How Christmas Saved America
Archive - Andrew's JunkAuthor: Andrew Traweek
How Santa Stole the War – A Retrospective on the End of the American Revolution
In the waning years of the American fight for independence from its totally over-protective mother (England), the fighting was fierce. The battles were bloody, and the drug trade from Colombia was really starting to take a financial hit.
Many scholars believe the end of the war can be attributed to the steely resolve of the colonials, with some really lame help from the French Navy. You can never count on those guys to make it to a party on time.
But I and my team of 12 scholars (students kidnapped from the local Sylvan Learning Center) have come to a different conclusion. Quite simply, in the vaguest terms; Christmas saved America.
The year was 1779, and the war was beginning to look like a stalemate. Outnumbered, out-gunned, and out-dressed, the Americans were fighting an uphill battle. No, literally. The English had this wicked huge fort on a hill, and the Americans were walking up there demanding all kinds of respect. Cheeky Americans! The Americans lost a few wagons and horses to resistance forces, but the casualties were deemed acceptable by a young Tommy Franks, General in charge of CentCom operations. Anti War protests immediately popped up in Washington, San Francisco, and Boston. France surrendered.
Until now, no one had noticed the date. It was December 25th. The only way they found out was when one of the English officers noticed it on his Dilbert desk calendar. So the English (sensing a perfect trap) invited the Americans to a good, old fashioned Christmas party.
Both exchanged elaborate presents. The English gave the Americans a hard-bound guide to the Queen’s English, and the Americans baked the English a fruitcake. A ticking fruitcake. The fruitcake exploded, killing all the highest-ranking officers in the British Army. The Americans stole their booze, dressed in big fuzzy turtlenecks, and sang Christmas Carols to the crack addicts at the local shelter. Aww, nice Americans!
Totally pissed that these events would cause the English people to miss even more episodes of Black Adder and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the English surrendered and retreated. But they totally forgot to sign the treaty, and would have to drive all the way back to sign it.
Later, as the Constitution was being drafted, Thomas Jefferson added an amendment to it declaring December 25th the official “Get drunk, take photocopies of your butt, and pass out in the garbage can” holiday of the Americas.
The Depression That Almost Killed Christmas
The Great Depression of the 1930’s was a very hard time in our planet’s history. Why? Well, to be perfectly honest, America is the only country that really matters.
The Depression started in 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s long-time live-in girlfriend dumped him for Johnny Knickerbocker, a local high school quarterback. It was said that Franklin was so heartbroken (and drunk), that he stumbled into Republican National Congress and “fruit-bowled” the entire audience from the podium. He later went on to win the nomination for the Democratic Party, and served an unbelievable forty-two terms as United States President.
The American public at this time was so starved for “reality radio” that they literally sank their teeth into Roosevelt’s story. The depression quickly spread, as every man in America had experienced the same type of heartbreak and anguish as Franklin. If they didn’t, they beat their wives until they left so that they could feel it.
As throngs of battered women moved westward in search of jobs and new husbands, many ended up in roadhouses and shanty towns, selling their bodies and children for corn meal. So many women were heading westward in fact, that the trail of dust left in their wake became known as the “Dust Bowl.” You all know how women drive!
The great migration of women lasted almost a decade, and many Christmas seasons were spent in the dirt. Children often gave the gift of hand-made goods taken from the Earth itself. Rocks, mud dolls, and Christmas cards made of bark were common gifts of the time. If you had really nice kids, they usually brought you diamond necklaces and bags of money they had stolen off some rich, snobby men in Kansas City. It has always been said, the greatest gift of all is the gift of thievery.
Wanting to belong to the popular group, many kids attempted to steal presents themselves, but found that the penalties for stealing from such rich men were harsh. Many children were arrested, painted bright colors, and hung from the newly-created Hoover Dam as part of the Christmas decorations. J. Edgar Hoover was said to have reveled in the misery of such evil beings, and went out for a night on the town in a lovely smock and matching pumps he had recently purchased at Mervyn’s.
Roosevelt had wallowed in his own self-pity for so long, that many began to think he had grown weak. But one woman thought differently. A coal miner’s daughter by the name of Eleanor found a gentle, loving man in Franklin, and quickly snatched him up so no other greedy, gold-digging broad could.
Franklin’s newfound love had completed him. He was now so strong, so resilient, that he gained superpowers and single-handedly hammered the Japanese back into the stone age. The war created jobs, jobs created productive citizens, and people began to reconstruct their lives.
Growing tired of crappy 8mm silent porn flicks, most men went crawling back to their wives begging for forgiveness. Now that women had jobs, they felt a power over their lazy, jobless, football-watching husbands, and raked them over the coals.
The children were released from Hoover Dam in a giant flood. Many ended up in Mexico, and never made it out of the illegal sex trade that had Mexico (for a brief time) richer than the United States.
Christmas resumed in 1945 when Adolf Hitler killed himself, and the Nazis released Santa Claus from a posh, four star prison in the Alps. The children rejoiced… and threw rocks.
-Andrew