Bill Willingham's Blog, page 2

On the eleventh day of Christmas…

Here we are. It’s Christmas Eve. So far we’ve had stories and bossy lectures, some video talks, which is a new skill set for me, and even some Christmas carols done quickly, but with appropriate seasonal enthusiasm, from ten of our readers. Did any of you recognize, among the ten singers singing, Mike, one of the hosts of Fabletown and Beyond, singing Oh Holy Night?

Out of so many wonderful and spirited entries, it was awful tough picking out the one to get a sketch of her favorite Fables character. All were terrific. The hand puppets and the child singing? All done on the fly, with no time to prepare? What a fun undertaking it was. Ultimately we chose the winner because it was sweet and earnest and it charmed the both of us.

With but two Blogs of Christmas yet to go, this and the one on Christmas Day, we’re nearly done – for this year. Today we have another story set in the fictional worlds connected by The Night Train. In one venue and another, you’ll see many more of these in the future. Here is the second of two Night Train stories that have something to do with Christmas. Tomorrow we have a Christmas gift for all of you, but particularly for any writers among my readers.

Night Train to The End

Just after 3 AM on Christmas Day, the Night Train picked up Billy Selmer outside of Cabool, Missouri, and then continued on its way, riding the dark and the mists into other realms.

Billy was excited to board, never believing the Night Train could be real, until he was on it. He was one of those ever-youthful types, who’d look young into a ripe age. He could have been 14, or 17, or even older. He showed his ticket to Miss Selkirk, one of the porters.

“An all-expense paid one-way ticket to anywhere,” she said. “Quite a treasure.”

“It was a gift,” Billy said. “A Christmas present.”

“Where would you like to go?” Selkirk said.

“I don’t know. Where can I go?”

“You’re allowed to ride all the way to the end of the line, and get off at any stop along the way. Wherever suits your fancy.”

“Can you tell me about the stops?”

“They vary on each run,” she said. “But I can fetch you an itinerary from Mr. Caruthers. Take any open seat in any car, even a sleeper compartment, if you like. I’ll find you.”

For the first hour Billy sat near the window in the first class car, watching the dim stars through the mist. Unlike at home, the stars could actually be seen to go by. By pressing his head against the windowpane, he tried to get an angle that would allow him to see the tracks below the train, but they were hidden to him by the car’s edge. He wanted to stick his head out of the window for a better angle, but they wouldn’t open.

When he got hungry he found the dining car, but the menu seemed to fancy for his tastes. The waiter there directed him to the less formal club car, where hamburgers, hot dogs and other more accustomed fare could be found.

The counter man said, “No charge for whatever you want to order, Mr. Selmer.” He ordered a tuna melt and a Coke, finishing it off with three ice cream sundaes, once he came to trust there really would be no charge, no matter how much he ate.

Miss Selkirk found him between sundaes two and three. She handed him a sheet of foolscap with writing on it, in a precise and orderly hand.

“All the stops left to make on this run,” she said.

Billy examined the page intently. Only one or two of the place names seemed even remotely familiar.

“You’re lucky to have joined us on what we call our paradise run,” Selkirk said, “since most of our stops on the tail end of this tour are in nice places – paradisaical, one might say. With a couple of exceptions, any of the stops remaining will be an excellent place to visit.”

She joined him in his booth.

“I’ll be happy to provide descriptions, histories and even make recommendations.”

Billy asked lots of questions, throughout the entirety of the final serving of ice cream, and beyond.

“How is it we can see the stars move?”

“We pick up speed between worlds. All straight tracks and no air resistance makes for fast travel.”

“Tell me about this first stop,” he said.

“One of the few lands I’d advise skipping,” she said. “They were in the middle of a war the last time we came through and that’s not likely to have changed since.”

The Night Train stopped at Gold Street Station, sometime after midnight.

A porter Billy hadn’t met yet walked through the car he was in, announcing, “Everyone off for all Lankhmar destinations.” A big man with a red beard got up from mid-car and pulled a large bundle from the overhead luggage racks. He was joined on the platform between cars by a smaller man dressed in gray. Billy watched them step down from the train and disappear into the mist that engulfed them. He couldn’t see much of the city beyond the fog, but got a sense of very old buildings, like the kind in Europe that were left over from medieval days. He smelled wood smoke and heard dogs growling and barking somewhere nearby.

He decided not to get off at Gold Street Station. He slept in a luxurious bed, in his very own compartment and was woken just in time for the next stop.

“Pwyll Station, in Annwn is one of the good ones I told you about,” Miss Selkirk told him.”

“I smell the sea,” Billy said.

“We’re close to it.”

“And that sound, like music?”

“It’s the season of the crystal migrations. It’s a bright moon here tonight. Once you get beyond the mist, you might be able to spot them, hovering out over the water.”

“I’m tempted to get off here, but I don’t know what the other stops are like yet.”

“Your ticket’s only good for one way though,” she said. “Once we leave here – once we leave any of the stops ahead of us – your decision is made for you.”

“Seems a shame to waste a Christmas present like this on just the second place we come to though,” he said.

“How did you come by the ticket, Mr. Selmer?”

“That’s the best thing of all,” Billy said. “I’d never met the guy before, until I saw him walking through the park, near the All Wars Memorial, but he knew me and said he was an old friend of the family. He said he had a special Christmas present, just for me, and told me all about the Night Train, and how it would stop that very night in our town. I didn’t believe him, of course, until you pulled up on the old freight line tracks that aren’t even used anymore.”

“Did this mysterious benefactor have a name?” she said.

“I don’t remember his first name, if he ever even said it, but he called himself Mr. Plantigrade.”

With that, Miss Selkirk became quiet and presently excused herself.

The Night Train made two more stops before Billy felt tired again. Both times it was just after midnight where they arrived. The first was in Narda Falls, in a world called Cockaigne, which Miss Selkirk described as The Land of Paradise and Plenty. The second, hours later, was at Bardo Street Station in a place called Summerland. In both cases Billy was tempted to get off, but his curiosity about the next stop, and possibly the one after that, kept him aboard.

After Summerland had come and gone, Miss Selkirk insisted on having a private talk with Mr. Caruthers, the Conductor, which made him, in the absence of the owner, who seldom rode the line, and never set foot out of his private car when he did, the master of the train.

“It’s one of Mr. Plantigrade’s games,” she said.

“Not our business,” Caruthers said.

They were in Mr. Caruther’s private office/suite, in the first car behind the engine. On one wall he had pictures of a polo match, in which a younger version of him could clearly be seen mounted on one of the ponies. On the other wall there were dragons.

“At least we could cut off Billy Selmer’s food and sleeping compartments,” she said. “Thereby encouraging him to get off by his own accord.”

“No, Miss Selkirk, that we cannot do. His ticket is authentic, paid in full, and includes all meals, accommodations, and amenities. We can’t get into the business of denying goods and services fairly purchased.”

“But if he doesn’t get off before the end?”

“You’re allowed to be as enthusiastic about each location as you’ve a mind to, Miss Selkirk, as long as you meet his every request, as with any premium customer.”

Billy stayed on the Night Train through Hyperboria, Saduenay and Westernesse. Since the Lemuria stop happened during his third dinner aboard, and since he was much too polite to dash away mid-meal. When they pulled into James Churchward Station, in the land of Mu, Billy happened to be in the middle of an intense conversation with one of the Priest Kings of Mu and therefore willing to follow him off the train, if for no other reason than to try out the wings one could rent, along with something called a Redistribution Suit, that allowed a man to fly under his own power. But at the last moment Billy jumped back on the departing train, shouting his apology to the stout Priest King. Avalon was the next stop and he dimly recalled Miss Selkirk’s mention that the magical island was King Arthur’s final resting place.

But Avalon came and went too. Billy stayed with the train.

“I can’t help it,” he explained, as Miss Selkirk urged him to stay in Avalon. “We’re going to places that can’t exist. I need to see all of them.”

“All you’ve really seen so far is mist and train tracks. You need to step into a world to actually experience any of it.”

“Sure, but there’s plenty of time.”

“No, there isn’t, Mr. Selmer.”

“Why not? Where do we go next? And why do you look like that? Did I upset you?” The last thing Billy wanted to do was anything that might upset Miss Selkirk, who was the prettiest woman who’d ever seemed happy to speak to him for such an extended time.

“The next stop is the last stop,” she said. “End of the line. You only had a one-way ticket, so you’ll have to get off there.”

“Okay then. Can I buy a return ticket there?”

“Of course, but they’re very expensive.” She provided a few examples of the kinds of things they accepted as currency at one of their ticket offices. Billy didn’t understand most of it, except when “pounds of gold” were mentioned.

“What about jobs?” he asked.

Mr. Caruthers surprised Billy by speaking from behind him. Billy hadn’t heard the man enter the car. Mr. Caruthers was an older man, and dark. Dark of skin and dark of expression.

“You’ll be put to work in the town, but pay of any kind might not be part of the transaction,” Caruthers said. “End of the Line isn’t a pleasant place for vagabonds and new arrivals. It’s a place of hammer, fire and steel, where the Night Train, and machines like it, are built and maintained.”

“You never told me…” Billy started to say, more to Miss Selkirk than Mr. Caruthers.

“She told you what she could,” Caruthers said, “in keeping with the company policies and the owner’s wishes. I’m afraid you were a victim of an ongoing wager between our owner and the gentleman calling himself Plantigrade, from whom you obtained your ticket. He has many names, depending on the time and place. No doubt you’d recognize a few of them. We know him most often as The Wandering Man. He loves nothing better than a good wager. You were the thirty-seventh person in a row to receive that particular Christmas gift. And the thirty-seventh to insist on riding all the way to the End of the Line. The bet ends when the first recipient departs the Night Train anywhere but our last stop.”

Billy heard the incessant pounding and grinding of terrible machines, and smelled sulfur and ash, as they neared the final station.

On the tenth day of Christmas…

We sing. Ten singers singing seems a great thing to do for the tenth installement of my Twelve Days of Christmas blog. My assistant, Stephanie Cooke and I cooked up (pun absolutely intended) a quick contest. Folks had exactly one hour in which to submit a video of them singing a Christmas song. We don’t want polished. We wanted it quick and sloppy and with no time to let inhibitions get in the way. And here are the results. Of the entries, Stephanie selected her favorite ten to post here. Of those, I’ll pick the best of the best, to win – no, not to win, but to earn – an original pencil and ink sketch of their favorite (just one, folks) Fables character. Said sketch will be completed after the New Years, because Bill is far too busy before then (but apparently not so busy as to avoid referring to himself in the third person), and sent out to the lucky winner. All who are posted here get a copy of the Fables Encyclopedia though.

So take it away, Stephanie. How many entries were there and who have you chosen to participate in our tenth day Christmas sing-along blog?

Christmas sing-along blog video number ten.

Christmas sing-along blog video number nine.

Christmas sing-along blog video number eight.

Click to Watch

Christmas sing-along blog video number seven.

Click to Watch

Christmas sing-along blog video number six.

Click to Watch

Christmas sing-along blog video number five.

Christmas sing-along blog video number four.

Christmas sing-along blog video number three.

Christmas sing-along blog video number two.

And, the number one Christmas sing-along blog video is…

Wasn’t that great? Did you sing along with our instantly cobbled together sing-along blog? Of course you did. How could you not? Is it too soon to declare this a Christmas miracle?

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

On the ninth day of Christmas…

I like this video blogging thing. It’s like doing an interview, but with questions and/or subjects that I choose to discuss. Here’s a long-winded rumination on writing, and what it takes to be a writer. If I had a way to edit out all of the uhs and ahs and ahems and such, we might have shaved off three or four of the segments, but then the Ninth Day of Christmas wouldn’t have been nine segments long, and how sad would that be?

A field spotter’s guide to writers

After I wrestle with the definition of who is and isn’t qualified to consider himself a writer, and throw in some advice in dealing with writer’s block along the way, we have just enough room left for a word or two on the specific challenges of writing superheroes well. I hope you enjoy.

On the eighth day of Christmas…

Yes, we were a wee bit late posting this one too, but if these didn’t run late, no one would ever believe they were really coming from me. One year, back in the rollicking eighties, the official Comico Christmas party, hosted by me that year (I think Matt Wagner hosted on the previous year), was held in mid January, well after Christmas, in celebration of my standard timing, vis-à-vis meeting deadlines. True story.

So here we are, on the Eighth Day of Christmas, and as everyone knows, the Eighth Day is for – video blogs, or vlogs, as you crazy kids insist on naming them. I’ve never done a video before. I’ve appeared in them, because comic book related video blogs abound, but I’ve never done one of my own before, including running my own tech (which is an undertaking rife with possibilities of disaster, as any of my friends can attest, as, in a grotesque understatement, I don’t get along well with technology). But let’s give it a shot and see what happens.

Bill Answers Your Questions

It’s as simple as that. In my first ever self-produced video foray, I’m going to take your questions, because that’s what I’ve learned to do on camera. I put the call out for any and all questions, via Twitter and other means. Most of the questions submitted had to do with Fables and other subjects related to the comic business.

Way back in the bone ages though, my fellow Clockwork Storybook writers had an idea on how to inject a little fun back into dull and moribund comic

convention programming and created a panel called, We Solve All Your Problems. During said panel we took questions on anything, from financial woes and romantic relationship difficulties, and anything else, deftly solving each one. Having enjoyed that time, I guess I was hoping a few such questions, unrelated to the comics business, would enter into the mix. And since this thing has to be done in several parts – largely due to the fact that my computer’s video application seems not to have a pause feature – there’s still time to get your more absurd questions in, for one of the later segments.

Now, let’s give this puppy a good kick and see where it goes, shall we?

On the seventh day of Christmas…

We missed a blog for yesterday due to things entirely my fault. At first there was the three-hour search for the missing document needed to finish this story – meaning the story below. It had all of the characters delineated, carefully and in detail, the setting established and explained, and various other things, all parts necessary in order to complete the story. I searched my main computer, in every way I could think of, then called in experts to search for me. No document. Perhaps it would help if I could recall what I’d named it, but that isn’t the way my mind works. Could I pin down when the missing document was created, and/or last modified? No, of course I can’t do that. I lose entire weeks of time, when I’m not paying attention. I forget entire years in which important stuff happens. Recall the day a document was created? Not a chance.

Since I have a laptop computer, in addition to my desktop monster, for working outside of my designated writing room, I did the same exhaustive search on that. No joy there, either.

Then, since I often write on paper, with an actual pen, I searched every notebook and piece of paper, first in my library and then throughout the house. Nope. Nothing.

Then I gave up and decided to make myself a hamburger, using questionable meat. While it was cooking, I broke out my iPad to dink around, which is what the iPad is for, and there, in the notepad ap was my lost document. Of course that’s where it was. I’ve been doing increasing amounts of preliminary writing on my iPad, including the advance work for this very story (rather, series of stories, about which more information later).

The story was saved, even though I was already three hours late in writing it.

Then I ate the bad, bad burger and the rest of the day was taken away, with the standard effects of eating meat whose time of meaty goodness had long come and gone.

That’s why you’re getting yesterday’s story today and why this is a two-blogs day, so that the 12 Blogs are completed on Christmas Day, as is only right. I hope you enjoyed my assistant Stephanie’s bacon pie recipe earlier today, tying in to Christmas via our recurring Fables legend of the Miracle Christmas Pies.

Now, on to the business of today and the original introduction to this episode, begun yesterday:

As promised, we have another story this time. It’s not specifically a Fables story, since DC/Vertigo still has the exclusive rights to publish my Fables stories, and what kind of stinker would I be to do a Fables tale without at least giving them notice? However, who wants to have to get permission from a giant corporation just to write a small Christmas story, given away free to whomever wants to visit this site?

The solution seemed simple and obvious. Write a prose Christmas story that isn’t a Fables tale. Instead it’s a story set in a new fictional universe that will officially debut soon (sometime around the end of Fables in fact), and if one of the Fables characters just happened to slip into the tale? How can I be faulted for that? They’re powerful magical creatures and tend to flit all over the place. Who can keep track of all of them? Instead we’ll accept her appearance in this tale and pass it off as another ordinary Christmas miracle today.

What follows is the first of my Night Train stories – at least the first of many in progress to be published in any way. Magical trains are a staple of fantasy fiction, almost as popular as magical bars. I’ve had the chance to write a few magical bars, my work in San Cibola with the Clockwork boys being a prime example, but I’d never yet done my bit in the magical train field, though I’ve long wanted to. Now, at last, here we are. Depending on the vagaries of opportunity and audience, current plans are there will be many more Night Train stories in prose and in comics.

Night Train to the North Pole

When the Night Train comes, it comes cloaked in mist.

The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway out to Key West, 128 miles beyond the Florida mainland. Mighty stone bridges were built, over swamp and coral and ocean, between the keys, sometimes seven miles at a stretch. Daily passenger and freight service ran back and forth, until it was suddenly and emphatically ended by the great hurricane of 1935. When the bridges were restored and replaced, they were built for the cars and trucks, which had become predominant by then. The tracks were left to rust. The train line was dead.

Some of the track still exists today, unused and tucked away behind stone barricades. Some of the buildings on Key West’s Trumbo Point Terminal still stand, empty of all but ghosts.

A fat man stood on the concrete platform outside of the abandoned terminal, watching the mist role in. He wore khaki shorts and a black Beanteacher shirt, emblazoned with dueling biplanes. A half-filled formless sack sat on the platform, near his feet.

It was twenty minutes past midnight when he finally heard the train rolling in, along tracks where no trains but this one had run for decades. The mist blurred its outlines. The fat man had a vague impression of a huge art deco diesel engine pulling the cars, a giant steel relic of the great age of train travel.

Cars passed as the train slowed, then came to a noisy halt, leaving one of the passenger cars directly opposite him. Mr. Caruthers appeared in the car’s open doorway.

“Good evening, Nick,” Caruthers said. “How was your post Christmas vacation?”

“About the same,” Nick, the fat man, said. “How about you? Do anything special this year?”

“Every moment is special aboard the Night Train,” Caruthers said.

Nick picked up his sack and boarded the car. He was the only passenger waiting at the disused terminal, and no passengers disembarked. The train started moving again as soon as he was aboard. Nick followed Caruthers into the car. It was a second-class car, with comfortable leather cushioned bench seats, but no private compartments.

“I’m afraid all of our sleeper compartments are full, until The Carters get off at the next stop,” Caruthers said. “That shouldn’t be more than an hour or two, depending.”

“I’ll be fine, until then,” Nick said.

“Once the suite is free, I’ll have it cleaned and made ready for you, as quickly as can be arranged.”

“No rush. There are no uncomfortable seats on your train, Mr. Caruthers.”

Nick dug his ticket out of a pocket and handed it over to be punched.

“All the way home?” Caruthers said.

“Yeah. Play time’s over. Already time to get started on next year’s run.”

“We’ve stops scheduled at four different North Poles this time. Yours will be the third one.”

“You’ll wake me in time?”

“Of course,” Caruthers said, while his expression added, need you even ask?

Nick handed his bag over to Caruthers saying, “My luggage,” and walked forward in search of the club car and a sandwich. While he was tucked in to one of Chef Alden’s Mountaintop specials, a little girl climbed up onto the barstool next to his.

“You probably won’t remember me,” she said, “but I know you. At least I think I do. You’re Santa Claus, right?” She was small and shy, if her reluctance to make eye contact was any indication. Her hair was dark and tangled, like she’d just come out of a blustery wind.

“Of course I know you,” Nick said. “I remember every little girl who’s ever made it onto one of my lists. You’ve appeared nine times, and always in the ‘Nice’ column.” He wiped mayonnaise from his white beard. “Winter is your name.”

“I was hoping I might run into you here,” Winter said. “Mr. Caruthers said you ride the Night Train home after every Christmas.”

“He said that?”

Nick didn’t entirely let his displeasure at Caruthers’ unusual breach of privacy show. Nevertheless Winter must have picked up on it because she answered, “He told me only because I was able to demonstrate my suzerainty to him. I convinced him you were one of mine.”

“One of your…? I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that.” Then he took a closer look at the little girl.

“Oh, you’ve changed considerably, since the last time I got a good look at you. Less fidgety. Better spoken. Darker too, I see.”

“I’m the North Wind now,” she said.

That caused the old man’s eyes to widen, under white eyebrows, so vast and bushy that it looked as if two albino badgers had lodged in place. For some time he tended silently to his Brobdingnagian sandwich and root beer malted.

Then he said, “Of course. I’d heard North had died. I didn’t even think there would have to be a replacement.”

“Me,” she said. “I went into the family business. I won a competition against my brothers and sisters, which I was quite pleased to win, at the time. Now I wish it might have turned out different.”

“Why’s that?” Nick said.

“Because I was still a little girl a year ago. Now I’m not. I’m here now, but I’m also home with my mom, and everywhere else, all at once. Everywhere the North Wind goes, in worlds without end.”

“I begin to see.” Nick pushed his plate aside, giving her his full attention now. She wore a pale blue dress, with dirt stains on its hems. She looked down at the floor as she talked.

“I’m inside every snowflake on every breeze. All of those accumulated moments flow into me, becoming years, then centuries, and then ages. All at once.”

“Not young at all anymore,” Nick said.

“But Mommy’s already so sad, because Daddy died, and then Dare died too, and Therese grew up all by herself, away from us. I can’t let her see how old I’ve become. I have to take care at all times to be a little girl around her.”

“You poor thing.”

“That’s not why I came looking for you though.”

“Oh?”

“You can be everywhere at once too. That’s how you do all the presents in every home, all in one night. At least that’s what you told my brother Ambrose.”

“True,” Nick said. “On that one night a year I make just a single trip, but it’s a single trip to every home at the same time.”

“So then you can teach me how to do it,” Winter said.

“How to be in many places at once? You already know. It’s a power that comes with the office. You just told me how you were already in every breeze in every world.”

“There’s a mountain, under a dark sky,” she said. “I’m there. Big. Gigantic. Filling every blast and blow of a giant scarp-ripper of a storm through the peaks. But I’m also in the smaller wind below, acting almost in counterpoint to the main storm. Whistling across the scree, worming my way through crook and cranny, chilling every den and hidey-hole. The me below is looking up in awe at the me above, who’s so big and bold. Aggressive. She’s laughing at me – I mean I’m laughing at me. Which one is me though?”

“Both, of course,” Nick said.

“So many,” she said, with distant eyes. “So many. How do I keep from getting lost?”

Nick laughed at that, a delighted chuckle that hearkened back to the Nick of Christmas Night. When he laughed his great belly shook like a bowl full of – well, suffice it to say, it shook.

“Child,” he said, “if you’re everywhere, the one thing you cannot possibly do is get lost. And every single one of you is the real you.”

“But how do I stand it?”

“Same way I learned. In time you get used to it.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty simple, huh?” Nick said.

A small, hopeful smile drifted across her face, brief, but real enough.

“You should try one of Alden’s malteds,” Nick said. “Have you had one yet?”

“Nope.”

“They’re marvelous. How did you start riding the Night Train anyway?”

Winter turned to fully face the club car’s bar counter. She pulled a menu towards herself. “I stumbled across it a few months ago,” she said, “when all of us were out looking for my missing brother and sister. I rode the train all over the place – many places – searching. We found them eventually, or at least discovered what had happened to them. Since then I’ve ridden it for fun, because neither me or any of the other winds rule over this territory – over the Night Train or the tracks of its route. It was fun being able to visit a place where I can be just a person. Off duty.”

“It’s good to be off duty,” Nick said. “After every Christmas run, when I’ve put the sleigh in for regular post-mission maintenance, and dropped the reindeer off at their winter pasture, I take two weeks to unwind.”

“Where do you go?” she said.

“Everywhere. All sorts of places. But I always seem to end up in Key West on the last day. Used to drink with a fellow named Hemingway there. Do you know about Earnest Hemingway?”

“Of course.” She rolled her eyes, but just a bit. “I’m only a million billion eons old, like I said. Had time to read a book or two.”

“Of course,” he echoed. “Anyway, he was a fine drinking companion. Gone now, but I still like to end my break at his old watering hole. Then I always ride the Night Train home.”

One of Mr. Caruther’s uniformed fetch kids came through the club car, loudly intoning, “Gathol! Coming up on Gathol! Everyone off here for all Barsoom stops!”

Nick took a loud final slurp on his malted and began the detailed process of climbing off of his barstool. “The Carters will be getting off here,” he said. “They’ll have my room ready soon. Big nap coming.”

On his feet again, he turned back to Winter.

“Are we okay, for now?” he asked her.

“I think so, sir.”

“If not, you know where to find me. You’re the only wind that covers my home territory.” He paused then, scrunching his mighty brows for a moment. “And you’re also my boss now – which you already know. Forgot for a minute how you began the conversation. You’re the Lord of all in the North, just like Old Man North was, in his time. An odd transition to ponder. Are you going to be as grumpy as your grandfather was?”

“Who can be mean to Santa?” she said. “But we’ll talk more, later.” She began to study the menu intently.

Outside the Night Train moved on tracks all its own, between worlds, across the imaginary voids between places, riding the mist.

On the [belated] sixth day of Christmas… A guest blogger did appear

The third of the ten stories in 1001 Nights Of Snowfall is The Christmas Pies. The story is painted by resident Fables artist Mark Buckingham and focuses on Reynard the Fox who tricks the Adversary’s forces into baking and delivering Christmas pies to a group of trapped and hungry animals in effort to recreate “the miracle of the Christmas pies”.

Let’s take a step back here before I get into this anymore. Yesterday, there was an unfortunate hamburger incident that rendered Bill unable to work on the sixth blog. So I’m here – Stephanie, Bill’s assistantey critter and Sherpa – to fill the gap on the holiday blogs (you can find more details on me and where to find me at the bottom of the page). Some of you might be familiar with me already and some might not, but I live up in Canada and work remotely from the frosty north. I just moved into a new apartment and as such, I needed to christen my oven with something delicious; my first home-cooked meal in the apartment. That’s where the story of Reynard the Fox and the Miracle of the Christmas Pies comes into play.

Sort of.

Yesterday, as I mentioned, was the day in which I decided to cook my first proper meal in the new apartment. A lot of my recipe books are still packed away, so I looked through my collection of recipes on the computer and stumbled across the perfect one: Potato Bacon Cheddar Pie, or PBCP for short.

I should mention that this recipe originally came from Chef Michael Smith and he called this “pie” a tart, but I think that’s pretty rude to call people/things bad names, so I’m sticking with pie. I adjusted this recipe a bit to be easier, so I’m going to post my version below, but if you’d like the fancy shmancy one, I won’t be offended if you visit Chef Michael Smith’s site instead.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of bacon

3-4 cups of cheddar cheese (depending on how much you like cheese)

3-4 large unpeeled baking potatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

Parchment paper

You’re going to need a 9-10’ round cake pan for this. You could probably use a pie plate as well, but it’ll work best if you have something that the bacon can’t really stick to. That’s where the parchment paper comes into place though, so let’s get started!

Steps:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2) Get a piece of parchment paper that covers the cookware you’re using. From there, fold the paper in half and then in half again and then like you’re making a paper snowflake, start folding the it into triangles. Martha Stewart can explain what I mean better. You’re not making a paper snowflake though, so don’t start cutting out shapes and such.

Once you’re done that, take the tip of the triangle and line it up in the center of the dish and then where the parchment paper meets the edge, cut the excess paper away.

Grab some spray on oil and line the dish with it and then place your round parchment paper inside.

It should look like this:

3) Next up, you’re going to want to get out your bacon. Have I mentioned that the crust for this “pie” is bacon? Because it is. You’ll probably want to put something underneath the dish so that when you do this step, the bacon isn’t hanging all over the sides and onto your counter. You’ll see what I mean in a second. I used a cookie sheet underneath mine.

You’re going to put bacon the entire way around the dish, right on top of the parchment paper. Make sure the first slice goes right to the center and the second slice overlaps the first by a little bit. After that, every other slice shouldn’t come right to the center of the dish, but rather about half way back. Otherwise you’ll wind up with a giant mound of bacon meat in the center of the dish. Make sure that the bacon that’s hanging back a bit still overlaps the previous slice, but again, you don’t want a clump of meat in the center.

After you’re done with the circle of bacon, it should look something like this:

4) Next comes the first layer of potatoes. Each potato slice should be about as thin as you would make scalloped potatoes. If you’ve never made scalloped potatoes, the slices should be as close to a quarter of an inch as possible. You’ll want to arrange them into the pan (and on top of the bacon!) a bit like you would if you were making scalloped potatoes. Start at the outer edge and work your way around and into the center. Try not to leave gaps and try your best to make sure the layer is mostly one level. You don’t want mountains and valleys in your potato layer. After you’re done, sprinkle salt and pepper on top of the layer to flavour. If you like a little bit of additional flavour, you can put some fresh garlic in there or sprinkle a little bit of garlic powder in as well.

5) The first layer of cheddar cheese then goes on top of the potatoes. Cover the potatoes so that you don’t see them anymore. If you’re a cheese lover, add more. If you aren’t, just sparsely sprinkle over the potatoes. It’s really up to you: it’s a cheese your own adventure!

6) Repeat Steps 4-5 once more. From there, you want to continue the steps a few more times, but you want to start bringing the potatoes away from the edge, like a layer cake.Like this:

7) Once you’ve completed your cake of potatoes and cheese, you’re going to fold the bacon back over the top of the potatos and cheese. Gently press down as you go along so, again, you don’t wind up with a giant mound of everything in the center of the pie.

It’ll look like this:

8) The final step before putting this bad boy in the oven is to put something with a little bit of weight to it on stop of the pie before letting it cook. Bacon curls and you don’t want the edges to roll down, so find a lid for a pot or pan or anything basically that’s safe to go in the oven. Put a piece of parchment paper between the lid and the pie, place it on top and NOW the pie is ready to bake.

9) Bake at 350 degrees for a minimum of 2 and 1/2 hours. Make sure to put a pan or sheet underneath the pie since this IS a pie made of bacon and it’ll sizzle in the oven and potentially make a mess otherwise.The pie is ready when you’re able to easily slice into it, letting you know that the potatoes are cooked.Once you take it out of the oven (very carefully because the pie dish will likely be filled with bacon grease and you don’t want to burn yourself!), find something to pour the grease from the pie into. Carefully drain it and once that’s done, you have a PCBP or a Potato Bacon Cheddar Pie.

If you like what I have to say and my recipe for your own personal slice of heaven, you can find me on Twitter @hellocookie or over on my own web site/personal blog www.misfortunecookie.ca.

NOTE: Bill’s Seventh Blog of Christmas will be up later today.

On the fifth day of Christmas…

Let me assure you once more that I borrowed this idea of doing 12 Blogs of Christmas from Paul Cornell, with both his foreknowledge and blessing. I would never LaBeouf someone’s idea without permission and attribution. Having warned you two days ago that I’ve dabbled in driving a pulpit in my colorful past, I’ve been inspired by that memory to prepare a sermon for this time. It’s about holiday anger and about the dreaded 3-C’s, Crass Christmas Commercialism. Tomorrow you’ll get more fiction, and then another related fiction story the next day – assuming all of my mad schemes come together properly. And then, if the two back-to-back days of fiction come off the way I hope, there may be a gift for you in the following day, or at least a gift for the writers in our audience.

But for now, let’s settle into our pews while I give you a sermon I call…

Have yourself an angry little Christmas…

It was an anonymous letter from one of the neighbors and said this: “Not everybody in the neighborhood is Christian, and many people do not wish to see such a flagrant display of your beliefs… religious matters aside, your decorations are beyond tasteless. They are cheap, tacky, and kitschy, and a terrible eyesore.” If you want the full story in context, you can go here.

It’s not a new story. Every year someone overdoes it, by the standards of another, causing friction. Every year someone gets grumpy, to outright mad, to full blown litigious, over another person or group’s way of celebrating the holidays.

It’s not uncommon to hear, and hear it often, some variation on the phrase, “You’re trying to force your religion on me.” The idea that simple exposure equals force seems to be a new one, but it’s caught on widely.

And then, just to show how the grumpiness isn’t entirely one sided, did you hear about the Salvation Army bell ringer who got assaulted because he said, “Happy Holidays,” instead of, “Merry Christmas”? I’m sorry. I don’t have a direct link to that story. I read it somewhere a few days’ back, but forgot where. Still, it was, as I plainly recall, a reported story from an established news organization, more than just a passing anecdote.

I’d also talk about the fighting Santas in New York, but you’ve probably seen enough of that drunken nonsense for a lifetime. I know I have.

I’ve been through a lot of Christmases. Enough to see a definite trend that we seem to be getting angrier about it, year by year. I don’t think it’s down to a single cause. Most big cultural changes have many parents. In fact, one of my all time pet peeves is the phrase, “It’s not (this), it’s (this).” You can fill in those blanks with all sorts of stuff, and it’s almost always wrong. I cringed in that Next Generation episode when Data said, “Starfleet isn’t a military organization, its purpose is exploration.” And this from the one crewmember whose entire shtick is that he knows everything. He, of all people, should know better. Yes, it exists for exploration. That’s been firmly established. It’s also a military organization. That’s why you have military ranks and guns, and you push everyone around, and when the bad guys intrude, trying to blow up everything, you’re the only group that shows up to stop them. Military. Exploration. Both. Reprogram yourself, you smug, propaganda-spewing toaster!

Oops. Got off on a bit of a digression there. Getting back to our angry Christmas, I think there are many reasons it’s trending worse, rather than better.

Starting in the late 50’s, early 60’s, we began to fetishize authenticity. “Express your true feelings. Let it all out.” This was a giant mistake. Too much truth in social interaction is a killer. The rise of authenticity brought about the death of manners – or at least its severe wounding. The core essence of manners is lying. Yes, lying. Telling lies. That’s the fuel on which it runs. “Good day,” he says, even though it may not be a good day and he couldn’t give a tinker’s damn for the other fellow, truthfully not caring a whit if he has a good day. “How are you today?” she asks, politely. “Fine. And you?” he responds, even though his ex wife, who ran off with his younger brother, just served him with divorce papers that very morning.

“Excuse me?” he said, when what he authentically wanted to say was, “Speak more clearly, you mumbling, gum chomping, inarticulate moron.” Why should he ask to be excused, when the other guy was the one at fault? Because, manners. Social lying to lubricate the daily machinery of human interaction, so the Brobdingnagian machine doesn’t grind itself apart. I think we’re losing our manners, as a whole (thank you, every individual hold-out to this trend) and the machinery’s breaking down. The result is more anger towards each other on Christmas, and at any other perceived provocation.

Another father of this problem is that anyone who uses the word “force” when what he means is “exposure” hasn’t been immediately shouted down as an idiot, because sometimes the need for truth does outweigh a desire for manners, and this is one of those instances. A different version of this phenomenon is that we often accept the notion of “Freedom from” as if that were the same thing as actual freedom. It’s not. “Freedom from hunger,” popularized by none other than the late great Norman Rockwell, in his Four Freedoms paintings, has nothing to do with freedom. It’s another way of saying it’s someone else’s job to feed me. “Freedom from fear,” means protect me. Protecting someone from what makes him fearful may be a fine thing worth doing, but it isn’t freedom. And “freedom from exposure to (fill in the blank)” has taken over the asylum. We’ve come to accept that rhetorical imposter as a reality.

It’s axiomatic that we get more of the behavior we reward and less of the behavior we punish. And now we tend to reward almost anyone who gets indignant about almost anything. I could spend the rest of my writing career citing examples.

So, the complainers get to make the rules now, manners are in short supply, and anyone who’s exposed to anything he doesn’t like, all too often gets away with claiming compulsion. It’s simply not true that every human interaction has an oppressor and a victim.

Conceding many other contributing factors, I believe these things are at the heart of the problem. If you want a better, less angry Christmas, I have a possible solution for those willing to try it. A few rules I’ve gleaned from many helpful sources. Here they are:

Don’t let yourself get angry at things not actually imposing on you. Anger, like most states of mind, is under your control. If you disagree, and think your emotions aren’t under your control, try this experiment. Go get angry at a Cop and see what happens. I’ll bet you can be all kinds of grumpy in every other part of your life and still control yourself to talk nicely to a cop, or the boss who can fire you, or any number of others who’ve the power to adversely influence your life. Most of you really angry cusses are actually pretty damn careful about who you unload on. That’s why people celebrating Christmas get scolded so much. They tend not to come barreling at you with dire consequences, when you yell at them. So stop it. Stop getting angry, even though you can so often get away with it.
When someone wishes you a Merry Christmas and you aren’t Christian, so what? You were not harmed in any way. The polite response is to say, “Thank you,” and move on. If you’re devoted to another religion, it’s also fine to say, for example, “Thank you, and Happy Hanukah to you.”
When someone wishes you a Happy Holidays and you are Christian, and maybe even a little upset over the devaluing of Christ in Christmas, so what? You were not harmed in any way. The polite response is to say, “Thank you,” and move on. If it’s important to express your preferences, it’s also fine to say, “Thank you, and Merry Christmas.” You can even get folksy and dress it up a bit with, “I’ll see your Happy Holidays and send a Merry Christmas right back at’cha.” It is not acceptable to attack. Relearn your manners.
Even if you don’t appreciate it, say “Thank you” anyway. Tell the good lie. Authenticity is for the dung heap.

Maybe the entire point of this sermon boils down to this: Try to be nicer.

Also, let’s add some behaviorism. If you act cheerful, you’ll start being cheerful. It works. Your moods and your passions really are largely under your control, and if not, they can be trained. For a lovely illustration of this, treat yourself to the splendid movie, The Madness of King George. It’s about King George – the one that lost the American colonies, who did go a bit round the bend, until he was finally cured (or at least treated successfully) by a doctor whose crazy new idea was, the secret to being sane is in being forced to act as if you were sane. Pretty soon the training takes and one gets better.

Related to this, sort of, is what I’d promised above: My take on the 3-C’s, Crass Commercial Consumerism. Lot’s of folks complain about it. My question in response to said complaint can probably be intuited by now, based on all that stuff written above: So what? How does it hurt you?

The fact that at this time of year scads of people drive themselves to distraction, devoting too much worry, time and money in their attempts to buy just the right thing for other people doesn’t seem too bad a thing to me. In fact, I’m all for it.

Please treat your retailer nicer though. She’s having a tough time of it. Retailing at any time is a tough stressful job, and during the Christmas rush that stress and frustration is dialed up to eleven. Also, there’s a good chance she was hired just a short time ago, to help man the Christmas rush, and hasn’t had the more intensive training the permanent hires get. So do please remember your manners and cut her some slack.

That, more or less, is what I think about that. And even though I shamelessly sermonized, I didn’t force anything on you. In fact, I haven’t even made demands. I’ve made a few requests though. I did do that. How about it, you Grinches, Grumpkins and Humbugs? Think about giving it a try over the following days.

And Merry Christmas.

On the fourth day of Christmas…

Last year, for Paul’s 12 Blogs of Christmas, I wrote nine short-short prose stories, all on a Christmas theme. These were stories called drabbles, which is a recently coined word for a story of exactly one hundred words, not a word more, nor a word less. Titles don’t count against the word total, and hyphenated words count as one. Those are the comfortably few rules for a proper drabble.

The thing I like most about the hundred-word story is the practice it brings in writing small, tersely. To bring off a complete story in so few words requires a surgeon’s mindset – a willingness to cut away any part that doesn’t absolutely have to be there.

Because I can, I’m going to repost the nine Christmas drabbles I did for Paul’s site last year. Looking back at them, there are exactly two that I think stand up as legitimate stories – tales I’m proud to have crafted. A couple more I still sort of like. One or two others at least have jokes that still almost tickle my weird funnybone. The rest? – meh. But you can decide for yourself.

Then, after the nine reposts, I’m going to add new Christmas drabbles for this year. I have no idea how many. I’m not going to add them all tonight. I’ll add more to this day’s blog as I think of them. That way, not only do you have to come back daily to read each new day’s Christmas essay, you’ll also now have to come back to Day 4’s blog, to see how many new ones I can add, before Christmas Day. This is a blatant act of thievery. I’m stealing more of your time than we bargained for.

Then again, this is a theft easily thwarted, if you want to get all humbug about it and simply decide not to come back. If that turns out to be the case, don’t come crying to me if a handful of ghosts visit you one night soon, to inspire a change in attitude.

So here then are nine year-old Christmas drabbles, followed by a few more.

Flying High

He was Spritzer, one of the original team, when they were nine, rather than the more famous eight, but few remember him, since considerable effort was made to erase any mention of him from official records and the larger legend beyond.

“Not everyone can handle the level of fame this job brings,” the fat man said.

“Nonsense, I’m fine.”

“Not even close. You’re high as a kite.”

“Flying is our thing.”

“And now this,” Santa said. He set a videotape in front of the deer. “Porn? Seriously?”

“My chance to break into movies.”

“Disgusting!” And with that, Spritzer was out.

Black Christmas

This was Bindelbob’s first year working the black gang, the elite team of elves responsible for filling the coal hopper on Santa’s sleigh.

“What are all these deductions from my paycheck?” he asked Senior Elf Crumplehat. “Reform for Troubled Teens? Solutions Dot Net? The Rehab and Reentry Project?”

“Some of the charities we underwrite,” Crumplehat said.

“But how can deductions be mandatory here? Back in Toy Production I was free to pick my own causes.”

“In this case it’s a legitimate work expense,” Crumplehat said. “When we support what turns the naughty into nice, we have less coal to load.”

Concerning Our New Rules of Conduct for This Year’s Christmas Party, After the Unfortunate Events That Occurred as a Result of Incidents (Alleged) Which May or May Not Have Taken Place at Last Year’s Office Christmas Party…

She had a fancy frock and dangerous shoes,

Strong enough to kill the Christmas blues,

At the office party up on floor thirteen.

She arrived in soft resplendence,

Displaying but a small hint of dependence,

On the pint or three she’d had in the canteen.

“You’re Betty from Receivables, isn’t that right?”

Said the exec named Mr. White.

“Right as rain,” said Betty with her fortified smile.

“And I know you. You’re the man,

“Who bedded my best friend Anne,

“Then denied it at the wrongful termination trial.”

That’s when Betty pulled the gun.

And now, alas, our story’s done.

A Small Part of the Legend

It was a humble thing, the last candle off the line, when the paraffin was running low, not worth restocking so late on Christmas Eve, since all would be shut down the next day. In a production of four-hour candles, it was good for ninety minutes at best.

“Can’t honestly sell it,” the candle-maker said. “We’ll keep it.”

They placed it in the window, where it spent its flame quickly, shedding small light, not accomplishing much.

Except…

Before it expired, its tiny flicker attracted one ragged, weary traveler to their door.

“A shelter against the night?” asked the king disguised.

Behind the Scenes

Santa was weary (hardly news there), but at least he was nearly done. Sixty thousand more deliveries and he could rewind The Watch, starting time again on its normal pace.

The Great Powers That Oversee didn’t mind him fiddling with the catholic timeflow, since his mission was benign. He brought free stuff. Everyone likes free stuff.

But those Powers didn’t realize Santa was just a front. A gaudy, colorful distraction. Elder things, dark, remote and resolute, took action whenever time halted. Soon they’d make their move into our bright and lovely world, pre-corrupted by all the free stuff, magically delivered.

Marching to the Beat

The son of God and Lord of Hosts seemed a restless sort, constantly traveling from town to town, never staying in one place for long.

“It’s his mission,” one of his followers explained. “The life of an itinerant preacher.”

And that much was true, but he was also a man searching. One day he’d find him, that shepherd boy, grown up now. The drummer who wouldn’t stop, beating, beating, beating, while he lay helpless in his cradle, already terribly aware, but unable to act.

“Now that I’m in my power, I can finally thank him properly for his Christmas gift.”

Under the Tree

And finally all the presents were opened, save one.

“I don’t remember wrapping that one,” Father said.

“It’s not addressed to any of us,” Mother said. “Wait, here’s a tag on the back.”

“What does it say?” Bobby said, hoping it would be another gift for him.

“It says, ‘The last gift for the last Christmas,’” Mother read.

“Don’t open it!” Father nearly screamed. “That’s some end of the world type language.”

“I’m not a moron,” Mother said. “We’ll put it away and never touch it.”

And that’s how the Andersons became the guardians of all mankind. Except Bobby, who really, really wanted to know.

A Man in Full

He received such delightful things. A Scotty Cameron golf putter. An Atomic Aquatic Cobalt nitrox-integrated dive computer with digital compass. Handmade Italian leather driving gloves. A case of Shafer Vineyards Relentless 2008.

Everything was perfect, exactly what He wanted, because it was on his list, which is how efficient Christmas giving should be done.

His gifts to others weren’t so carefully targeted. They were also on a list of what he wanted – what he knew they should want, if only they had the education and character to realize it.

“Master your life,” he oft opined.

Elsewhere flames were efficiently stoked.

True

She’d no money to buy a tree, so she drew one on her apartment wall with colored chalk. Over the next days she sketched packages underneath, bright and bedecked.

On Christmas morning no miracle had occurred. The tree and gifts were still lines and pigments on a wall. No one called, because her phone had been turned off months ago for non-payment. No one arrived. No spontaneous gathering of old friends and loves bringing good food and spirits, despite hopeful daydreams that they might.

Then again…

The way the morning sunlight fell across the snow outside. “Blessings enough,” she said.

Join in any…

“Crap on toast, you mutant-nosed moron!” Blitz sputtered. “For the millionth time, your bishop can’t move into a space occupied by a checker! You have to either move the checker, or draw a card. But first you never placed chips on the Pass Line or the Don’t Pass Bar, allowing you to roll the dice and establish the point!”

“Jeeze, Blitz, these games of yours are confusing.”

“I tried to keep you out, little buddy. For your own good, I tried to protect you from the complex vices of immortal aero-ruminants. But no, you had to whine to the boss.”

On the third day of Christmas…

Just a reminder that I’m stealing – uh, make that borrowing – this idea from Paul Cornell, and you can catch up to his 12 Blogs of Christmas here. There. Now on to the day’s episode.

Fair warning: This one gets biographical, which I hesitate to do, because it’s so easy to let autobiography turn into bragging, or narcissistic navel gazing, or (even worse) true confession. I’m infinitely more comfortable spinning fiction than personal history, but since too many friends have often said I tend to be too much of a closed book, and since Paul Cornell set the precedent of making many of his 12 Blogs candidly revelatory about his private life – as a pathway to larger, more universal truths – I’ve decided to give it a shot. Tomorrow I plan to beat a full retreat back into fiction. Promise.

Alright then, let’s move along to our discussion of the day, before another celebrity dies and derails the blog again. Ouch. Sorry. That seems cold hearted and dismissive, which I am not (or at least try not to be). So, forget that last line. Starting again, here’s the show:

Ghosts of Christmas Past

The first Christmas I can fully remember, with any certainty of detail, was in Germany, in 1960, or 61, distinguished by two things. First, I got a huge Fort Apache play set, with scads of cavalry soldiers, ready to hold the fort against brigades of attacking Indians. Of course it included the big wooden (plastic) fort, with guard towers on each corner, and a cannon and flagpole, and… well, everything. I also got a big bass drum – marching band style – from the neighbors next door (whom I now realize were being merry pranksters), and didn’t notice when it disappeared later that very day, never to be seen again. When I finally did remember the drum, and asked about it, all claimed to have no idea what I was talking about.

However, It was a while before I noticed that wonderful array of gifty loot on Christmas morning, because of the other of the two things.

Second (but first, chronologically), one of my older sisters, Barbara I think (but it may have been Penny), played her own prank. She told me, the night before, when I was fretting about the impossibility of getting to sleep, since I was so excited for Santa to show up – she said: “It’s a good thing you can’t sleep, because Santa is really a boogyman, who comes into the house at night to steal the youngest child away and make him into a stew. You need to stay awake and watch out.” In the interests of fair reporting and full disclosure, it might not have been a stew she mentioned. It could have been a roast, or even a casserole.

I was at an age where I believed what my two older sisters said, because they were old enough to be another two of the (too many in hindsight) adults in charge, and adults would never lie about something so momentous. I cried and screamed long into the night, begging anyone who would listen not to let Santa come. Eventually, I think, the real parents discovered the ruse and coaxed me out of my funk, and out of my room to face the wondrous swag reality mentioned above.

Back when the joys of Christmas were measured entirely in the Danegelt of how much stuff I got, Christmases were pretty damn good.

There was the Christmas where my brother and I each got new GI Joes. My brother and I were just a tad over a year apart and often got the same thing on Christmas. Since at least one of us was a complete spoiled shit, I’m certain this was a calculated policy designed to pare back the amount of inter-sibling gift envy.

But, to get back to the Joes, this was when they were still 12” tall, and, glory of glories, they each arrived that year with their own, to scale, Navy jet fighter. Try to picture this. My brother and I were wee. Little kids. To lift a Navy jet fighter big enough to have a full sized GI Joe inside, was a lot of work, but it was also well and truly awesome. This was the same year that the Givan kids got the GI Joe space capsule, the Gilberts got the GI Joe Jeep with the big gun trailer, and Lyle Nick got the GI Joe (nearly) full-scale tank. As a neighborhood, we were well armed and our combined Joe forces were ready to kick all sorts of godless commie bee-hind.

There was the year my brother and I got new bikes – proper big boy ten speeds, which expanded our range of world exploration exponentially. There was the year the Givan Boys got James Bond Attaché cases, with James Bond guns (and other secret things), but that’s okay, because my brother and I got Man From U.N.C.L.E. gun cases, which were tres cooler. Trust me. They were.

Then, later on, there were the tougher times, when I was on my own.

In 1977, I arrived at my first permanent duty station in Germany, having just burned up all of my post-basics leave time, and burned even more leave, grudgingly advanced from the next year. I’d spent myself into leave-debt staying as long as possible with my mother, who’d just been diagnosed with the cancer that would kill her in another three months. Having taken all the leave they’d give me, I still narrowly missed my last Christmas with her, leaving the States to land on station late on Christmas Eve. The sergeant whose duty was to in-process me (a multi-day affair) asked if I might be willing to get lost for two or three days, so that he could have an uninterrupted Christmas with his family. I was happy to oblige. There were huge tourist busses on post, one of which was leaving for Paris, so I went to Paris for Christmas. I was alone, but the city was bright and bedecked. When I got back three days later, I found out I was AWOL the entire time. It seems we weren’t allowed to cross international boarders sans official US Army permission. Who knew?

On Christmas of the following year I was high in a drafty wooden tower, in the middle of a forest, alone in the night, guarding bunkers full of nukes at my back. The commanders did what they could to be fair to the most people and came up with this plan: Married MP’s got Christmas off, if they wanted to take leave. Single MP’s got New Year’s off, if they wanted to take leave. Not a bad policy, considering. Sure, I’ve never been much interested in New Years, but I’ve known all along I wasn’t a typical example of… well, anything. Besides, I still had no leave accumulated. Staying put was the only option. It wasn’t a sacrifice. My mother had been the only glue holding a sprawling family of broken parts together. With her gone, we’d all scattered to the four winds. There was no concentration of family to go to. Instead I worked extra shifts so that others could go home for a bit.

On Christmas of 1984 (go ahead and read all sorts of sinister implications into that year) I was in Philadelphia, with almost not a spare penny to my name. It was during my early years of making-a-go-of-the-comics-profession, and frugality was the word of the day – that day and every day surrounding it. My (non-sexual-non-romantic, almost non-friend at all) roommate was off staying with her boyfriend. On Halloween night, a month and change earlier, the great love of my life had given me my walking papers, finally trading me in for the accomplished heart surgeon that her family much preferred over me, and had conspired to throw at her, at every opportunity.

Easy to see then that I was feeling pretty soul-hammered at the time. To make matters worse, my ex lived in the apartment directly above me (it’s how we met), and the floors were thin enough I could hear every detail of how well she was getting along with the new guy. There was entirely too much audible evidence he was more qualified in tending to the needs of her heart. I needed to move, but couldn’t afford it.

On Christmas Eve, in an act of defiance against the Fates, I decided not to give in. I discovered I could afford exactly five bucks for a tree that year, and set out to find one. Unfortunately, the cheapest one available was fifteen dollars. Just as I was about to go home, dejected and defeated, the very young boy helping out at the tree selling shop (just around the corner from Fat Jack’s Comic Crypt – hi, guys), a perfect cliché of the miniature urban hustler, worthy of inclusion in any number of episodes of Starsky and Hutch, or Hill Street Blues, whispered to me to meet him at the back door, down the alley. I did and he brought out a lovely tree, pocketed my five dollars, and I walked home, through shin-deep snow, pulling a blatantly stolen Christmas tree. To this day I have trouble feeling guilty about my Yuletide larceny, because it saved the holiday.

Then there was the Christmas, at the lowest point in my funnybook career, spent living out of my oft-broken van.

And there were other less-than-stellar Christmases, but I imagine you’ve gotten the gist. Some of those times got pretty rough. But the gist you’ve by now gotten (or you never will) isn’t the same as the point I intend to make. The point of these anecdotes isn’t to garner sympathy, or in any way illustrate the notion of “I had it tough.” Millions – billions have had it worse. The point of these anecdotes is this:

While I was stationed at that nuke-guarding base, we once had a transport mission to Ramstein Air Base, during which our job was to set up a defensive (read that as “bring far too many guns”) perimeter around the area in which the nuclear devices were being transferred from truck to jet. While this occurred, two of the guards, dumb young kids, just like I was at the time, were loudly discussing their many sexual conquests (about which no soldier in history has ever lied, or exaggerated). One of them (I can still see him clearly, but his name escapes me) was going on and on about how bad this lay was and how lifeless or inadequate that lay was (nicely breaking an entire human down to her base functionality).

Sergeant Blades, a big, growly, no bullshit sergeant, straight out of Central Casting, was part of the mission that day, and on hand to hear most of this. He stormed over to that young private, braced him sharply and said, “Listen, you dumb piece of (sorry, I can’t repeat it – but it was Blade’s favorite descriptor), the worst sex I’ve ever had was wonderful! Now shut up!”

Here we are then. I never forgot that moment, and have learned, over the years, to apply its lesson to more than just Private Braggadocio’s unsatisfying sex life. In short, I told you all of that, to tell you this: The worst Christmas I ever had was wonderful. Pardon me, but I think it bears repeating.

The worst Christmas I ever had was wonderful.

In that cold, wobbly tower in the middle of the night, I had a field of falling snow all to myself, and it was one of the most spiritually informative moments of my life. Alone in Paris only meant the entire lighted city belonged solely to me for a time. The Christmas of 1984 was the toughest of the bunch, but I had that hot tree (which I went back to pay for years later, causing an entirely different adventure), and who doesn’t like a good Holiday caper? Even the Christmas night in the van was mitigated by the fact (I was and am too prideful) that no one at the time knew it was where I was living, and I had a firm plan of action. Basically I was able to sock away almost every penny I made in a nest egg to make sure the van was a very temporary necessity.

The Grinch story isn’t just fiction. If you’re so inclined, it’s also documentary. Take away all of the pomps and encrustations of Christmas and one might be surprised to find one still has Christmas in full.

And that isn’t due solely to the established Biblical side of the holiday. I like much about Christianity and would embrace it (have tried to in fact), except that I can’t actually believe any of it. Since that seems too severe a stumbling block to merit a mulligan, I can’t be a Christian. It isn’t just a case that removing all of the other stuff still leaves the Christ story central and whole. Well, yes, it does for many – just not me. Take everything you can think of away and there’s still something basic and unmovable within Christmas for us godless heathen, who nevertheless choose to celebrate the day. If I can ever work out exactly what that ineffable something is, I’ll get back to you on it, but I’m certain it has more to do with what’s inside of you, and the decisions you choose to make about how you feel, than what happens to you, for good or ill.

That’s most of what I think I know about Christmas.

Look at that. I got a bit preachy there. Sorry, folks. Truth is I tried my hand at preaching, once upon a time, and got good at it, and got to like it. The only trouble was I just couldn’t nail that believing-in part. And while it’s true history is rife with those who’re wildly successful, even though (or perhaps specifically because) they don’t believe what they flog, I can’t be one of them. For the same reason I don’t do tarot readings for a living, even though my cold readings will knock your socks off. Just ask comics legend Phil Foglio. It isn’t bragging, but a fact that I’d have made an excellent swindler.

And on that dubious parting note…

Merry Christmas.

On the second day of Christmas…

Today’s 12 Blogs of Christmas episode was going to be called The Ghosts of Christmas Past, and be about some of my past Christmases, with speculation appended on possible larger ideas one might derive from them. But then this happened, so we’ll do that other thing tomorrow:

Peter O’ Toole 1933 – 2013

Peter O’Toole died yesterday. He was 82 and had a good run. It’s almost fitting he should die this close to Christmas, because, though I’ve loved him in many things, he will first and foremost always be The Lion in Winter to me.

The staff of Entertainment Weekly, writing in syndicate, one must suppose, had this to say about him: “…arguably the most strikingly charismatic, most eerily handsome, most preternaturally gifted actor of his acting generation…” I think that’s accurate and not overly stated.

He’ll always be remembered most for his incandescent role as TE Lawrence, in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, and this is appropriate, as much as it’s appropriate to remember any storyteller for a single work. Like the character Lawrence, Peter O’Toole made a conscious choice not to be ordinary. According to Gay Talese in his 1963 Esquire portrait of O’Toole, at 18 the man wrote the following declaration in his notebook: “I do not choose to be a common man…it is my right to be uncommon—if I can…I seek opportunity—not security…I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed… to refuse to barter incentive for a dole… I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopias…” I don’t think it can be argued he didn’t live his credo.

But it’s The Lion in Winter that will always stand out for me as the best of his many parts. And since it’s, among so many other things, a Christmas film, and since this is a Christmas Blog, it’s appropriate to spend the lion’s share (pun intended, I suppose) of our time on this particular work.

It’s a wonderful movie, directed by Anthony Harvey and produced by Joseph E Levine. It was written by James Goldman, adapted from his own play. Released in 1968, it’s full of high drama and low comedy, and so well written I ache to be able to form words so simply, but with such dexterity. When I so often talk about my wishes to write about clever, well-spoken people, rather than the stumbling idiots that infest most of our adventure fiction, this film, this story lies at the precise center of my gravity.

In was an expertly cast film, with Anthony Hopkin’s first film role, early appearances by Timothy Dalton and Nigel Terry. And it had Katharine Hepburn, who overpowers most roles she takes, but was pitch perfect in this, ruling every scene she was in – except when Peter O’Toole was on screen. “Larger than life,” is appellation too commonly used, but here it’s the least one can say. O’Toole played it big, mighty in fact, but also sly, and calculating, and then broken in the face of revelations too terrible to receive.

Rumor has it he was drunk during most of the filming.

Here’s some of what co-star Anthony Hopkins had to say about working with Peter O’Toole on the film: “But the one powerful person I’ll never forget is O’Toole, because he was something special. He was unique. Extraordinary. Still is, I think, a real acting genius.”

In another interview, Hopkins was asked specifically about their hard drinking days, adding, “We weren’t close friends but we had a few drinks together. Peter in those days — he could start a fight. There’d always be a bit of trouble around him, like Oliver Reed and people like that. Big drinkers but they were great talents and they burnt the candle at both ends and some of them didn’t make it through.

“They died, like Burton died relatively young, but that’s the way he decided to live. And I think, ‘Good for you, if that’s what you wanted.’ But it changed my life when I did stop. I’m one of the fortunate ones.”

And while his hard drinking would almost kill him, albeit indirectly – his stomach cancer in the 70’s was misdiagnosed as a result of alcoholic excess, and not treated immediately – it didn’t prevent him from giving the greatest of performances, which coincided with his hardest drinking days. I won’t speculate on any cause and effect here.

The Lion in Winter takes place in Christmas of 1183, at King Henry the Second’s (O’Toole) primary residence in Chinon, Anjou, on the European continent. It’s a tale of intrigue amongst his sons, alternately aided and undermined, in wily succession, by their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Hepburn). His sons plot to see which one will be king, after the old lion dies. It’s family politics writ large, complete with meddling neighbors, but relatable to anyone who’s ever had to travel home for Christmas and relearn how to navigate the jungle intricacies of family affairs and statecraft.

It’s one of my favorite Christmas stories, where Christmas is used as a bludgeon, just one of many weapons employed in an extended backroom brawl of medieval royalty. It shows all of human vanity, spite and cynicism, without itself being a cynical story. I won’t spoil. I won’t tell you why (because perhaps I still don’t know), but it’s actually uplifting. Maybe it’s because, if Henry can eventually forgive these reptiles he’s spawned, then we can find the will to forgive our own this Christmas. Who can say?

It’s worth watching, which I will do once again, later this evening.

And, by all gods, above and below, it’s got Peter O’Toole in it, at the absolute pinnacle of his powers.

He was mighty in his sins and his melancholies, dead drunk through many of his better performances. He had a double phallic for a name and seemed to want to earn that questionable distinction in the way he treated the many women in his life. He wrecked so many cars they took his license away, and wrecked a few lives, license for which no one has ever found a way to confiscate. But, in return, he gave us Lawrence and Alan Swann. He gave us Mr. Chips and the enigmatic director in The Stunt Man. He gave us the one Henry II who condemned Beckett to death, and then gave us the same character again, in the autumn of his years, a true Lion in Winter.

Goodbye Mr. O’Toole. I appreciated you much in life, and will miss you.

Merry Christmas.