A.A. Milne is the author of my very most favoritest Christmas text, better than A Christmas Carol, better than “The Night Before Christmas.”  Maybe because it’s about a social misfit who, somehow, regardless of his self-involvement, gets what he really wants.  So I had to come here and share it with all the Brainiacs.

 King John’s Christmas

by A.A. Milne

King John was not a good man —
He had his little ways.
And sometimes no one spoke to him
For days and days and days.
And men who came across him,
When walking in the town,
Gave him a supercilious stare,
Or passed with noses in the air —
And bad King John stood dumbly there,
Blushing beneath his crown.

King John was not a good man,
And no good friends had he.
He stayed in every afternoon …
But no one came to tea.
And, round about December,
The cards upon his shelf
Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer,
And fortune in the coming year,
Were never from his near and dear,
But only from himself.

King John was not a good man,
Yet had his hopes and fears.
They’d given him no present now
For years and years and years.
But every year at Christmas,
While minstrels stood about,
Collecting tribute from the young
For all the songs they might have sung,
He stole away upstairs and hung
A hopeful stocking out.

King John was not a good man,
He lived his life aloof;
Alone he thought a message out
While climbing up the roof.
He wrote it down and propped it
Against the chimney stack:
“TO ALL AND SUNDRY – NEAR AND FAR -
F. CHRISTMAS IN PARTICULAR.”
And signed it not “Johannes R.”
But very humbly, “JACK.”

“I want some crackers,
And I want some candy;
I think a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I don’t mind oranges,
I do like nuts!
And I SHOULD like a pocket-knife
That really cuts.
And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!”

King John was not a good man —
He wrote this message out,
And gat him to his room again,
Descending by the spout.
And all that night he lay there,
A prey to hopes and fears.
“I think that’s him a-coming now,
(Anxiety bedewed his brow.)
“He’ll bring one present, anyhow —
The first I’ve had for years.

“Forget about the crackers,
And forget about the candy;
I’m sure a box of chocolates
Would never come in handy;
I don’t like oranges,
I don’t want nuts,
And I HAVE got a pocket-knife
That almost cuts.
But, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!”

King John was not a good man —
Next morning when the sun
Rose up to tell a waiting world
That Christmas had begun,
And people seized their stockings,
And opened them with glee,
And crackers, toys and games appeared,
And lips with sticky sweets were smeared,
King John said grimly: “As I feared,
Nothing again for me!”

“I did want crackers,
And I did want candy;
I know a box of chocolates
Would come in handy;
I do love oranges,
I did want nuts.
I haven’t got a pocket-knife —
Not one that cuts.
And, oh! if Father Christmas had loved me at all,
He would have brought a big, red india-rubber ball!”

King John stood by the window,
And frowned to see below
The happy bands of boys and girls
All playing in the snow.
A while he stood there watching,
And envying them all…
When through the window big and red
There hurtled by his royal head,
And bounced and fell upon the bed,
An india-rubber ball!

AND OH, FATHER CHRISTMAS,
MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL
FOR BRINGING HIM
A BIG, RED
INDIA-RUBBER
BALL!

May you all get your hearts’ desires this holiday season.  And may we all have healthier, safer, wiser and more loving years ahead.

Update: See below — I’m adding the new days as they come along.

Oh, man, this is just perfect! Brainiac holiday comics cheer from your favorite SF blog, Tor.com.

Here’s Day 1.

Day 2.

Day 3.

Day 4.

Day 5.

Day 6. I mean, ugh.

Day 7. My fave so far.

Growing up in Kearney, Nebraska, my mother knew a boy named Royal. Not an uncommon Victorian-era midwestern name (I didn’t blink when I heard this, because I’d read about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s brother-in-law, also named Royal). What was unfair to poor Royal, who likely went through life as Roy, was that his last name was Jester.

Yes, Royal Jester. Rumor has it that his father perpetrated this outrage as revenge against the world that had named him Courtney. Unless he went through life being called Bud or Butch or Sonny, that means he was referred to as Court Jester. Which leads one to ask: what were their his parents thinking? I grew up with a slightly unusual name at my time/place, and I got shit for it. I can’t imagine how a kid named, oh, I don’t know, Moon Unit or Frankincense or Apple or Bat Guano negotiates the playground these days.

Which brings us* to the curious case of a cake for Adolf Hitler Campbell. When the toddler was turning three, his parents ordered a birthday cake from their local ShopRite. They wanted his full name on the cake, and the bakery refused, saying it seemed inappropriate. So they took their order to WalMart, where they complied and wrote Happy Birthday, Adolf Hitler on the cake, and the three year old was made happy.

Let me say first off that I’m a fan of cake. And birthdays. And three year olds. I don’t blame the parents for wanting a cake for their son. But Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, who the paper mentions as (among other things) Holocaust deniers, seem to be in denial about a whole bunch of other stuff. Like what’s going to happen to their children when they go to school. Cause it’s not just little Adolf who’s going to suffer the slings and arrows of schoolyard politics. His sibs, little Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Campbell, aren’t going to get a free ride either.

The parents don’t see it like that, of course:

The Campbells have swastikas in each room of their home, the rented half of a one-story duplex just outside Milford, a borough in Hunterdon County. They say they aren’t racists but believe races shouldn’t mix.

The Campbells said they wanted their children to have unique names and didn’t expect the names to cause problems. Despite the cake refusal, the Campbells said they don’t expect the names to cause problems later, such as when the children start school.

Uh huh. The paper quotes a child psychiatrist to dispute this idea, but you don’t have to have a degree to think that naming your child Dracula Chan or Idi Amin Schwartz is going to get the kid some negative attention.

There are swastikas on walls, on jackets, on the freezer and on a pillow. The family car had swastikas, Heath Campbell said, until New Jersey’s Department of Children and Families told him they could endanger the children.

The swastikas, Heath Campbell said, are symbols of peace and balance. He considers them art. “It doesn’t mean hatred to me,” he said. Deborah Campbell said a swastika “doesn’t really have a meaning. It’s just a symbol.”

Um. The swastika does, in fact, go back as far as the ancient Greeks. But just a symbol? The whole point of a symbol is that it symbolizes something. And most people who see it associate it with the Third Reich, and again with the negative connotations.

Heath Campbell says he doesn’t force his ideas on his children and wants them to be nonviolent. ‘Kay. I’ll be interested to learn, when little Adolph is ten years old, what the kids at school call him. Bud, maybe. Or Butch or Sonny. Maybe even Dweezil. But at home, I’m sure that he’ll be Adolph, and every year, as long as WalMart cooperates, he’ll have a cake with his name on it.

* I got this story via the fabulousness that is Cake Wrecks, my favorite food blog.

 ETA: Keith Olbermann covered this story tonight (Wednesday) on Countdown.  I feel so, like, ahead of the curve!

I made a Turkey for the big family Thanksgiving Dinner but I also made a:

Goose.

Read More »

Huh. So much for that global warming rumor.

:

:

This is what confronted me in the parking lot when I was desperately trying to escape from work this afternoon.

I’ve lived in BCS for a dozen years. I think I saw a few sprinkles in the sky once, that first year. Nothing since then.

We had an actual snowstorm this evening, which meant that the ground was completely covered for awhile. It was an unexpected pleasure to ride through it. It was trippy, man.

It’s mostly gone now, as I noticed when I went out a few minutes ago to stock up on survival BlueBell Homemade Vanilla.

It’s supposed to get down into the twenties tonight. This, of course, does not affect my plans to ride into Austin this weekend to hang out with She Who Is Awesome and her concubine, since weather.com says the temps will be in the seventies by then. Gotta love that fickle Texas weather.

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I love a good commercial.  You know those compilation shows where they show you the best of the ads from the last year?  Or the Clio awards?  I’m their target audience.  Maybe it’s because I grew up surrounded by advertising and design people, or maybe I’m just a sucker for a good punchline, but…I love a good commercial.

Like this one.  Yes, it’s a bit long, but it’s funny.  And it makes me feel so much better about the guy I’m married to.

So far, so good: Obama and his team are making strong, prominent statements about climate change as an important national security concern. This is very, very good news. With most trends happening faster than the models predict, and Kyoto about to expire, there is little enough time to act before the window closes and catastrophic change becomes inevitable.

Thank goodness the grown-ups are in charge.

Do us proud, Obama&Co. There won’t be time for a do-over.

Here’s the relevant podcast from PRI.

Via Making Light.

Poets fling brainiac verse.

Run — do not walk! Here.

It’s the Dismember Me Plush Zombie!  Just one of the nifty zombie-centric products in this season’s Think Geek catalog.  In addition to our cuddly falling-apart guy above, there’s also an RC Zombie:

Zombie appreciation:

For those who fear our Zombie Overlords, there’s advice:

And protective coloring: the Brain Gelatin mold allows you to make a lifelike brain and eat it, so passing zombies will think you’re part of the in crowd, undead-wise.

You know you want one.  Or maybe two.  For friends.  Or fiends.

And finally:

If you’re planning on making treats for your friends this holiday season, why not invest in a fetus cookie cutter?  Be the first one on your block to bite the head off an unborn baby!  (Mommy, where do Baby Zombies come from?)