Xmas past

My Aunt Sue, may she rest in the ground, used to make us laugh at Xmas. She didn't know this, but that just made it more fun.

On Xmas Eve, my extended family always went to Aunt Sue's house in Elmont, Long Island. Since the family got along for the most part, we all looked forward to this family gathering. We did the usual: ate our hearts out and gave presents to the kids.

When it came time, we would open Aunt Sue's presents with equal amounts of trepidation and glee. The paper unwrapped, we'd open the box and lift the tissue paper and see...something. She gave the strangest presents in the world. Even years later, and with extensive family consultations, we wouldn't know what the thing was. Of course, this would cause endless laughter. (Don't worry; she never knew. We were not an evil family.)

To give an example, one year she gave my sister this thing. It was a, a...sort of a necklace-type thing made of rope and beads -- but there was no way to put it over your head. The hole was too small. It didn't have any hooks or fasteners that might have turned it into a big, clunky bracelet. We were stumped -- and remained that way.

I remember one year, we asked her what something was. Her response was, "I just saw it and thought you would like it." She was very nice and always vague, dear Aunt Sue. These memories seem so sweet now. Those were great family evenings -- even though one of the uncles would always get drunk and sing. He wasn't even bad, but it was the same song, again and again. And this spanned decades. 

But we had fun and that's what Xmas is all about. By the way, I noticed they've made a movie of my book, Xmas Carol. I saw it in the listings for Turner Classic Movies. But they spelled the title incorrectly! It said "A Christmas Carol". Weird. But I'm glad someone made a movie out of my book. I'll have to see it sometime. 

Ho, ho, ho. Sorta. Don't let anything ruin your Xmas. Go have fun!

More word derivation stories

I haven't been doing this as often lately. Sorry. But I found some excellent derivation stories recently and it's past time to share them. These come from Robert Hendrickson's "The Facts on File: Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins." The following words are Hendrickson's:

Xmas. Xmas is neither an abbreviation nor a "vulgar commercial invention" of recent vintage. X has been used to symbolize the syllable "Christ" in English since at least 1100, when it was recorded in Xianity, for "Christianity". The Old English word for Christian recorded in the 12th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begins with an X, and the word Xmas itself was used as early as 1551. The Greek word that gives us the English word Christ begins with the letter chi, or X, leading some writers to believe that the X in Xmas symbolized the cross.

Rub out. To rub someone out, "to kill him," isn't gangster talk from the Prohibition era, as is so often assumed. The term dates back to the early 19th-century American Far West and has its origins in Plains Indian sign language, which expresses to kill with a rubbing motion. The term is first recorded in George Ruxton's Life in the Far West (1848) and it is he who gives the sign language source.

Cooties. Our slang word cooties, for "body lice", derives from the Malayan-Polynesian kutu, "louse", which British sailors became familiar with (both word and nit) in the early years of this century.

To decimate. After any mutiny in the Roman army, or any cowardice, the standard punishment was to take one man by lot out of each of the ten-man squads and have his fellow squad members kill him. From this disciplinary measure came the word decimare (from the Latin decem, ten, meaning "to kill one in ten") that became the English decimate. Decimate strictly means to reduce a military force by one-tenth, but through careless usage has come to mean to destroy a large part of any population, even to obliterate it.

[Back to Keith. So my book title (Xmas Carol) isn't nasty or blasphemous after all. Moo ha ha ha ha!. See? I was just being sweet and historically accurate when I gave the book this title. Oh, and I'm never going to use the word decimate again.]

Bah, if not humbug

Ah yes, Xmas. Merry ho ho ho. Despite my atheism I have no particular problem with Xmas. You give gifts to people; what's not to like? I enjoy giving gifts (and don't limit myself to Xmas day) so Xmas is a good match for me.

However . . . I do have a problem with holidays in general. I dislike them as a group: all holidays. For one thing, the world stops functioning on holidays. I know people like resting and all, but I don't. I want things to shoot by at 300 mph all day, every day. I'm a naturally speedy guy. Holidays are just too damn sleepy for me. (I'm not keen on weekends either.)

Plus, American holidays are always so fuzzy-headed. I can't count the times I've heard on a newscast recently that something terrible happened to someone ". . . and at this time of year! Tch, tch." Like there's some magical protection that slips down from the sky in this "joyous season" to cover us with an invulnerability shield. It's kinda creepy (and dunder-headed).

So I am a curmudgeon after all. What can I say? This is my personality. I love to give gifts, mind you. And when my nephews were young it was wonderful to see their faces as they opened their gifts on Xmas morning. That's the good part of Xmas: kids and the fun they have on this day.

But holidays themselves? I don't like them at all. In fact, I decided a couple of years ago that I would write a horror novel to attack each major American holiday. My first horror book, Xmas Carol, is the first iteration of this plan. I might not shoot an arrow through the heart of every holiday but I definitely plan to smash July 4th and New Year's Day in upcoming books. These two strike me as being the most mindless of American holidays, which makes them wonderful objects for my scorn. I look forward to strafing them!

Good fun! What makes me thankful for the holidays is that they're big, fat, ungainly targets for my writing. So merry Xmas and ho-ho-ho, folks. Have a great day! And hopefully by next year you'll have read Xmas Carol and will from that point forward include an annual re-reading of it as one of your most "holy" Xmas traditions.