Category: Holidays

The 2010s: A Look Back

new-years

Good luck trying to explain the 2010s!  So many things went on in the last 10 years it’s going to take us another 50 to actually figure out what just happened.  Think about it!  Nobody on this planet is the same person they were a decade ago.  Ten years ago we didn’t have iPads, Uber, Instagram or Kindle.  Drones were a sci-fi nightmare and Donald Trump was a loudmouth businessman.  The scariest guy east of the Vistula was Osama Bin Laden, and only nerds had heard of Game of Thrones.  History takes time to digest, though, so right now it’s impossible to say what kind of impact the 2010s will have on the Great Scheme of Things.  However, even a quick glance over our shoulder tells us that our world has been a little crazy lately.  Here are just a few remembrances of things past. You decide how far we’ve travelled into the realm of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.

In 2010, the world was introduced to the vuvuzela, the most irritating piece of plastic in human history.  It was so annoying that governments, social organizations and sporting events around the world banned it, and there was even a fatwa issued against its use.  (You’ve forgotten about it, haven’t you?)

In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street Movement decided to fight corporate greed — and told us all about it on their 500 dollar iPhones.

In 2012, a tubby little Korean named Psy had the world dancing to Gangnam style, while the more serious among us were worried the world was going to end because – uh — a half-dead, ancient civilization in Mexico carved their calendar into a stone tablet.

In 2013, the Pope resigned, Will and Kate were married and Miley Cyrus added twerking to the dictionary.  Meanwhile, Edward Snowden boldly informed us that a bunch of government agencies were spying on us.  He was only 30 years late.

In 2014, there was an Ebola epidemic in Africa, the beginning of the ISIS war in Syria, Russia invaded the Ukraine and Kim Kardashian showed us her bum.  Take a wild guess which one “broke” the Internet!

In 2015, the Mom Porn phenom, 50 Shades of Gray, a hilarious retelling of The Story of O (1954) was made into a film.  According to sales figures from the novel and ticket sales from the totally terrible movie, women feel a lot less sexually exploited if you dress it up in a 3-piece Armani suit.

2016 was just a totally bad year.  Trump got elected President of the US and everybody died – John Glenn, Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Michael, Richard Adams, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Tom Hayden, Edward Albee, Arnold Palmer, Gene Wilder, Muhammad Ali, Prince, George Martin, Patty Duke, Harper Lee, Umberto Eco, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Janet Reno, Glenn Frey, Paul Kantner, Florence Henderson and Fidel Castro.  Coincidence?  I think not.

In 2017, President Trump called Kim Jong-un “the Rocket Man,” it turned out Harvey Weinstein was a bigger pig than everyone originally thought, and there was a solar eclipse.  However, unlike every other solar eclipse since the world began, this one travelled across America. Therefore, they owned it.

In 2018, in a weird reversal of Edward Snowden’s dire warning of 2013, Mark Zuckerberg said he was “sorry” for letting Cambridge Analytica steal your personal Facebook information.  Apparently, that made everything alright.

In 2019, we discovered the oceans were filling up with plastic.  So that’s where all those stupid vuvuzelas went!

And some other stuff happened as well:

We spent a whole bunch of time acting like 12 year old schoolboys, testing the limits of our testosterone.  First, we’d do something stupid and then dare other people to do it, too.  This brought us the Ice Bucket Challenge, the Cinnamon Challenge and the Tide Pod Challenge.  “Hey, c’mon everybody!  Let’s eat soap!”

Duck Face, Fidget Spinners and Hipsters all came and went — with nobody mourning their passing.

Gluten became the scariest health risk since the Bubonic Plague.

The government of China banned time travel.  That’s correct – time travel!  But they weren’t done there.  They also made reincarnation illegal — unless you get written permission.  The scariest thing about this is these folks also have access to nuclear weapons.

Game of Thrones was born, lived and died.  And never in the history of television have so many cool characters been killed off so a useless little twat like Bran could end up running the show – but I’m not bitter.

Instagram beat the crap out of Facebook for social media supremacy — which proves people prefer photographs of somebody’s lunch to cute cat videos.

Media whore became a legitimate employment opportunity, we used YOLO to cover up a lot of pretty poor decision-making and the selfie stick became the weapon of choice for tourists all over the world.

And speaking of tourists – relentless middleclass vacations turned Mount Everest into Standing Room Only and Europe into an overcrowded theme park on the nose of Asia.

Plus:

The unholy rule of the Millennials continued, unabated.

And

Twitter unleashed a global lynch mob that made the Spanish Inquisition look like an argument at a church picnic.  And careful folks: that Reign of Terror doesn’t look like it’s going to go away anytime soon.

Happy New Year, everybody!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

The Dark Side Of Christmas

dark side

Everyone from Brooklyn to Borneo knows the story of Christmas, right?  Whether it’s the Nativity or Santa Claus and his magic sleigh, we all think we’ve got the whole tale – but we don’t.  There’s another side to Christmas — a dark side – a side that nobody wants to talk about.  Here are a couple of items from a tell-all book that has been suppressed for many, many years: Christmas Confidential.  This is the stuff Big Christmas doesn’t want you to know.

Christmas Carols

We have love songs, working songs, birthday songs, etc., etc. but only Christmas songs are called carols.  Why?  The reason is a tawdry little secret: Santa Claus is divorced.  That sweet little lady, Mrs. Claus, is actually a trophy wife.  It seems that at some point in his long career, Santa had an affair (after all, he knows where all the naughty girls live.)  This was alluded to in Tommie Connor’s song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” written in 1952.  Anyway, soon after Santa’s digression was discovered, the Clauses had a very messy divorce.  However, given the sensitive nature of the proceedings, a Universal Gag Order was issued by The International Court of The Hague, so very few details are known.  Naturally, though, a lot of people were pissed off at this sordid situation, and they started calling Christmas songs “carols” so that, Caroline Claus, Santa’s first wife, would not be forgotten.

The Other Reindeer

We all know that Santa has 9 reindeer – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blixen (You sang that last part, didn’t you?) and, of course, Rudolph.  However, most people don’t know that originally there were 10 reindeer.  Donner was actually a twin.  Unfortunately, his brother was an evil twin.  He was a nasty piece of work who spent most of his time lying around the North Pole, eating candy canes and drinking Finlandia vodka.  Rumour has it that he was the one who started “Elf Tossing Tuesdays” at the Caribou Bar and several witnesses have come forward who accuse him of calling Rudolph names and not allowing him access to any reindeer games.  This situation went on for years until one “foggy Christmas Eve,” drunk off his antlers, Donner’s brother refused to pull the sleigh.  “Get the little freak to do it” he said, “or pull it yourself, Fat Boy.”  He went on to make a few choice remarks about Mrs. Claus and her relationship with several of the elves.  Then he pushed Santa out of the way and stomped off into the forest.  Finally, out of patience, Santa turned to Mrs. Claus and said, “Ho, Ho, Ho!  Never mind, my darling!  You set the table, and we’ll have a fine late supper when I get home tonight.”  Then he reached for his rifle that was hanging on the wall.  Donner’s brother’s name was Dinner.

The Little Drummer Boy

Forget everything you know about the little drummer boy — it’s all a pack of lies.  Yes, there actually was a Little Drummer Boy, but not the one we know from the song.  The truth is, he was a small-time sneak thief who spent his nights picking the pockets of decent folk in the souks of Baghdad.  He wasn’t very good at it, though, and after getting caught — a lot — he was told to either hit the road or become the newest member of the one glove club.  Drummer Boy skulked out of town on the next full moon and was well on his way to anonymity when he ran across the Three Wise Men who (as everybody knows) were on their way to Bethlehem.  LDB travelled with them for the next several days, shamelessly fawning and groveling in the hope of gaining their trust and getting his mitts on some of their treasure.  Unfortunately, wise as they probably were, when it came to street smarts, the Three Wise Men weren’t the sharpest scimitars in the desert, and they fell for this blatant con.  Drummer Boy made off with a jar of frankincense and headed for Damascus.  The Three Wise Men journeyed on — just a little wiser and one jar of frankincense lighter.  However, rather than admit they’d gotten scammed by a petty little crook, the Wise Men decided to rework the story in a more favourable light, and so emerged the tale we know today — “pa-rum-pum-pum-pum” and all.

And what happened to the Little Drummer Boy?  He was arrested for selling stolen frankincense, convicted and sentenced to 10 years hard labour in a Damascus prison — which is exactly what the treacherous little bugger deserved.

And, BTW, many people believe “The Little Drummer Boy” was written, in 1941, by Katherine Kennicott Davis, a mild-mannered New England music teacher.  This is not true.  The song was written by Nazis — flesh-eating, green-saliva Nazis — who were trying to undermine our morale during World War II.