Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology

by Dr. Freud Funkenstein, ed.

  "Well, suit yourself. I’m off to do some calisthenics. Have fun with the elves, horsey."

  Cosmo hurried off, leaving Howard alone to feel sorry for himself.

  ««—»»

  And then it was Christmas Eve.

  "Allllll right!" shouted Santa. "It’s Oreo time! Gimme gimme gimme!"

  "Now, dear, your suit isn’t ready yet," said Mrs. Claus, looking up from her ironing. "And there’s still a few minutes until you have to leave. Have you double-checked your Excel file?"

  "I’m all set," said Santa, holding up the hard copy. "No other holiday figure brings as much joy as me! Does the Easter Bunny receive millions of letters a year? Does the Arbor Day Druid? I think not!"

  "That’s nice, dear. Now, I hope you’ve learned your lesson from last year and won’t drink any milk that an overzealous child put out a few days too early."

  "Yeah, yeah. Margie almost won herself a spot on the naughty list for that one."

  "Here’s your coat, dear," said Mrs. Claus, handing him the newly-pressed garment. "Now go make this the best Christmas ever!"

  ««—»»

  Santa took hold of the reigns in his fully-loaded sleigh. "On Dasher! On Dancer! On Prancer and Vixen! On Comet! On Cupid—"

  "Cosmo!"

  "Sorry. On Cosmo! On…dang, I lost my place. On Dasher! On Dancer! On Prancer and Vixen! On Comet! On Cosmo! On Donner and Blitzen! Rudolph, quit that sniffing and lead us forward! Merry Christmas to all!"

  ««—»»

  Much, much later that night, Santa arrived on the rooftop of Edward Stinkwater’s house. He parked the sleigh and used his magical Time-Ceasement ring to freeze the flow of time, which was a remarkably convenient item to have when one had to cover the entire gentile world in a night, especially when one was drinking plenty of liquids along the way.

  "Ho ho ho," he said, in that jolly ol’ voice of his as he walked toward the chimney. "Walt and Yoko Stinkwater have been very good this year. There will be lots of presents for them! Too bad Edward was naughty again, but I guess he’ll just—"

  Suddenly a rope tightened around Santa’s ankles, causing him to fall onto his back with the kind of loud thump that comes from way too many cookies in one night. The Time-Ceasement ring popped off his finger and rolled off the roof. The reindeer rushed forward to help, but another large noose tightened, tying them together in a bunch.

  Edward heard the clatter arising above and giggled with maniacal glee. He rushed out of the house, climbed his father’s ham radio antenna to the roof, and waved his fist at Santa.

  "Hahahaha! I’ve got you now, Nickie!" he laughed. "I’m going to crash your sleigh into a 747 and then make Rudolph’s nose into a shiny red necklace! There’ll be no Christmas this year! It won’t be long before your ratings plummet, and the Easter Bunny takes over the top slot! Hahahaha!"

  "Must…reach…emergency…beacon…" groaned Santa, trying to work his hand free.

  "Nobody can help you now," snarled Edward, snapping out the blade of his pocketknife as he walked forward.

  ««—»»

  "Look!" shouted Mrs. Claus, pointing at the sky. A circle of light shone brightly, with the image of a candy cane inside it. "Something awful must have happened!"

  "Santa’s in trouble! Santa’s in trouble!" the elves began chanting.

  Howard felt a momentary rush of relief that he’d let Snotty Susie fall, then realized that this was his chance to save Christmas! "We have to do something!" he said.

  "But what? But what?" chanted the elves.

  "We have to help Santa!" Howard declared.

  "No duh! No duh!" chanted the elves. "But how? But how?"

  "We’re useless," said Cupid. "We can’t fly without a sleigh, and Santa has the only one!"

  (Storyteller’s note: This saga takes place in an alternate history where a sleigh is required for reindeer to fly properly. And the Nazis won World War II, but fell out of power due to poor public relations.)

  Howard thought for a moment. "That’s not true! There’s a spare sleigh behind the tool shed!"

  "No, no." Cupid shook his head. "That one was built years ago by illegal immigrant elves using lumber we bought cheap from the Mexican government! It’ll never hold up!"

  "We have to try!" Howard insisted. "All the good little boys and girls of the world are counting on us! We can’t let them down!"

  "It will give me some bargaining power in next year’s labor negotiations," Cupid said, thoughtfully.

  "That’s the spirit!" said Howard. "Let’s go!"

  ««—»»

  Edward cut Santa free of the ropes, but kept the knife pointed at him. "Just stay cool and nobody gets hurt for a while," the wicked little boy said. "Now, tell me how to drive that sleigh."

  "You’ll never be able to," Santa informed him. "It’s a stick shift."

  "I’m presently not in the mood to play games, so don’t toy with me!" Edward warned.

  "You are truly evil," said Santa.

  "It’s a gift."

  ««—»»

  "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!" said Cupid. "The sleigh is breaking apart!"

  Howard and Cupid were just about to cross over the Canadian border. The other understudy reindeer had chosen to stay at the North Pole so that Santa wouldn’t punish them for malpractice if the rescue operation went awry.

  "Keep moving!" Howard shouted. "We’ll make it!"

  "The whole bottom just dropped out! Uh-oh, I think it’s going to wipe out that old lady sitting in her backyard…no, wait, it missed her…squished the heck out of her roses, though…"

  "We have to move faster!" said Howard.

  "Oooh! Side stitch! Side stitch! We need to stop for a minute!"

  "Never! I’ll save Christmas, or die trying! Oops, I hope that rudder misses those carolers." Suddenly the last bit of sleigh broke apart. "Oh no! Without a sleigh, we’re—"

  "Prisoners of the force of gravity!" screamed Cupid. "We’re going down! We’re venison! I regret that I have but one life to giiiiiiiive…"

  ««—»»

  "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright…"

  Tyler Grinchdirt got out of bed and threw open his window. "Will you shut up out there? I’m trying to sleep in heavenly peace too!"

  "You hear that, guys? We’ve got a Scrooge!" shouted one of the carolers.

  "Let’s egg him!" shouted another.

  Tyler pulled the window closed as the rotten eggs began splattering against it, just like last year. He walked out of the bedroom and into the den, where the cookies he’d baked with Ex-Lax rested by the fireplace.

  Suddenly there was a huge thump on his roof. He scurried up the chimney lickety-split to see what was wrong.

  "You crushed my TV antenna!" he cried out.

  "Sorry," Howard said, getting back on his feet.

  "Oh my God, it’s a talking moose!"

  "No, no, I’m Howard, one of Santa’s reindeer. This crumpled heap next to me is Cupid."

  "Hi," said Cupid, weakly.

  "We need a sleigh! Quickly! Do you have one?"

  Tyler thought for a moment. "A couple, actually. But why should I help Santa? He never brought me that Momma Helga’s Fruitcake Deluxe With Extra Green Chunks I asked for when I was five! It’s all I ever wanted! One lousy fruitcake! Curse you, Santa! I work for the IRS because of you!"

  "I’m sure it wasn’t Santa’s fault," Howard insisted. "Those elves—you have to keep after them every second. Do you realize how many kids got gypped during the Captain Hocker (With Super-Spitting Action) Doll craze? Lots."

  "All right, all right, you’ve convinced me. The sleighs are in the garage, next to the harem of maids and dancing ladies my true love got me last year. There’ll be some well-dressed guys jumping around, so be careful."

  "Thank you so much!" said Howard. "Let’s go, Cupid!"

  ««—»»

  "All right, Santa," snarled Edward. "This is your fourth-to-last chance to cooperate! Either you fork over the instructi
on manual to the sleigh, or—"

  "Stop!" shouted Howard, his voice echoing dramatically through the moonlit skies. "Let Santa go!"

  "My hero!" said Santa.

  "Hahahaha!" Edward remarked. "You think two puny reindeer can stop my nefarious plot to ruin Christmas? Nothing can stop me! Because while the good little boys and girls were going to school and learning the state capitals, I’ve been gathering the supplies and doing the research and receiving the government funding that has enabled me to construct the Fearsome Death Ray of Doom! Hahahaha!"

  "Well, I’m pretty darn bummed," Santa remarked.

  Edward pressed the button on a remote control. Some roof shingles slid out of the way, and the Fearsome Death Ray of Doom rose from the hidden panel. "This ray has the power to disintegrate anything! It can disintegrate tissue paper! It can disintegrate butterflies! It can disintegrate Q-Tips! And unless you cooperate, I’ll use it to destroy Santa’s sleigh!" He thought for a moment. "Actually, with all the hassle that went into making this death ray, it’s kind of dumb to make using it contingent upon Santa’s lack of cooperation. Say goodbye to your sleigh, Kris, and thus goodbye to Christmas! Hahahahaha!"

  "Wow," said Cupid. "That concept earned five ‘ha’s. We’re in deep ka-ka!"

  Edward pressed another button. The Fearsome Death Ray of Doom began to glow with a most un-Christmasy light.

  "Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!" screamed Howard, rushing forward.

  The death ray fired, just as Howard leapt in front of it. Human and reindeer alike gasped as Howard was instantly transformed into a small pile of ashes.

  "Dagnabbit!" snarled Edward. "I only had enough firepower for one shot! That does it!" He raised the knife, let out a horrific battle cry, and began to run toward Santa, his eyes wild with psychotic glee.

  At that moment, a miracle happened. The wind changed, blowing Howard’s ashes into Edward’s eyes. "I’m blind!" he cried out, losing his footing on the slippery roof. With a dramatic "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!" he slid off the roof and smashed into the snowman he’d built that very afternoon. But since Edward was truly a wicked little boy, he’d filled this snowman with nitroglycerine, which blew the little twerp into itty bitty teeny weenie pieces.

  "Howard’s ashes saved Christmas!" Santa declared. "He’s a hero! He’s the greatest reindeer who ever lived! His ashes will be placed in an airtight urn, and from now until forever, Howard will ride at the head of my sleigh!"

  "Hooray!" cheered the other reindeer. "Hooray for Howard!"

  It took them about two hours to find the Time Ceasement ring in the snow, but it still turned out to be the greatest Christmas ever. Howard’s dream had come true at last.

  And so, boys and girls, when you’re hanging your stockings by the chimney with care, take a moment to grab a handful of ashes from your fireplace and sprinkle them over the Christmas tree, to help honor Howard, The Tenth Reindeer.

  ««—»»

  [Intermission]

  EDWARD STINKWATER WAS truly a wicked little boy. However, since he’d been blown to bits two years ago after falling off the roof onto a nicroglycerine-filled snowman (as you probably forgot from "Howard the Tenth Reindeer"), he wasn’t causing many problems anymore.

  But he had a cousin, Rufus Sludgegrass, who was even more wicked. He was selfish and whiny like other teenagers, but he also drop-kicked squirrels, strangled boll weevils, mocked rhinoceri, and ran over information technology professionals with his tractor. He was so mean and vile that even Tom Brokaw didn’t like him. (If that statement seems a bit pointless, you have my permission to replace it with the originally-intended trite "Barney the Dinosaur" reference. But I do not expect to see a published review complaining about trite Barney the Dinosaur references, got it?)

  Rufus had one goal in life, and that was to destroy Christmas. He’d already destroyed Groundhog Day by feeding shaving cream to the official groundhog and screaming "Run for your lives! It’s got rabies!" at the ceremony. He’d also destroyed Sweetest Day by publicly theorizing that it was merely created to sell more greeting cards. Now he wanted Christmas out of the way. And where his cousin had failed, he would succeed, oh yes. He had a dastardly plan in mind, a plan he would implement right after he finished his obscene phone call.

  He wiped his sweaty hand across his forehead as he tightly clutched the phone. "What are you wearing?" he panted.

  "What would you like me to be wearing?" purred the sultry-voiced woman on the other end.

  Rufus licked his lips. "A size eleven yellow and orange frilly blouse, preferably bought on sale from Target. A pair of blue jeans that fit snugly but comfortably, with some minor fading. Tube socks. Any kind of tennis shoes except those dumb ones that you pump up. And glasses…ohhhhh yes…wire framed glasses that have been recently cleaned with a tissue, not a rag."

  "Pervert!" shouted the woman, and slammed the phone down in his ear.

  Rufus grinned and hung up. Now that his fun was over, it was time to begin his evil scheme to destroy Christmas.

  ««—»»

  "I don’t know," remarked Becky. "It doesn’t look much like a snowman."

  "Sure it does," Hector insisted. "It’s just a snowman that goes to special schools."

  "Maybe it would look better if we didn’t live in sunny Florida," said Becky. "And if it weren’t July."

  The children continued staring at the grape and blue raspberry Slurpees they’d poured out onto the sidewalk. Hector swirled his toe around in it, trying to make a smiley face. "I bet he’ll look just perfect if we give him a hat."

  Becky’s expression brightened. "Remember that magician who threw all his stuff away after those Fox specials destroyed his career? I think his magic hat landed in that garbage can over there."

  They retrieved the hat, and Becky dropped it onto the melting slush. About thirty seconds later, nothing happened. Thirty seconds after that, the same thing happened. But then, one minute and thirty seconds after the hat was dropped, a man in a passing car shouted "Hey, you stupid kids! Quit staring at those spilled Slurpees and get a life!"

  Unbeknownst to the man, he had spoken the words that activated the magic in the hat. There was a dramatic "aaoogah!" sound from the heavens, and suddenly Slurpee the Snowman rose from his sidewalk slush pile to stand proudly in front of the children.

  "Hey, you stupid kids!" shouted another man in a passing car. "Quit transforming spilled Slurpees into mutant freaks of nature and get a life!"

  "Wow!" said Becky. "He’s alive! Our snowman is really alive! The hat was magic, after all!"

  Slurpee the Snowman smiled happily at the children. Then he ate them. After that, he spent a few moments thinking about what to do with his newfound ability to be alive, and decided on a good old-fashioned homicidal rampage. He outstretched his arms, practiced saying "Kill, kill…" a couple times, then began.

  ««—»»

  "This is Channel 8 news, coming to you live from a city we won’t name in the interest of not having to worry about geographical accuracy! Slurpee the Snowman, a formerly un-alive pair of delicious fruity ice beverages, has gone on a rampage, devouring dozens of people! I have with me Mayor Snortweather. Mayor, what is your opinion of this crisis?"

  "Well, in the snowman’s defense, at least he’s not a necrophile."

  "That is certainly true, sir."

  "As you’ll remember, I promised the people of this fair city that when elected, I would not tolerate necrophilia in any way, shape, or form. And I have kept that promise. Anyway, I’m confident that the snowman will be captured within the next few weeks and this whole incident will merely be an unpleasant little footnote in history, like Hitler."

  "Thank you sir. We now return you to Wiener Jokes, joined in progress."

  Rufus shut off the television and cackled with maniacal glee. Oh sure, everyone had laughed when he told them his evil plan. "What a dumb plan," they’d said. But he’d been sure that the best way to destroy Christmas was to sit around watching television all summer
until a news story came on about someone going on a homicidal rampage, and then convince that person to do his bidding.

  Soon Slurpee the Snowman would be his servant, and together they would ruin the holiday season, once and for all!

  ««—»»

  As a special treat, this next section of our holiday tale will be told to you by guest narrator James Earl Jones:

  Hello, this is James Earl Jones. I’ve been asked to relate the following piece of "Howard Rises Again" because my booming, manly voice adds dignity and dramatic impact to any project I’m involved with. I was the voice of Darth Vader, you know. And I was in Soul Man with C. Thomas Howell.

  Of course, since this is print and not audio, my presence here is pretty much wasted. Especially since if any of you are reading this aloud, it’s just going to sound like I have some squeaky, annoying voice. This whole idea is kind of stupid, isn’t it? My check better not bounce, that’s all I have to say.

  Anyway, the part I was supposed to tell you had the wicked Rufus convincing Slurpee the Snowman to become his evil servant, after which they chartered a carrier pigeon to the North Pole. It really wasn’t up to the level of quality you’ve seen in other paragraphs of this story, so you didn’t miss much by listening to me complain. Thank you.

  Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a big hand for James Earl Jones! And now back to our story, joined in progress:

  ««—»»