with my holiday tipping?

I like to think I’m a generous customer.

In restaurants, I tip 20%. Often more when the service is exceptional. Seldom less even if the service is poor.

You know a “but” is coming. Be patient, it’ll be here in a few more paragraphs.

A recent NBC News story on “tipflation” made me stop and think. It discussed how some retail establishments are adding a tipping option at checkout for jobs that are traditionally not augmented by gratuities.

That’s ludicrous. When I use the self-checkout at a certain big-box retailer, I feel the company should tip me because I’m doing most of the work − loading and unloading the cart, scanning, paying, everything except stocking the shelves. And I’d probably do that too if I could.

However, the NBC report made me realize that I should start tipping for takeout orders. After all, somebody took time to make and package the food, and that’s a service. In the piece, Thomas Farley, a.k.a. Mr. Manners, advised 10%.

Now, here comes the big “but” (he said with a wink and just the slightest hint − a crack, if you will − of a smile).

But I didn’t know how much I was expected to tip in the following situation:

I was in New York City for the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year. While waiting for the parade to step off, I headed to Starbucks to grab some breakfast and take it back to my wife, who was waiting along the route.

As I exited the restaurant, I saw Mickey, two Minnies, Elmo and the Grinch walking down the street. (If they walked into a bar, it would be the setup for a joke.) Being an infrequent visitor to the Big Apple, I didn’t realize people dress like this often. I snapped a photo with my phone.

This brought me to the attention of the entire cartoon menagerie, who made a beeline in my direction to pose with me. I guess they gave me a choice, but it also felt aggressive, with lots of masked people surrounding me.

Three photos and five seconds later, all their little costumed hands were extended for a tip. I pulled out my wallet, which was my first mistake. I gave them a five, which was maybe my second.

“Five dollars?” one of them said, whipping out a roll of bills from some secret pocket in Minnie’s skirt. “There are five of us! It is more like $20!”

Indeed, the wad of money had at least one twenty on top, although I suspect this was for show and that underneath were ones and fives.

The frugal Midwesterner in me bristled. Twenty bucks per “photo shoot” would be equivalent to $240 per hour and almost $2,000 a shift. Granted, these characters weren’t ever going to make that much since most of their day was spent hustling (in multiple senses of the word) for business. And they did have the expense of the suits.

They also were using my equipment (which, thankfully, they returned) and likely weren’t claiming any of their tips as taxable income. They certainly weren’t paying licensing fees to Disney, the Dr. Seuss estate or Sesame Street. I doubt executives would be tickled that Elmo was shaking down pedestrians in Manhattan.

Armed with this knowledge, along with a certain bravado because maybe they should have been paying for a picture with me (educator, native Ohioan, proudly bald fifty-something), I stood firm with the $5. Take it or leave it.


They took it but grumbled as they disappeared into the early morning gloom. If any of them responded to my “Happy Thanksgiving,” I didn’t hear it.

Now, however, I’m wracked with guilt. Well, “wracked” may be an exaggeration, but I am thinking about these folks and wondering if I was more Scroogish than I should have been.

After all, I did get three pictures out of the deal, along with an idea for this column, which ain’t nothing.

So, I’ve decided to solicit your opinions, dear readers. If I should have tipped more, less, or about the same to the Mice, Grinch and Elmo crowd, let me know in the survey below. As a bonus, you’ll get to see one of the photos. I’ll report back with the results in a future column.

And if I’ve made you happy at any point while you were reading this column, well, I accept Venmo and all major credit cards.

Not really.

But maybe.

Survey link (use this shortened link):

bit.ly/3VkXOUf

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Lick a stamp, send a turkey

Something unusual happened to me this month: I received a Thanksgiving card.

I mean, it’s not completely unheard of. Years ago, when I worked in sales, I had a customer who insisted on giving each of his clients a card at Thanksgiving instead of at Christmas.

He said it bypassed the whole “should it say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas” falderol (the alleged War on Christmas was a thing even 30 years ago, it seems) and, as a bonus, the card became a conversation piece because it was unique.

He was right, at least as it relates to the greeting I received decades later. “Oh, look,” I said, as though I were a character in an early-reader Dick and Jane book. “It’s a card, a Thanksgiving card from my insurance agent. See the card. What a special card. I must hang it on my wall. Jane, will you help me hang it? Will you help me hang my card on the wall?”

Spoiler Alert One: The card never made it to the wall.

Spoiler Alert Two: I didn’t think like Dick and Jane. I’m not really a Dick.

Still, the card did get me thinking about the somewhat odd practice of sending Thanksgiving greetings. Hallmark says Americans send 16 million cards annually to commemorate the fourth Thursday of November. More accurately, the company said Americans “exchanged” them, which makes me think of a giant swap meet with cardstock images of Norman Rockwell-esque dinner tables, cranberries and stuffing. I’ll trade your candied yams for two slices of pumpkin pie with whipped cream!

Spoiler Alert Three: It didn’t really make me think of this.

By way of comparison, Hallmark says Americans send 1.3 billion Christmas cards annually, so Santa has cooked Tom Turkey’s goose in that department.

All this sent me on a nostalgic stroll through Internet images of Thanksgiving cards past, courtesy of clickamericana.com, which offers 14 such cards allegedly from the turn of the last century. (Since it’s on the Internet, it’s hard to know for sure.)

A common theme across many of the images is a woebegone attempt to turn living turkeys into a holiday symbol in much the same way that Santa has come to represent a secular Christmas. One key difference is revelers don’t chow down on roasted St. Nick at the climax of the Yule season, so any attempts to transform Tom Turkey into a fun-loving harbinger of late November must reckon with the oven at the end of the tale.

The images offer lushly painted images of kids petting turkeys or shyly offering ears of corn to the birds. In one, two turkeys − I would assume husband and wife, but I can’t speak to the matrimonial customs of genus Meleagris − are out for a Sunday (or is that Thursday?) drive in an open-top automobile. While their progress appears leisurely, perhaps they are really putting the pedal to the metal, or the shank to the crank, to escape the cook’s hatchet.

Some of the cards have sentiments straight out of squaresville. They are also examples of exceedingly poor verse. One reads, “I welcome this day of mellow fruitfulness, As just one more occasion to wish you happiness.”

Another unimaginatively offers, “May all your dreams come true Thanksgiving Day.” A third promises “good wishes for Thanksgiving Day,” accompanied by a freshly killed turkey, its head still attached.

Maybe it’s not so hard to see why Thanksgiving cards have failed to become an enduring custom.

Nevertheless, some copywriter scored with this message: “While we indulge in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, let us have high hopes for the future.”

That sounds so nice I’m going to put it in all the Thanksgiving cards I send out this year.

Spoiler Alert Four: C’mon, you know better.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig