Stuffing Your Stocking

Christmas is coming, Enthusiasts, coming all over us. Christmas is coming soon, too: can’t you hear Christmas’ breath becoming labored? Can’t you see Christmas’ toes curling? Don’t mention Christmas’ mother right now, Enthusiasts! Christmas will never come if you do that.

Excuse me.

Christmas is gonna come in our eyes and laugh when we cry.

Stop it.

Who among us is not dreaming of a milky, white Christmas?

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Why?

Because you’re both trite and disgusting.

Like if someone wrote “Live, Laugh, Love” on the wall in feces?

Just like that, yes. You started this post with a point.

I did, and I was going to get to it after I exhausted myself being a filthmonster.

Why don’t we skip right to it?

Sure: Christmas, Enthusiasts, is the time to say “I love you.” And share the joy and laughter and good cheer. On the corners, the carolers are singing. There’s a touch of magic in the air. From grownup to minor, no one could be finer; times are hard, but–

STOP SINGING BILLY SQUIER SONGS.

Billy Squier’s fucking awesome.

Please just get to the point. 

My point is that the greatest gift that anyone could even hope to give this year for Christmas is Chris Jenning’s triumph of a book Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism. This book–remarkable scholarship matched with flowing prose–can be beaten by no object on the planet in terms of presentability. (I choose my words carefully, as always: as superb as Chris’ book is, it is not as good as world peace or true love or supreme physical beauty. If we’re honest, many concepts are a better Christmas present than Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism–lactose tolerance, gravity negation, the weather always matching your mood–but stuff? Stuff? No, there is no stuff that compares.

Nothing?

Nope. Nothing.

Luxury car with the giant bow on it like in the commercials.

A car is not a gift. A car is a financial obligation. Giving someone an automobile for Christmas is like giving someone a dog for Christmas. You’re essentially demanding that the recipient keep something alive.

Suitcase full of cash.

Have you ever seen a movie before?

I have seen several movies.

Do the movies that feature suitcases full of cash have happy endings for the protagonists?

Rarely. Wait: heist films.

Heist films most certainly do not feature suitcases full of cash. Heist films are about vaults full of cash. You can totally get away with stealing a vault full of cash, but being in possession of a suitcase full of cash leads to a bullet in the face in the third act. Terrible Christmas present.

Hope Diamond.

Bad mojo, man.

Complete set of Barney Miller DVDs.

Bad Wojo, man.

A sweater.

Can a sweater teach you about the Perfectionists of the Oneida Commune, and their inevitable schism? Or the Icarians of Nauvoo, and their inevitable schism? Or the Fourierist Phalanxes, and–

Their inevitable schism?

–their inevitable…yeah.

Utopianists were a bunch of schismatic motherfuckers.

You have no idea. It was just squabbling and either having no sex or having too much. And these are things no sweater could ever tell you, even a cardigan, which is the most intelligent of all the sweaters.

Are we including fictional objects in our discussion?

Obviously not. Don’t bring the Time Sheath into this. Also: Time Sheath technology is a horrible present: you put it under the tree and by the next morning the whole living room’s in the ninth century.

Well, you’ve stumped me and won the argument.

You’re just saying that.

I am. Not that everyone shouldn’t buy the book, but where did this come from?

The strenuous plug?

Yes.

He knows what he did.

I want to listen to Billy Squier now.

Me, too.