All Posts Tagged With: "christmas"

Who’s your Christmas Daddy?

For an English professor, the holiday season’s many pleasures—from raucous parties to quiet nights beside the fire—are always overlaid with the less pleasurable task of grading exams. My exams usually feature “sight passages”: short poems (or other texts) for the students to analyze.

I don’t know if it’s the sight passages, or just the fact that we English profs have a hard time turning off our critical faculties at the best of times, but during this time of year I always find myself writing little essays in my head about the Christmas songs I hear.

Last year, as readers of this space may recall, I found myself deeply troubled by the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” This year, it’s that cutest of  holiday classics: “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”

You probably know the song by heart, but, if you don’t, here are the lyrics, and here’s a recording. And in the spirit of fair play, here is my sight essay on that little song.

The song is very short and the speaker is clearly a child young enough to still believe in Santa, so the lyrics don’t allow us to determine what precisely is being described. And that’s what’s so interesting, yet frustrating about the song. What exactly does our young speaker witness?

There are at least three possibilities, beginning with the innocuous but quickly spilling over into the deeply troubling.

1. It’s Daddy. Most casual listeners probably assume that what the child sees is actually her father, dressed as Santa and enjoying a cup of spiced snog with Mommy while the little one is supposed to be dreaming of sugar plums. Our little insomniac however, in her innocence, neither realizes that it’s Daddy nor realizes that if it weren’t, Daddy might not have found it very funny.

But even if we accept this reading, a question remains. Why is Daddy dressed as Santa Claus? Perhaps because he’s been playing Santa for the family or for some other event, but there’s nothing in the song to suggest that he has. So we must be open to the more interesting possibility that Daddy has dressed as Santa for Mommy’s sake.  Mommy has been dancing and prancing in her negligee for Père Noël, and that the child has, rather awkwardly, walked in on a bit of Yuletide foreplay.

2. It’s some other guy. Since the child does not recognize “Santa” we can’t say for certain that the man Mommy is kissing is Daddy at all. It might be someone else dressed as Santa (Why? See above). In this case, we can be fairly sure that Daddy would definitely NOT be laughing were he to walk in on his wife and her lover. Perhaps he would be magnanimous considering that they were under the mistletoe, but I doubt it.

3. It really is Santa. This is the most disturbing possibility of all, that Mommy is having an affair with Kris Kringle, perhaps on an annual basis. It’s disturbing because, when you think about it, the whole idea of Santa Claus is pretty creepy. This old man sneaks into your house in the middle of the night while everyone is sleeping? If anyone really did that, you’d call the cops.

Plus, isn’t Santa a married man? No wonder that old elf is so jolly.

Now, why do I have to go and ruin a perfectly nice little song? Don’t blame me: I didn’t write it. If songwriter Tommie Connor wanted it to be clear, he should have written another verse. I wish he had. As it is, I have to listen to the damn thing every year and wonder…

Todd Pettigrew is Associate Professor English at Cape Breton University.

It’s completely free. And it shows up in your email every day.

If I had to choose between a stack of Microbiology readings and a novel that I started during Christmas vacation, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t find myself reading about terrestrial and aquatic microbial habitats. So I don’t let myself make the choice. Between January and April, any books outside of my five textbooks (and lab manuals) are banned.

Two weeks into the new semester, I still haven’t touched any non school-related books. Instead, I’ve started reading my spam before killing it off. It doesn’t exactly compare to reading a good book, but it sure is a lot more lucrative. In the past few days I’ve already won hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

My spam is even warning me about problems with my computer. And offering helpful solutions.

“Your computer are virus detected. Download antivirus for protect your computer free!”

It’s disappointing when I turn on my laptop and I don’t have any new spam. Just a bunch of emails that I don’t bother to read anymore. Sorry Academica’s Top Ten, but you’ve never offered me any health advice. Like, “Eat pill once a day and BREAK THROUGH WALL!!!”

I’m even getting investment offers and financial advice from complete strangers.

“Hello good sir. My name is Arthur Fowling and I am searching for an investment partner in my lucrative new business venture…”

By the way Arthur, the only people who say “Good sir” are characters from “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Sherlocke Holmes.” It’s about 200 years out of date.

“Greetings from the Gmail team. We are in the process of deleting inactive accounts due to bandwidth limitations. If you do not want your account to be discontinued, please fill in the form below.”

1) Username

2) Password

3) PIN number

4) Credit card information

5) A photo of yourself, so we can include your picture in our annually published book, “People who actually sent us their credit card information and PIN number.”

Christmas vacation isn’t a vacation yet.

My last exam was almost a week ago, on December 15th, but my Christmas vacation hasn’t even started yet.

When I found out that all five of my exams were in a row, right at the beginning of exam period, I couldn’t decide if I was happy, or on the verge of developing a nervous tic.

On the one hand, writing exams sooner means less time to study. Not to mention, when your exams are literally back-to-back, one day after another, it’s harder to divide up your study time properly. How can you study for Biochemistry when Embryology is the day before? And how can you study for Embryology when Molecular biology is the day before that? And how can you study for Molecular biology when… well, you get the point.

On the other  hand, all my exams were over in one shot. And my Christmas vacation started a bit earlier than usual.

Except it didn’t. Until my final marks are released tomorrow, I can’t sit back and enjoy my vacation.

I’m stuck in post-exam purgatory.

-Photo courtesy of alancleaver_2000

Saying goodbye can be tricky at this time of year.

Cape Breton may be the last place in the country where people unabashedly wish you a Merry Christmas at this time of year. Not Happy Holidays, I mean, but actual, full-throated, unironic, “Merry Christmas.”

I hear it a lot at the university because December exams (Christmas exams as we say at CBU, though they do not feel like a gift to the students or the faculty) because the end of the examination period quite clearly marks the last time we will see each other, at least until January, depending on the course. After ten years, it still makes me a bit uncomfortable.

When I was a student in Ontario, I made a point of not saying “Merry Christmas” to my professors because I usually did not know them well enough to presume that they did celebrate Christmas, and I did not want to cause offense. So I usually said, “have a good holiday” which worked for people celebrating Hannukah or Christmas or whatever, but could also be taken to meant the time off between semesters.

My students seem to have no such compunctions, and every time I hear them say “Merry Christmas,” I wonder if they have considered whether I might be, for instance, Jewish. And if I were, wouldn’t “Merry Christmas” be a bit insensitive? I’m pretty sure that they don’t think about that, and if they did, I’m pretty sure they would reply that they wouldn’t be offended by “Happy Hanukkah.” But that’s only because most of us here in Cape Breton are Christians or (like me) descended from those who were. “Happy Hanukkah” doesn’t bother us, because we have never felt marginalized by the domination of Hanukkah in December, or by the domination (and oppression) of Christian culture in general. I wonder how my Jewish colleagues feel about this.

And this is to say nothing of other groups who do not celebrate Christmas such as Muslims, and, perhaps surprisingly, some Christians. As it happens, I do celebrate Christmas as a winter festival, but it makes me uncomfortable when students assume that I do, because I feel like they are making me part of that in-group where it is assumed that everyone has the same values and traditions.

What should you say to your prof as you leave the exam room? Something friendly. “Have a nice break,” or “see you next semester,” or steal my “good holiday” line.

Just not “Merry Christmas.”

Try Halo Reach instead.

When I’m in EB Games, it’s always sickening to see parents and grandparents buying LEGO Indiana Jones 2 or Kung-Fu Panda for their kids. They seem to think that buying video games is kind of like buying a pair of socks: they’re all the same, so there’s no point getting fussy about a particular pair.

And by the way, there’s no such thing as an educational video game, so don’t bother with Ultimate Spelling Bee or Virtual Math Coach. The words “educational” and “videogame” shouldn’t be in the same sentence, unless you’re making the point that they shouldn’t be in the same sentence.

For one thing, you’re wasting your money, because a normal kid is never going to play 101 Grammar Exercises on their Nintendo DS.

Secondly, stop kidding yourself with the whole “educational” thing. It’s still a videogame. Kind of like those “Healthy Choice” apple slices at McDonald’s that come with caramel dip.

-Photo courtesy of mysza831

…but battle scars remain.

Now that Christmas vacation is over, I finally purged all my notes and lab books from last semester.

For classes like physics, the process of a Note Purge is extremely simple: I rip out every page from my binder and notebook, and then I throw them all in the recycling bin. And then I never have to think about terms like “angle of incidence” or “centrifugal force” ever again.

I actually did keep just one or two pages of my physics notes. Not because I’ll need to use them for future courses. I kept them as a sort of battle scar.

After my last exam was finished, I couldn’t even touch my book bag for a couple of days. I was afraid that my organic chemistry textbook would suddenly tumble out and pop open to page 322, and I would accidentally read the definition of “Grignard reagent.” And it wouldn’t be the answer I put on the final exam.

…until next semester.

I still have two exams before Christmas vacation. I’ve got six chapters of my microbiology textbook to read before Friday, and I’m trying to not even think about history. But ever since last Thursday, life has been worth living again.

Organic chemistry is finished. Gone. Forever.

Until next semester. When I have Organic Chemistry Part 2.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday are my new weekend

There are only 24 days of school between me and Christmas vacation.

That’s the beauty of a two day school week. My weekend isn’t at the end of the week anymore. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday are now my weekend.

Last year, when I scored a three day school week, I thought I had the perfect schedule.

This year I won the Scheduling Lottery.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been two weeks. It feels like its been 10 years

It’s been almost two weeks since Christmas vacation ended. Two weeks since I last played Halo 3. Two weeks since I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (also known as Indiana Jones and the Plot that Initially Held Promise But Stopped Making Sense When Aliens were Introduced). But it doesn’t feel like it’s been two weeks. It feels like its been 10 years.

Last September, when my parents told me that my first semester of university would be “over in the blink of an eye,” I figured it was one of those things that parents collectively agree to tell their children just to annoy them. Sort of like, “You’ll thank me when your older.”

Then I blinked, and I was sitting in the middle of my chemistry lab exam, unable to remember what the heck a triprotic acid is.

But for whatever reason, second semester is going in slow motion. It’s the same kind of feeling I get when my family is crammed into our mini-van for a long road trip, and the only thing I can do for five hours is play the Dilemma Game with my brothers. Would you rather be stuck in a pit of spiders, or a pit of earwigs? Would you cut off all your toes or all your fingers? Your eyelids or your tongue? Would you rather poke a sharp stick into your ear or your eye? What would be worse: eating someone else’s baby toe nail, or being trapped in a sleeping bag with one of my younger brother’s nacho farts?

I wonder what would be worse: being stuck in my physics class for the rest of eternity, or having to listen to an endless stream of hypothetical questions?

“The final exam is hands-on. You have to beat Halo 3 in less than two hours.”

It’s always sad when kids get the Grandparent Version of a gift they wanted for Christmas. An entire industry of crappy toys has been created for grandparent shoppers. You know that shelf of Xbox 360 games in Wal Mart, with titles like, “Super Fun Kart Racing,” or “Monopoly/Yahtzee Double Pack”? Those games that make you wonder, “Who the hell is buying that?” It’s grandparents.

It’s sort of like when someone shows you a picture of their pet cat, and it looks exactly the same as the other 5.8 billion cats roaming the Earth. When a grandparent sees two action figures side-by-side on a shelf in Wal Mart- one being a fully articulated Master Chief action figure complete with battle rifle and hand grenade, the other being Super Stretch Bungee Man- the only difference they see is that one costs 10 bucks, and the other costs two bucks. Grandparents don’t understand the Rules of Lameness that govern action figures. Basic stuff like, if its wearing a purple jumpsuit and the box brags that it has ‘super karate chopping action,’ don’t buy it. Or, if it costs two bucks, there’s a reason every single ten-year old has walked right past it. Wal Mart was waiting for a 75-year-old, like you.

And those action figures of baseball/basketball/hockey players? The ones that are frozen in a single ‘dramatic’ pose? Those aren’t action figures. They’re target practice for your cooler action figures.

Even worse than getting a lame version of a gift you wanted? Getting a gift you didn’t want. Like a set of HB soft lead pencils. Or a gift card to the bookstore. Getting that type of gift is like a stab to the kidneys. It just hurts.

Mind you, a girl I knew in high school actually asked her grandparents for stuff like graphing calculators and protractors. But she also ate Triscuits and trail mix, so she’s not exactly  representative of a normal 16-year-old.

Now that I’ve gone through my first semester of university, the type of gifts I want for Christmas have completely changed. Never mind a $30 gift card from EB Games. I want a card that guarantees me at least one bobo class next semester. A card that ensures my professor will say stuff on the first day like, “I don’t believe in final exams. You don’t have to write any essays. I award points based on how many times you can blink in a 30-second period.”

Or even better, “The final exam is hands-on. You have to beat Halo 3 in less than two hours.”