“It’s customarily said that Christmas is done ‘for the kids.’ Considering how awful Christmas is and how little our society likes children, this must be true.”— P.J. O’Rourke 

I may have found the perfect gift for the several hundred people on my Christmas list. It’s reindeer DNA. Probably I won’t buy the allegedly authentic Finnish reindeer DNA. According to the Reuters news agency, it’s a blob of goop in a test tube with some faux silver antlers sealing it tight. The little stocking stuffer costs $480 in Hong Kong dollars. That’s about $61.55 U.S. The perfect gift is perfectly too expensive.If I were fabulously wealthy and had a great shop with all the right power tools, I might get the DNA myself and try to reconstruct the reindeer myself.

Of course, I was wretched in science and may have been the first student at Hart to earn a “DOF”  in chemistry. That’s a “D” separated from an “F”  by just an oxygen molecule.

I don’t know just how you’d go about creating an actual reindeer from some reindeer Vaseline. I still don’t know how to operate a simple router properly, let alone —  well. Just what the heck tools would you use to create — mwa-ha-ha — life?

I don’t think sawing the vile in half would help, nor beveling the edges. Even if I were lucky, I’d probably end up creating some pitiful, bawling creature with six eyes and shaped like a meat loaf. Presenting something like that to my daughter as a pet would most assuredly drive her into therapy or Protestantism in later years.

The thought of wearing reindeer DNA in a vile around your neck actually depressed me. I mean, it’s not about animal rights or messing with The Cosmic Order. It’s just a painful reminder that I’ve yet to purchase a single lousy Xmas present yet.

For me, there are two December 25ths. The real Christmas is where we take approximately 12 seconds to go “blah-buh-blah, uh, real thankful, Lord…” That small Christmas is surrounded by the Xmas where you work like a maniac to write 11,006 Xmas cards, address them, mail them, go into more debt than California so you can buy presents that will be more than likely be re-gifted, attend several hundred obligatory office/social parties, then drive 1,114 miles in bumper-to-bumper traffic to hit the in-laws where you eat enough to go into a diabetic coma. Exhausted and frazzled, you drive back the 1,114 miles in bumper-to-bumper traffic while debating the bottomless topic of: “So Why DID You Marry Me In The First Place?”

Ah, Xmas. It’s nuts. It’s pagan. And, you gotta do it.

I used to be in show business a million years ago and my wealthy employer tried to break away from the madness. The famous actress gave — or said she gave — donations in her friends’ and family’s names to the AIDS Foundation. The Academy should have handed me an Oscar for the performance I offered opening the card:

“‘A donation of $20 has been made in your name to fund research for the deadly killer, AIDS,’” I read out loud, smiling all warm and faux-Christian-like. I resisted the temptation to blow into the envelope to see if there was another piece of paper stating: “…and, I bought you a Porsche.”

There was no addendum car keys, gift certificate or one lousy peppermint candy cane.

Every facial muscle wanted to blurt out: “You cheap Hollywood PC son of …”

…Bee

…Tee

…Babbitt.

Somehow, I feigned surprise and gratitude. I hugged my boss, show-business-like, and offered a warm: “You know, this is really something… You shouldn’t have.”

I mean, really. You shouldn’t have.

It wasn’t even so much that the person donated to a charity instead of giving me an 8-track, golf balls, a pony, a divorced starlet with low self esteem, a re-wrapped ham which is essentially a divorced starlet with low self esteem or at least something useful. No. What griped me was that the donation was only $20. I imagined getting a letter from the AIDS Foundation commending me on my sizable gift, followed by the close: “Gee. You must have gone without eating for a month to scrape together your lousy 20 bucks…”

Cripes.

It’s less than a month before Xmas and I haven’t bought one re-giftable gift yet. I was thinking of maybe just calling everyone on my list and telling them in lieu of a present, I was going to sing “Jingle Bells” into the phone, except I’d pretend I was a dog.

“Ruff-ruff-ruff. Ruff-ruff-ruff. Ruff-ruff-ruff-ruff-ruff… etc., etc., etc.”

Sadly, that’s something you can only do when you’re wealthy and addled or have younger siblings who are still unable to protect themselves.

I was thinking of giving everyone Joy this Xmas.

Not the false sense of well-being we use to get ourselves through a hostile and uncaring existence. The dishwashing detergent. I’d just go to Smart & Final or Costco and buy a few cases, throw a sticky-bow and some ribbon around each plastic bottle and hand them out.

“It’s a metaphor for happiness and a clean start,” I’d tell my startled friends and family. “And, it’s lemon-scented. So. Enough about you. What did you get ME?”

Well. What else. Re-gifted items.

I hear that the Hong Kong-based DNA-Tech is doing a land office business selling the purple-colored reindeer DNA in those little $61.55 glass necklace vials. DNA-Tech is thinking about branching out into other gifts from the heart (liver, spleen, open wound, etc., etc., etc.) and providing DNA from endangered species, monkeys and maybe even someone’s dead pet.

That’s touching. Go to the pet cemetery on a moonlit night with a shovel-carrying hunchback, dig up Petey, scrape some samples in a Mason jar and throw on some green and red wrapping paper.

“Here,” I say, beaming with yuletide cheer. “It’s your Doberman. The one who mysteriously died from eating the Miller’s chicken two years ago. Just add some water to the jar, shake it up real good and maybe he’ll come back to life.”

Maybe I’ll just get everyone on my list fruitcake.

Not individual ones, mind you.

I’ll just buy a big fruitcake and send notes that I left the meteroite-hard curious Xmas dessert a quarter-mile west on a deserted mountain road and that sometime during the holidays, the person on my Santa’s list should just mosey over, chisel off a few bites and leave the rest for late-arriving family, coyotes and other varmints.

Here’s a thought.

Maybe I should just go to a lab supply house and purchase a few cases of test tubes, stuff some of the distasteful teeth-chipping entree in each and label them: “Fruitcake DNA.”

Fruitcake DNA.

Isn’t that the sad-but-true cross all of us must bear over the holidays? 
 

John Boston- Commentary

John Boston, aka Mr. Santa Clarita Valley, was recently named Best Humor Writer in North America to go along with 117 other major writing awards. His webpage, thebostonreport.net, is undergoing a brand new hepcat national look and will be unveiled soon. Tune into his weekly radio show, “The Former Friends of John Boston” on KHTS AM 1220 every Monday at 2 p.m.