Commentary

The Grinchy Ghey: How Assange Stole Christmas

by / Dec. 7, 2016 12am EST

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and nobody had done a goddamn thing. 

Santa Claus was in dire straits. The antidepressants were just barely working. Adding Abilify hadn’t helped. Operations at his storied North Pole headquarters had ground to a halt. 

“I don’t understand how it all went to hell so quickly,” Santa said to his barber, Cole, who was busy combing the knots from an unusually matted white beard. “For the last two years, it’s been nothing but lawsuit after lawsuit. That Assange creep really screwed me but good. If only he’d come to me first, I could’ve explained it was all just a failed experiment. I meant no malice!”

It was a frigid early December afternoon, but Cole had been listening to Santa reflect on his demise since the weather was warm. Every few weeks the iconic holiday fixture would disguise himself as an aging hipster in ill-fitting skinny jeans and a modified fedora, making his way over from a rundown Anchorage motel for a beard trim and oiling. The professional grooming was the closest thing to a spa day that Santa could afford—a cheap way to momentarily make himself feel better. He’d been living on credit cards for months, placating himself with false hope that things would improve, that he could settle his financial burdens and rise above all the negative press. 

His lawyers were doing everything they could, but the outlook was bleak. Cole, who’d promised never to reveal the portly man’s identity, would have tidied the beard for free. But Santa insisted on paying. 

Julian Assange had started the avalanche. Almost two years to the day, he’d leaked information that exposed Santa’s complicit involvement in a covert government operation that spied on children, keeping records of whether they’d been naughty or nice and tracking their sleep patterns. It was unclear what the value of the information was to US officials, but tacking it on Santa seemed a plausible enough excuse to a public that’d elected a learning disabled buffoon as their leader. 

People were horrified. 

“Clearly it wasn’t working since those thankless little shits were getting showered with gifts regardless of how they behaved,” Santa exclaimed, wincing as Cole ran his comb through a particularly gnarly knot. 

It was all true. Santa had reluctantly agreed to participate in Operation Comin’ to Town, a name chosen by President Trump’s cronies, who apparently thought themselves very clever. He’d gone along since it’d seemed like a possible solution to the epidemic problem of spoiled American children, an issue that’d been making him anything but jolly for many years. That and, if he’d refused, the government threatened to pull the plug on funding for his North Pole operations…monies which were badly needed to keep his workshop functioning. 

It no longer mattered. After the Assange incident, the floodgates opened. It seemed that everyone had a grievance with old St. Nick. Suing Santa was the new black. That the Claus Compound barely generated any revenue and mostly existed on grants was completely lost on these people, who seemed to think the man in red must be loaded. Folks even tried suing for chimney damage.

The reality was that Santa and all of his workers had been doing it pro-bono all these years. The only money he made was from the use of his likeness, on the rare occasion that someone actually asked to use it and agreed to the standard fee. Most of the time, however, they didn’t ask. In the spirit of giving, Santa had kept his mouth shut. 

Now he was sorry: The most recent slew of lawsuits were from angry department store Santas insisting that they’d endured trauma and had PTSD from being urinated on day-in and day-out by children believing they were actually him. Two-thirds of the disgruntled lot had also tried hanging their alcoholism on this premise.

Early on, the church had sued, followed by myriad other religious factions. The Catholics argued that Santa had misused a high holy day for his own gain, while the others maintained he’d ”twisted a Judeo-Christian concept into something more universal, resulting in a annual cash grab that saddles everyone, regardless of spiritual affiliation, with an unspeakable financial burden.” 

“Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target all came after me, attempting to offset their own legal woes from Black Friday deaths and injuries,” he recounted. Cole remembered seeing the story on facebook and thinking it was probably fake news. At the time he’d never imagined he’d be shaping Santa’s beard, listening to him repeatedly reflect on the never-ending witch hunt story. 

Santa went on to explain that big-box retailers were looking for compensation because, they insisted, the violent shopping frenzy could be avoided if the Claus workshop produced the high ticket electronic items people want the most—video consoles, plasma televisions, high-end smartphones, etc. That they profited mightily from Black Friday seemed to be a detail lost in the shuffle. It defied logic.

“Nonsense,” he’d responded in a formal statement. “My workshop has always been focused on producing toys for children, organically. If you want an electronic gizmo contraption, you’re on your own.”

But retail representatives were having none of it. “We wouldn’t have to endure this annual Black Friday massacre if that lazy fat slob did what’s expected of him. He had one job, and he blew it!”

He’d tried to keep up, he really had. In a last ditch attempt to boost morale, Santa had sent his entire fleet of elves to Amazon Fulfillment training sessions. The e-commerce mavens had agreed to train the elves for an exorbitant fee, provided that they all sign non-disclosure agreements. Santa had taken out a mafia loan to make it happen. 

What he hadn’t realized was that Amazon’s entire operation was riddled with methamphetamine abuse as a result of the inhuman pacing the job required. When Santa’s crew returned from training, it quickly became apparent that the elves had learned a few things he hadn’t bargained for during their time away. Worse yet, the drug abuse fed right into the sexual ambiguity that was already a component of elfin life at the North Pole. But now, what was once something kept on the down-low was inescapably obvious: the elves were making their own meth and their own niche-market, drug-fueled, elf-on-elf pornography. 

“The workshop is completely destroyed,” Santa lamented. “Long before they turned it into a sex dungeon, they’d begun taking the machines apart in a state of over stimulated psychosis. They’d tried to convince me it was all just about updates and repairs, but I caught on! Soon they were violating one another with giant wooden dowels and making slings out of reinforced felt.” 

He leaned in a bit. “Elves don’t weigh that much, you know.” 

Apparently not, thought Cole, resorting to cutting some of the forming dreadlocks with scissors. 

The elves had taken to creeping around at night, twitching and acting strange. There seemed to be no end to their depravity, and they’d found a lawyer willing to try suing their employer for dental benefits to help deal with the damage the drug abuse was doing to their teeth. Unable to take it any longer, Santa traveled down to Anchorage for respite. Mostly he got Chinese takeout and holed up in his ratty motel room, guzzling cheap gin and watching reruns of Law and Order. He loved the synthesized gavel sound. 

It wasn’t like there was much left for him up there, anyhow. Mrs. Claus had vacated a year earlier. All the stress had left Santa impotent, and the antidepressants had only made it worse. In need of some affection, she’d begun chatting online with a Harley enthusiast who one day braved the cold on his Fat Boy and whisked her off. They couldn’t have gone too far, however. A rumor was circulating that the leather-clad couple had been spotted creeping around the compound late at night, partying with elves at the workshop. 

Santa couldn’t bear the thought. “It’s only a matter of time before the building blows to bits, and I pray she’s not in there when it does,” he cried in anguish.

“Hold still,” Cole said, scissors in hand. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally stab you.”

Even his beloved reindeer had turned on him, growing angry and self-righteous in recent years just as the Christmas season approached. Unbeknownst to Santa, the reindeer had gotten tangled up in a performance enhancing drug ring. At least it explained the change in demeanor. When the steroid use became fodder for the press, it was just one more thorn in Santa’s side. The reindeer angrily pointed their hooves at him, characterizing him as a slave-driving egomaniac. In an exclusive interview with TMZ, Prancer came out of retirement to address the situation. 

“I left years ago, before the doping,” she said. “They don’t like folks to know much about us given the propensity for animal rights activists to make a stink, but most of the original reindeer have been replaced by offspring. Even back then, though, Santa was insufferable…there was so much pressure for this one big night to come off perfectly. He was like a Bridezilla! Still, it’s a strenuous run, even for the young bucks…enough so that depending on a little chemical enhancement seems perfectly logical to me. Plus, have you ever galloped through polluted air? Girl, it’s like trying to run in a swimming pool!” 

The scent of cedarwood brought Santa’s wandering mind back to the barber shop where Cole had just finished oiling his beard. He handed over the credit card, noticing that the letters spelling Kris Kringle had become flattened. Cole went to the front of the shop to ring him up while Santa put his coat back on and admired his beard, now cut into a slimming v-shape, reflected in the mirror. When he waddled up to the counter, so much of himself spilling over the top of the skinny jeans, Cole whispered the bad news. “This one’s on me, buddy. Your card was declined.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” was all the old man could muster. 

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