Cleta and Christmas Scatology

It’s getting very hard to keep up with this blog as Christmas gets ever closer, as preparations for Christmas start becoming more and more like a full time job. The decorations and lights are up; the cards are sent; about 75% of the presents are bought. But now there are the parties and the neighbor gifts and the recitals and the choir concerts and everything that makes this season so blastedly cheerful. I’m not complaining; I’m just making excuses. (I’m not sure which is worse.)

I did find time on Saturday, however, to immortalize my own Christmas miracle in song, which made its debut at the ward Christmas party as “The Miracle of the Christmas Poo.” I’m going to record a version, and I’ll be happy to post that here on my blog. (I sincerely doubt, however, that such a recording will take place prior to Christmas.)  I’m pretty sure it’s the first Christmas tune to combine yuletide cheer and excrement with faith-building results. I’m absolutely sure that it’s the first time such a song has been sung in a church. I’d like the ward choir to come up with their own arrangement, but that’s proving to be a tough sell.

As I get older, however, I become more of an embarrassment to my children. I practiced this little ditty throughout the day, and my oldest daughter Cleta was morbidly aghast.

“You can’t sing that in public!” she wailed.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because it’s about poo!”

That should have been self-evident, I suppose, but I’m not sure it’s an automatic disqualifier. I asked if I could sing Spinal Tap’s “Christmas with the Devil” instead, whereupon I was told to choose something “more appropriate.” So by that standard, I’m on solid ground.

I note, however, that Cleta’s aversion to Christmas scatology is hard won. Not long before I started crooning of Stalliondo’s dirty diaper, we received a Christmas card from an ad agency I work with that had a faux urine stain on the front of the envelope. On the cover of the actual card were four members of the agency standing in front of snow banks with phrases like “Happy Holidays,” “Feliz Navidad,” and “Season’s Greetings” written in yellow behind them. The fourth member just stood there looking angry, and behind her was a big yellow splotch. When you opened the card, a line of people in front of a snowy cabin stood with their backs to you, with their names written in yellow-snow cursive directly in front of them.

The headline of the card? “Wizzing you a Merry Christmas.”

Cleta has been hanging all of our cards up in the kitchen, but this particular one didn’t make it on the wall.

Almost-12-year-old Cleta is becoming a bit of a Grinch, announcing that Santa Claus is a “stalker” who should not be encouraged. So we let her know that Santa doesn’t bring presents to those who do not believe in him, so she dutifully wrote her letter to Santa Claus, thereby allowing her greed to get the better of her skepticism.

Still, the letter was not without its Grinchy charms.

It begins thusly:

Santa!

Hello, my parents say you need a letter. Can’t you just read minds or something?

She proceeds to detail her wish list, and then she closes with the following two post-scripts:

P.S. If you can see us when you’re sleeping, and you know when we’re awake, what was I doing at 11:47 AM on February 9, 2008? I expect an answer by Dec. 25. Buh-bye!

P.P.S. Does Rudolph take steroids to make his nose glow?

I have no idea where she gets this from.