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Christmas is a time of joy, peace, and good will toward men. And if you are like me nothing encompasses those yuletide warm fuzzies these days like the Ukraine. At least since Putin started putin the make on the former Soviet republic. Red is, after all, one of the official colors of the season. Now you may be thinking that since Russia doesn’t celebrate Christmas until sometime in January it’s a bit early to be celebrating its new borders. And you may even be thinking that being subjugated by The Bear isn’t something to celebrate in the first place. But when your most cherished national Christmas tradition is decorating your Christmas trees with spiders, that your country will occasionally be devoured by a huge, hungry creature that preys on the small is a given. And you really shouldn’t let that bug you.
Or maybe you shouldn’t think spiders are a symbol of good luck. ‘Cuz when you’re the fly that luck has little to do with you. At least not in a positive way. Ho, ho, ho.
Various countries have various Christmastime tales and a favorite holiday theme seems to be the heart-warming affairs of the poor, destitute, and starving. Or as FOX News likes to call them: those people who like to play the victim card so they can take all they can get from the nanny state Obama has turned the USA into. And while the Ukraine’s entry into popular Christmas traditions too starts off with the poor, it isn’t quite the tale of poor and destitute prepubescent girls soon to be facing a life of prostitution that Germany’s is. But then Playboy has never featured a spread called The Girls of the Ukraine. If ya know what I mean.
More importantly – at least for gay men – all Germany managed to come up with for the holidays is the tradition of Christmas stockings. Which ain’t quite the gay apparel we’re drawn too. Unless you are a drag queen and think that includes fishnet stockings. The Ukraine out-gays Germany in the Christmas tradition sweepstakes (which must thrill Putin to no end) thanks to their offering of that little bit of yuletide fabulousness: tinsel. And as a gay man you know that even the life of the poor and the destitute can benefit from a little bit of bling. Or a lot of bling (thanks to Robert’s recent mantra submission for holiday decorating decision-making, What Would Liberace Do?) Not that tinsel is quite up there with glitter mind you. But from an once agrarian and soon to be communist country again, tinsel ain’t bad.
And it all started off with the Christmas tale of a poor and destitute widow, who wouldn’t have found herself in such a sorry state (that’d be destitute, not the Ukraine) if she still had a man around to fend for her, but instead drove him to an early death with her constant nagging. I’m assuming. That’s not part of the official tale. But should be obvious. So now we all know what to expect when Hillary takes over the Oval Office in 2016.
Of course a good heart-warming Christmas tale of the poor and huddled masses ain’t complete without a few starving children. So let’s throw a few into this one too in honor of the Supreme Court’s decision that Hobby Lobby’s religious beliefs trump contraceptives for its employees. And, since this is a fairy tale, let’s give them a cold, cramped hut to live in too. Even though in reality we all know that ever since Wall Street broke the world’s economy the bank would have foreclosed on that hut by now. And with that impoverished stage properly set, we’ll move on to the Christmas cheer.
One day while the poor woman and her starving children huddled together in their small, cramped hut trying to keep warm through shared body heat – ‘cuz the country had not yet brought the miracle of indoor heating via free fire delivery through the kitchen faucet thanks to fracking to their area – they saw a pinecone drop from a tree outside where it quickly took root. The children, excited at the prospect of a tree for Christmas, tended the seedling and made plans on how they would decorate their tree. When they should have instead been planning on how to land a full-time, below-poverty level, minimum wage job. But that’s typical of takers. God had given them a tree, and all they could think about were the government hand-out decorations soon to come their way.
[Editor’s Note: You may think a pinecone that drops from a tree, turns into a seedling, and then grows into a full tree all with a matter of a few weeks is the stuff of fairy tales. But thanks to Monsanto and its planned genetic mutation programs, those miracle trees will soon be coming to your neighborhood too. Or at least some three-eyed fish will be.]
But as Christmas approached Mama Poor Person knew that thanks to King Obama having used his socialist powers to grant green cards to illegal aliens, all those jobs would go to the Mexicans and her tiny family would be facing a bleak and decoration-less tree ‘cuz the Ukraine just wasn’t the Ukraine she’d grown up in any more. So they went to bed on Christmas Eve, their cupboards, their hopes and prospects, and their tree branches bare.
The poor children cried themselves to sleep while visions of sugar-plums danced in their hungry little heads ‘cuz they knew that the chances of finding an iPhone 6+ under the tree the next morning were zip, nada, no way. Meanwhile, thanks to King Obama’s amnesty for illegals program, the family’s maid no longer had to toil for below minimum wage pay and was off living it large in the free housing all illegal immigrants are given by the government. So the cold, cramped hut wasn’t quite as clean as it should have been. And a family of spiders had taken up residence in the rafters. Well, spiders too can’t stand the sound of a bunch of ungrateful, whinny children and since they couldn’t sleep through all the ruckus thought, “Fuck this!” and got busy spinning webs all over the barren tree.
Now you may think of spiders as godless creature intent on sucking the life blood out of anything that becomes tangled in their web, but in reality they are the job creators of the insect world and the webs they weave through their tireless efforts at supping on the great misfortunes of others are truly a joyous sight to behold. Kinda like BP’s year-end profit statement. And while their intent was an intricate web that would catch every fly and cockroach in the household before those damn starving brats had a chance at adding a little protein to their diet, the result was a tree covered in silken strings that shimmered in the dawn’s light.
Lo and behold, early on Christmas morning the poor children’s growling stomachs caused them to wake up early and seeing their tree now covered in spider webs cried, “Madre! Madre! El árbol! Es hermoso!” (Yup, overnight Mama Poor Person’s brood had multiplied because King Obama had forced the family to take in some of the children who’d invaded the country from San Salvador and who the government was busy hiding without telling anyone where they were being kept). And as the rays of the sun crept along the floor and silently climbed the tree, the glow touched the threads of the web turning each into silver and gold in a testament to the powers of the trickle down economic policies of the once and great former King Reagan, blessed be his name.
Of course it’s a cold, cruel and unjust world and Republicans and Ukrainians alike only triumph in fairy tales. So instead of the happy ending of the family of spiders descending upon the hapless family of downtrodden waifs and their mother, cocooning them in their web and slowly sucking every drop of humanity out of their corpses that you may have hoped for, King Obama unleashed his evil socialist powers upon corporate profits and the once destitute family never wanted for anything again their entire lives since the government gave them everything they could ever want, including a minimum wage of $15 an hour so they too could live the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
In honor of those spiders who brought so much joy to that poor, destitute family, Ukrainians today decorate their Christmas trees with a Christmas spider and as much tinsel as their little communist heart’s desire. And in America, Republicans’ decorate theirs with a photo of Mitt Romney in hopes that in two years an early Christmas miracle will brighten their holidays too. And that’s how the tradition of decorating Christmas trees with tinsel began, as well as the reason no one is really all that upset with Putin for taking the Ukraine back into his fold.