The War on Christmas

The War on Christmas is real, and I am its commanding general.

The move to Seattle was cover for establishing a new forward base to solidify our gains from last year’s success.  The battle has been a long one, but as we get closer to our final target at the north pole, our morale builds and our dedication remains steadfast.

Soon, not this year, but soon, I’ll have that cheery, terrifying head on a pike and display it for all the world to see, and feel safe.  No more constant surveillance, no more annual invasion, no more enforcement of a moral code formulated by the jolly, the optimistic, the naive.

I will drink Santa’s blood and rejoice.  Only then will I have the victory I crave.

“Do you ever have second thoughts?” asked my second in command, Captain-general Morse.

“Never!” I answered, my fist striking the air, my lips curling in a snarl of defiance.

“But, Christmas.  Peace on Earth, good will to men.”

“That’s the problem.  Peace bores me, and the good will thing is a lie.  Christmas is about stress, posturing, and telling other people to be cheerful or else.”

“I thought it was about American consumerism.”

“That too, and it’s spreading to infect other holidays.  It may already be too late to save my precious Halloween.”  At this I shed one, single tear out the corner of my right eye.  Halloween!  My precious, sacrosanct holiday of horror and darkness, mortality and despair.  They make inflatable lawn ornaments for you now and you, too pure and naive to defend yourself, have succumbed.

I rattled my saber, a gift from my sister on the occasion of her wedding, and issued the order for our attack.  At my command, hundreds of dog sleds bearing soldiers of the anti-yule began our charge, bearing down on an encampment of the Claus’s henchmen, his patsy scouts sent out to gather materials and supplies to support his ongoing campaign of terror and oppression.  The first moments of the engagement were bloody, with lives lost on both sides.  More on theirs.  I am a careful general, and I don’t spend my soldier’s lives frivolously.  There are so few of us left who can hold out against our pernicious foe.

Just as our victory appeared certain, reinforcements for the enemy appeared on the hill, their horns blaring across the night with the soul-chillingly mockery of triumph that is the enemy’s trademark.  A moment later I felt the searing punch of a knife sliding between my ribs.  Captain-General Morse had betrayed me.

“Why?” I gasped.

“They promised me a new iPhone.  And I really like gingerbread.”

As I lay here in the Canadian snow, my body heat leaving my body on a rush of blood, I accept that this year brings defeat.  But not final defeat.  We can never be permanently defeated.  Someday I will have the Claus man’s head, and I will free you all.

Someday.