Christmas Poem: Eco-Scrooge

While awaiting the end of the world in 2012, I wrote this poem after watching Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Our family puts on our own Christmas Eve program in between the supper and the opening of the presents. Afterward, we have that post-celebration "what chaos have we wrought?" feeling, and so I sometimes feel the need to remind ourselves that it really is okay to go a bit overboard when celebration is called for. So this poem was my contribution for that year, after realizing with a laugh that Scrooge was the the first modern prototype of a puritanical environmentalist.

In honor of my brother-in-law, who loves George C. Scott's performance in his favorite version, filmed in Shropshire England, produced by Entertainment Partners Ltd., first airing on CBS in 1984

We used to tease my father-in-law that he would like everyone to start out the new year with fresh packs of underwear and several bottles of vitamins, and that would be a fine Christmas, indeed. But he is quite generous and kind, and not the inspiration for this Scrooge. My reaction, rather, is to a lifetime of reading magazine articles full of tips for better living through simplicity. I'm all for that, but not for every day. I firmly believe that it's healthy to go a bit crazy now and then, so this was written in that spirt.

Eco-Scrooge

To find a bold spokesman for the life of slim pickins

Especially at Christmas, flip through Charles Dickens.

Within his bright Carol lives a small Ebenezer

A principled man with his heart in the freezer

All Christmas delights oppose his green morals

Never at ease, he must rest on his laurels.

He says,

"Heaven awaits those content with themselves

who need never dream fancies of Santa nor elves.

This day should be marked like any man's birth

A toast to his health and a modicum of mirth.

I eschew a fat goose, not just for its prices

A Tofurkey suffices-- no life sacrifices.

Sugary plums create tooth fur and rot

The purpose of canes striped to eat, I know not.

The avoidance of glutens, casein and dairy

Keeps the belly concave and the countenance merry.

The utility of gifts become ghosts of the past

Held fast for a time but not built to last.

In favor of gifts bought with gold for a bargain

The Savior would rather a small footprint of carbon.

A blanket or coat tightly wrapped warms the bones

Coal burns not cleanly, nor frackened large stones.

The poor have the edge for they walk and don't ride

Premium oil's not taken out of their hide.

The sweat of our brows is required by earth...

That which we reduce will measure our worth."

We all know how scrupulous Scrooge was converted--

To the plight of his soul he became plainly alerted.

But if you are consumed this whole Christmas season

With right indignation that stems from good reason

By sights that seem wasteful, greedy, displeasin'

Then reread and recycle this poem meant for teasin'.

© copyright 2012 by Gilded Lily Press 

Grammy nominated The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1997

An enlightened Michael Caine as Scrooge

A still from a live production of A Christmas Carol by the wonderful Gaslight Theater of Tucson, which scared the bahoogas out of the kids in attendance in 1997. Curiously, the televised Jacob Marley did not. Treat yourself to local theater, which provides the most immediate and vivid setting for scenes of these intimate and highly unnerving visitations.

As Good As It Gets for the Holidays

Jack Nicholson got it right. He makes a speech in this movie that I had to copy down. His delivery surpasses the written word and I can hear his voice when I remember "the Noodle Salad" speech that he delivers from the back of a sports car. Why post this now, you ask?

I have some family members who are going through something hellacious. And it isn't just a bad time or a downturn. It's like every conceivable avenue of horrible has laid itself before them to walk. I didn't even go into detail, but someone said to me upon hearing this, "We all have hard lives." And I thought, Uh, no. Hard things come and go for everyone, of course. Much of that is their perception and what feels hard to them. But some people just plain have it hard by any standard. There are situations that are like something out of Dickens, except too modern to be comforting by virtue of being quaint. Whole new levels of hell get invented as mankind progresses. There is nothing wrong with perception in certain cases. Some situations can make our eyes boggle. Rough stuff at the holidays? Well, so is evergreen and holly.

With all of the hardship that can coincide with a lengthy holiday season, I admit I find it perplexing that there are seminars advertised to people for how to "survive" the holidays, whether it comes to their careful eating habits, their family relations, their expectations, their spending or their frenzied activity. There are magazine articles, books, television programs, church sermons, lectures and cartoons that try to teach us how to get the most out of the holidays without everything turning ugly and burned out. That's a lot of time spent explaining to us that we don't have time to pay attention to extraneous activities such as attending seminars that sell tickets about how to survive the holidays.

Thanks, Santie, but the dolly is much nicer and less confusing

The concern with materialism surrounding Christmas started in the late 1800s, so this problem isn't going away anytime soon, apparently. There is so much discussion about it and strategizing and conferring that it now seems like death and taxes. The Holiday Problem will always be with us. That's crazy, but that's how it is. Yet, there could be something good in all of that. The conflicting values get people thinking and communicating about how to do it better, and as bizarre as that is, the Problem is a gift that demonstrates what we are blessed with-- the freedom to even think and talk about it at all. That is not true for everyone in every society.

Back to the "Noodle Salad" speech. It's more appropriate for summer-time festivities. But it came to me now, and feels like a humorous shadow side to all of the twinkling lights, without falling into bleakness. I offer it to all of the people who are feeling bad-- and feeling bad about feeling bad--  as permission to not have a jolly attitude on what can be a really spirit-trying day. The Grinch would not be so fun to watch, if he didn't start out grumpy. (Of course, I don't advocate being unpleasant or jaded to such a bright green, or stealing from others out of spite. Not good form, at the least.)

I give you St. Nicholson, the original Bad Santa:

Jack in Coke

"Some of us have great stories, pretty stories, that take place at lakes, with boats, and friends, and noodle salad-- just no one in this car, but a lot of people. That's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good. "

-- from As Good As It Gets, written by Mark Andrus and James L. Brooks