"Christmas greetings!" from Steve

Steve wrote this on Christmas day in 2005 and posted it on his sports blog, which he shared with another guy also named Steve. They each took a type of beer as their last name, my Stevie adopting Samichlaus as his. Which explains why, if you know my husband and me, you may be greatly confused about who the Samichlaus’s are – they’re us. I thought of switching in our actual last name but am loath to change even a mistype in his writings. So here it is, five years later, and I thought I’d share a Christmas greeting to all from the one I love the most.

Christmas greetings! – December 25, 2005

Christmas is a time for family and fun in the Samichlaus house. It’s also the time for our yearly visit to church for midnight service. I hesitate to call it midnight mass (which by its sheer alliteration sounds better) because evidentially the non-Catholic denominations don’t call it “Mass”. In retrospect, that’s probably a good idea. I’m not sure what a “mass” is, except for a heinous growth somewhere on your body that should be removed immediately. Just like Catholicism now that I think about it.

So for Christmas Eve Mrs. Samichlaus and I headed down to the local Methodist church and were ready to enjoy a good hour of prayer and reflection. Things were going well until we got to the singing. Specifically it was the second verse of “What Child is This?” where the whole evening began to go south. As we sang the line “Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?” Mrs. Claus and I simultaneously started to giggle like we were two twelve year olds. It was then that the giggle shifted to laughter, compounded by my sudden inspiration to make the universal symbol for “flying asshole” and pretend that it was feeding on Mrs. Claus’s sleeve.

After that everything seemed funny to us. When the pastor told how Jesus was laid in the manger I thought “See, he DID get laid”. And when the angel appeared to the shepards in their fields to proclaim that “Unto this day a savior is born in the city of David”, I imagined that the shepards reaction was not “We must go to this city”, but rather “WHAT the FUCK was THAT?” This became a dialogue between two shepards. Pick up the scene after the choir of angels have finished their Hosannas and have left. The shepards are walking home.

Don: Holy fucknuts, I shit my tunic. You ever see anything like that?
Phil: No fuckin way. Fuck! I pissed my sandals.
Don: Shit Phil, didn’t Deb just pick those up for you?
Phil: Yep. They were brand new. Fuck. Look, tomorrow I need to go to Wal-Mart in the city of David to pick up new sandals. You want to go? Maybe there’s something to this savior thing. We could check it out.
Don: Sure, what the fuck, but I’ll put on some “Depends” just in case.
Phil: Good call.

Mrs. Samichlaus came up with the pissing on the sandals.

Happy holidays to all!