The Lighter Side of Darkness

BY DEBRRA KEEFER RAMAGE

Why I just could not write another dark and serious holiday article this year

I reviewed the ten holiday pieces I have written for Southside Pride’s December issues since 2014. This year will be number eleven. Around about 2020, the tone of my writings got darker, and I was writing about things like how many people die on various holidays, and the literary treatments of the collision between holidays and times of war. Prior to that, many of the pieces reflected my ongoing obsession with history trivia, and cultural exploration, especially weird or unexpected facts, and lesser-known cultures.
But this year, things overall are too dark. I just need to lean into something less depressing than death and war. I get enough of that in my work life. (Yes, I am retired, but I’m also trying to save the gosh darned world here, OK?) The focus on darkness was partly because that’s what midwinter is – dark. As are Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Yule, and all the other light-beseeching festivals. But this year, I just have to focus on the lighter side of darkness, and I’ll bet you will also appreciate that, constant reader.
What is the lighter side of darkness? I’m glad you asked that. It’s humor. I am reminded of the famous quote from the American stage actor Edmund Gwenn: “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”
Comedy snickers in the face of death. Humor is the clown sidekick that comes with the scary ghost or monster. It’s the master being made to wait on his servants in the old Roman Saturnalia. It’s the comic relief in the most profound tragedies of Shakespeare. It’s fat old British men dressed up as “dames” in the moral fairy tales of the pantomime tradition. To relieve your mind in this stressful time, I offer you a selection of funny books, funny films, funny songs, funny music, and weird feasts, suitable for Christmas or any midwinter holiday.

Weird and funny foods

I’m kicking this section off with a Keefer family holiday tradition – Strawberry Skillet Cookies. The only thing weird about these confections, apart from their rather kitschy appearance, is that they contain no strawberry anything and are not in fact cookies. They are made in a skillet though. They are basically deliciously moreish date balls thinly disguised as strawberries. They make a great Christmas sweet snack due to their festive appearance, being rolled in red crystal sugar and topped with a green icing leaf. Recipes can be found on the internet.
Most of the weird and funny Christmas foods are only

weird and funny if you’re not of the culture that produced them. Not wanting to make a big fuss about what other people eat, lest they do the same to me, I’ll just list some interesting holiday foods I have dug up:
Lutefisk (Scandinavian) – needs no explanation in this state, not JUST for Christmas.
Carp for Christmas Eve (Poland and other Eastern European countries) – the interesting thing is that they are bought live and kept in the bathtub until Christmas Eve so they’re fresh (see picture.)
Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas dinner (Japan) – this tradition developed from when KFC decided to take advantage of a severe shortage of turkey in Japan and it

just sorta caught on.
Lampreia de Ovos (Portugal) – a sort of half-cake, half-candy thing made with 50 egg yolks and a half ton of sugar, in the shape of the favorite fish of Portugal, the lamprey. You’ll have to Google it to believe it.
The Brits think our eggnog is weird. We say the same for their flaming Christmas pudding, which doesn’t look like pudding at all to us, does it? More like a brandy-soaked cake. Speaking of which …
Fruitcake – controversial on both sides of the pond, yet it persists.
Brussels sprouts – same deal.

Funny holiday movies and television

Christmas movies fall into three categories, for the most part. Listing them in descending order of numbers:
Rom-coms, dysfunctional family dramedy, redemptive tragicomedy.

Flat out comedy, often of the farce variety, usually aimed at and featuring kids (includes animated features.)
Action movies, a more recent development in the Christmas tradition.
There isn’t a lot of comedy in the last category. But this is a low-key way to get some holiday cheer, faster than reading, easier than cooking, cheaper than a concert.
Here is a list of the best, according to Real Critics on the Internet:
It’s A Wonderful Life (this had some haters too, but I’m ignoring them because I like it)
Scrooged
Nightmare Before Christmas

Home Alone
Muppet Christmas Carol
In the UK, there is a tradition of having a Christmas fundraising extravaganza on the Beeb called Red Nose Day. Prominent comedians usually host it (Lenny Henry has been the MC for over a decade) and blockbuster acts are parodied by the best and brightest comedians. You can usually find segments of this on YouTube, if not full programs. Here is the promo for 2023, where Lenny Henry “regenerated” into David Tennant. youtu.be/N6lfnMV4i2U

Funny books and stories

Although ancient traditional solstice stories and Yule legends may have contained “funny bits,” we often have trouble telling what is funny and what is serious in the world of these lost civilizations. (Like apparently giant cats that eat children were considered hilarious?) But in the modern world, dominated by capitalism and barreling toward its own extinction, there is a rich vein of humor based on deriding the very commercialism that we largely embrace in our celebrations. A good example of this can be found in the now-classic tale by David Sedaris, “The Santaland Diaries.”
The story has had several forms and iterations. First it was a short essay that Sedaris read on NPR’s Morning Edition on Dec. 23, 1992. It was a big hit and provided Sedaris with his first major break. Four years later he read a now greatly expanded version on the long-running radio show (now a podcast, I believe) “This American Life” (TAL). In 1997, it was published in an anthology of Sedaris’s work called “Holidays on Ice.” From Wikipedia: In 1996, Joe Mantello adapted Sedaris’ essay for the stage as a one-man, one-act play, which debuted (as The Santaland Diaries) at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City on Nov. 7, 1996. Timothy Olyphant originated the role. Mantello’s adaptation has since become a seasonal staple of regional, college, and high-school theatre.
The TAL show that featured the longer version also contained a similar tale from another David, the late David Rakoff’s “Christmas Freud.” An upscale department store I have never heard of, for some reason dedicated all their Christmas display windows to a weird selection of famous people with a tenuous (or non-existent) relationship with Christmas. One of them was Sigmund Freud, who was featured live action (if you call reading and writing action) by Rakoff. Here is a sample quote from his bizarre tale: In department stores across America, people leave display window couches sniffingly and meaningfully whispering, “Thank you, Christmas Freud,” shaking his hand fervently, their holiday angst, if not dispelled, at least brought into starker relief. Christmas Freud on the cover of Cigar Aficionado magazine. Christmas Freud on Friends. People grumbling that – here it is, not even Thanksgiving, and already stores are running ads with Christmas Freud’s face asking the question, “What do women want for Christmas?”

Both of these stories reminded me of a much older story. It may not be exactly a Christmas story but it’s still the same idea. That would be Shirley Jackson’s 1941 (and very daring for its time, I imagine) “My Life with R. H. Macy.” Similarly to Sedaris’s experience, the narrator of this tale is hired as a clerk at Macy’s and is totally bemused and overwhelmed by its Byzantine bureaucracy and brisk but ineffective training methods.
As for books, there are almost too many to even get into it. Every November, a large list of new books – cozy mysteries, too-sweet romances, young-adult novels, and general funny sagas, all with holiday themes – are published. Most are forgotten by the next year, but now and then one sticks. I’ll just mention two. The first is the 20th Discworld novel and 1997 British Fantasy Award nominee, Hogfather, by the late Terry Pratchett. This rollicking tale has a group of evil “celestial bureaucrats,” an Assassin’s Guild, a Tooth Fairy who can control the minds of children through their hoarded missing teeth, and Bilious, the “Oh God” of hangovers.
The other one I just discovered and have not read yet, but I must, because I love the author. “You Better Not Cry” is the holiday book from memoirist, humorist, and recovery writer Augusten Burroughs, best known for “Running with Scissors.” The stories in this collection move from messed up childhood (his main wheelhouse) to mining the comedy in the redemptive tragedies of adult life. In case you’re not familiar with Burroughs, this might give you a taste: You’ve eaten too much candy at Christmas … but have you ever eaten the face off a six-foot stuffed Santa? You’ve seen gingerbread houses … but have you ever made your own gingerbread tenement? You’ve woken up with a hangover … but have you ever woken up next to Kris Kringle himself? Augusten Burroughs has.

Funny songs and music

My friend Howard Kranz, a very local guy, is one of the most underappreciated, brilliant songwriters in the world, in my opinion. Several of his perennial favorites are Christmas-related, and the one that is especially a great hit with the kids, yet sly enough to get a laugh from the grown-ups too, is called simply “Santa Claus.” It’s in my top three favorite Christmas songs, along with Shane McGowan’s “Fairytale of New York” and Bruce Cockburn’s “Cry of a Tiny Babe.” You can hear the whole thing on Howard’s YouTube channel at youtu.be/kc7fJ2qaxx8.
“Get in on that giveaway, hey, come pa rum pum pum pum,
Gets you anything you say, just don’t ask where it comes from.
Makes a list, checks it twice, guess you’d better pay his price.
He’s the one that cuts your slice, Santa Santa Claus.”
In case you haven’t caught on yet, my personal tastes, especially in humor, tend toward the sharp, the bitter, and the dark. There are also funny Hanukkah songs out there, but one of the funniest holiday songs, a religion crossover I guess you could say, is Sarah Silverman’s music video, “Give the Jew Girl Toys” from her 2006 album Jesus is Magic, with Zach Galifianakis as Santa. Catch it on YouTube.
A great year-round tradition started in the 1940s, soon after a Danish Jewish pianist and comedian named Børge Rosenbaum arrived in the US. He changed his name to Victor Borge, learned English and started performing his unique blend of classical music performance and physical (and musical) comedy. Borge had a very popular show on NBC radio starting in 1946 and going on for five years. Check out YouTube for many selections of the genius of Victor Borge, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 91 but performed well into his last year of life.
A contemporary musician/comedian that many have compared to Victor Borge is the British performer Rainer Hersch. He was born in 1962, and like Borge, combined classical music training with a natural propensity for weird and witty comedy. From Wikipedia: In 1996, Rainer wrote and presented his stand-up show All Classical Music Explained (ACME) at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of thirteen such Edinburgh appearances. Billed as “a simple and stupid guide to questions like ‘why is organ music so boring?’; ‘what does a conductor actually do?’ and ‘how to clap in the wrong place and mean it’” ACME has since been performed over 300 times in four continents.
My last funny song is from a performer who is a personal favorite of mine, Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover. It comes from the hit comedy TV show Community. It’s called “Christmas Infiltration,” subtitled Troy and Abed’s Christmas Rap. This can also be found on YouTube: youtu.be/p_kdNBlUoZE