Night of the Living Santa

Based on a true story.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when down at the school
all the children were lined up to see some fat fool.
The mommies were handing their babes to this bloke,
Whose breath smelt of liquor and some sort of smoke.

The children all clambered with a similar goal:
kissing up to the jolly old chap from North Pole.
They knew they’d been naughty; they knew they’d been nice;
They hoped the ol’ elf was kinder than wise.

When it was my turn, there arose a great clatter,
Mom swooped me from Santa--Oh what was the matter?
Two women burst in--cross the room they did run,
Leading an officer with a glistening gun.

“But Mommy, oh Mommy, why’s Santa in cuffs?
How will I tell him the marvelous stuffs
I’m hoping to find in my stocking tomorrow?
They’re taking away Santa; it fills me with sorrow.”

That night my poor mom was forced to explain
How the man in the suit was just playing a game.
Not the real Santa, but rather an actor,
Who’d taken the gig and drove here on his tractor.

She tucked me in bed and my rosy cheek kissed,
“The real Santa knows all the things on your list.
He’s watching you always, so get off to sleep;
If he knows you’re awake, then your toys he’ll just keep...

"...and take them to children who do what is right.”
And with that, she left me alone in the night.
The wind, it was howling; the shadows they grew,
Forming sleighs full of toys melting into dark goo.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on my ceiling
Scratching and clawing, and the furnace a-squealing.
Try as I might, I could not enter slumber.
I worried how Santa could pass through raw lumber.

We had not a fireplace, chimney, nor flue.
Mom said he’d get in, but I hadn’t a clue
How that would be possible with doors all locked tight,
As they’d been ever since we were robbed one cold night.

I remembered the footprint left on a blank paper
The robber had stepped on as he carried out his caper –
The clear size-ten boot print, it’s match never found...
The burglar, we thought, could still be around.

He’d smashed a flocked skunk bank to snatch coins inside,
Not realizing the statue was worth more to this child
Who liked to gaze at it up on the shelf tower,
and think about Bambi and Thumper and Flower.

My parents had no worry on this snow-laden evenin’
That Santa may open a path for this heathen.
This cold-blooded skunk-killer still out on the lam--
And my folks doing nothing--I needed a plan.

I could lay out a trap for the skunk-thievin’ jerk,
But if Santa fell prey, I would be in deep dirt.
And I was a fraidy-cat, plum-full of dread
At the thought of the boogey-man under my bed.

So, in bed I did stay, my head full of “what ifs”--
Burglars are scary, so are all-seeing elves--
If the burglar came in, what would happen then?
Even worse, what if Santa’s feet were size 10?

This happened when I was about 4 years old.
Explains a lot.

LITTLE-LORD-JESUS MAN: A Great Christmas Blasphemy

Have a blessed Christmas and don't put off hugging those you love while you can.

The most frequently stolen Christmas decoration in the United States is not the inflatable Santa. Not shiny-nosed Rudolf. Not even bunches of kiss-inducing mistletoe. No, the most often lifted holiday token is the baby Jesus figurine. Faced with the threat of the holy little tyke going missing from their nativity displays, some churches have even installed GPS trackers in the little Lord Jesus.

This led me to wonder how many people would in fact be able to describe the real Jesus for a missing person’s report. With so many Christians upset about Christ being “taken out of Christmas,” I’d like to suggest that those who lament this vacancy should examine what exactly it is that they would like to see in Christmas. Who is this Christ? Is he the Christ of tradition or is he who he says he is? And are the two all that different?

There is one line in a beloved Christmas carol that I have not sung for almost eleven years, nor do I ever intend to sing again. Rather, I feel like going on a crusade to bring the heresy of the seemingly innocent lyric to the attention of the potentially deceived.

It was December of 1997. Through moist, glazed eyes, I made out an image that has lingered ever since as a surrealistic mast. Cheap tinsel glistened on an evergreen tree near the front of an unfamiliar sanctuary. The dancing of light, through the reds and greens of the decked out room, suddenly pierced into my cloud of mourning--not enough to free me, but just enough to pronounce into the haze: “It’s Christmas out here! Life goes on even when it may have stopped and frozen for you.” The jarring glare of refracted light seemed almost a mockery of what we were going through, saying our goodbyes to my little sister Amber, the baby of the family, the one whom--if life were “fair”--should have been the last of us to go.

That touch of sparkling tinsel, viewed through the waters that I fought to keep from spilling forth from my eyes, stayed with me, intermingling with the carols that would play in the walking dream that followed. For days and weeks afterward, nothing was real, yet this glimmer remained with me. Words melted into incoherent syllables, sounds, bells, clanging, empty, loveless. Time was not linear--did it even exist?

Children stood donning their Christmas best in the front of another church, singing “Away in a manger....” The song warbled impotently across air that was as visible as anything else. Cute little baby Jesus... I know, I know, I’ve heard it all before. Jolly old Saint Nick and the Easter bunny... Deck the halls and flashback to Amber.

Amber and I shared a room growing up. I used to have such a hard time keeping my big mouth shut. Christmas presents should be surprises, I thought, but I would always end up spilling the beans and telling her what I had gotten her. Then I would have to get her something else, too--so she could have a surprise. Before long, I would inevitably tell her about the new gift, necessitating that I find yet another. The gifts may have been small stupid things, the kind of special inside jokes that only sisters can understand.

Back to the kids singing on the stage... sisters standing next to each other, one pokes the other, the other whacks her back, sticking out the tongue, hitting, pinching... a mom glares at her offspring. Why can’t they be good at least until the song’s over and they’re out of the spotlight? The song warbles on: “...the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes....” That’s it, the mom thinks--why can’t my kids be more like the Little-Lord-Jesus? One sibling pinches the other. Little sister sniffles, a full blown fit is about to ensue. “The Little-Lord-Jesus, no crying he makes...”

The song reminds all seated in the mass of ceremony how unlike us that Little-Lord-Jesus is: He is a super hero. The entire taking on mortality thing that I thought Christmas was supposed to be about begins to unravel. God put on a costume to pretend he was a real baby, but the fact that he didn’t cry gave him away. He’s an impostor!

Suddenly, the quaver of the sweet traditional hymn is pierced by a fleck in the flickering tinsel--I’m back at the funeral, trying to hold back the tears, trying to be good, trying to act like the hope of being reunited in the afterlife is enough now, in this moment. “The Little-Lord-Jesus, no crying he makes...” The flickering tinsel is ablaze in flame now, engulfed in righteous anger, and the anger is not mine. “LIE!” a voice shouts through the fog, but everyone else drones on, they didn’t hear--perhaps they are trying to drown him out. “The Little-Lord-Jesus, no crying he makes...” The enflamed tinsel becomes a tear, a blazing hot tear burning through the fog. It washes over me in a refreshing flood that will never again allow me to sing those words: “The little Lord Jesus...” did what?

Have you ever had that feeling of betrayal, when you discover that someone has been spreading lies about you, defaming your character? You thought they knew you, but they obviously didn’t. You may feel anger about being misrepresented. You may feel hurt. But then, if someone you love dearly is harmed by the misrepresentation, the anger and hurt give way to heartbreak. You want to pour yourself out and wash over your beloved, to wash away the poison and make it all right. You want to whisper the truth, to be heard, believed, to bring healing. The lie may go on, but once healing has occurred and you are holding the one you love, it fades like meaningless noise into the background. You whisper the truth and the power of it washes away the evil lies.

“The little Lord Jesus...” the voice whispers, “Where is that in my book? Where?” He flips the pages of my memory and my eyes settle on the words of the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) “Jesus wept,” it says. How beautifully profound. How perfect. Jesus wept. When Mary and Martha had lost their dear brother Lazarus, in that very moment. In that moment. Jesus knew they would see him again. Jesus even knew that he had the power and would bring Lazarus back to life. He could have said, “Get over it. You’ll be with him in heaven.” He could have said, “Settle down, look, he’s alive now. No biggie.” He could have used any of the comforting words spoken by Job’s friends and all of their descendants to put those of “little faith” in their places and to tell them to be good. Jesus, however, did none of these things. Jesus wept.

Since December of 1997, that verse has become central to my understanding of what the gospel of Christ is. We are so often distracted from what is central by the droning noise of our own traditions. La la la la la... blah blah blah blah blah... it is all like a clanging cymbal “if we have not love.” (I Corinthians 13) He didn’t come into the world to be a role model. "Follow me. Be good. You better watch out. You better not pout. You better not cry..." He came because he wanted to be with us. To laugh with us. Cry with us. Feel with us. Love with us.

All I want for Christmas is to see a few more droning choruses shattered, if that will help us to see the Jesus who wept, and still weeps--who loves us every moment and doesn’t expect us to be good little super-heroes.



written 12/24/2008



Amber and me

Women in Hollywood: Speak Up!

Disclaimer: This is not a final treatise on the subject. Really, it’s more of a musing out loud, a conversation starter--meaning: I’d love for you to join in a process that I hope will bring greater clarity of purpose and direction for those of us who are “women in film.” I’d also love to hear from those who make up our audience and the men we have the pleasure to share our work with. This is in no way intended to bash male filmmakers or those who worked on either of the Twilight films.






Ever since the last Twilight installment came out and "shocked" the Hollywood prognosticators, I have been reading blogs and articles by sister filmmakers giddy about the glimmer of hope for women in film because the female audience is finally getting noticed and we think--this time--it might stick!

I, however, have been fairly guarded in my response, partially because I'm not convinced that the fare which females are flocking to the theaters for is truly, well, worthwhile--I mean, is it really to be considered "progress" for our gender when a bunch of drooling school girls pay to see a hunky guy take his shirt off? After all, most of the females I know in this industry are actually concerned with art and content (gasp) and I'm still not convinced that the studios are going to rush to fund *that* kind of thing when they can just put a pretty boy up on the screen, manipulate every girl who longs to find her meaning as a man's "personal brand of heroin," and rake in a fortune.

Another reason I'm not getting caught up in the girl-power rally yet is the fact that I'm not even convinced that there is such a thing as a homogeneous "female audience." If the studios take notice of the Twilight phenomenon, and try to use it as a template for the wooing of the elusive "female audience," we will not have progress. It will just be more of the same pandering and dumbing down, and large segments of the art-house hungry female population will continue to be unrepresented in the calibrating of the filmmaking machinery. (Note that while the first Twilight film was directed by a female, the second was not... I didn't follow the politics of the hiring, but I couldn't help but wonder: did they think they had figured out the formula & just revert back to the status quo?)

I'm just saying that I'm not in a hurry to trust the powers-that-be in Hollywood to make intelligent conclusions from the complicated connections between what female audiences choose to spend their money on (given what is offered to them at the box office), and what females who work in the industry know and have to offer. I think that in playing it safe with the status quo (which includes hiring male directors 90% of the time regardless of whether honest accounting supports the choice), studios--and even a lot of smaller production companies--are seriously limiting their own potential to reach broader audiences.

Yes, there is a vast audience of females out there, hungry for film with which we can identify. But, no, we are not to be grouped in a simple clump and satisfied by formulaic entertainment "product" designed by those who only *think* they understand the complexity of their newly targeted viewers. I wonder sometimes at the logic of some who are considered experts at "business." I think of myself as more of an artist than a business mind, and yet even I understand that hiring those who ARE members of a target audience just might help in the production of stuff that appeals to the target audience.

That is definitely not to say that just because one is a member of a particular group, that they are not able to appeal to those outside that group. Sometimes the infusion of an "outside" influence in the creation process can invigorate the entire team and bring about something that is fresh and interesting to everyone. I've worked with male co-creators who actually jump at the opportunity to work on female-led projects because they find the energy and atmosphere "different and refreshing" after years of working on male-dominated sets.

Last week, Manohla Dargis wrote an insightful analysis of the situation of women in film for the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/movies/13dargis.html

I'd love to hear your thoughts, too.

Welcome to my Core: I'm hoping you'll say, "Don't Get a Life, Rebekah! Don't Get a Life!"

At last, I take the plunge, marking my space in the blogosphere. I've been reluctant to get an official blogspot, because I thought that would require me to have something important to say... and then, if I did actually say something that people found profound, they'd expect a repeat performance and I might disappoint them (like the one-blog wonders who have left me thirsty for more of their wisdom, only to disappear, from virtual reality, into reality... it's enough to to make you want to shout, "Don't get a life!")


So, here I am... for better or for worse (and I'm sure there will be a fair shake of each). Take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm a skeptic, so skepticism is a reasonable response to my rants and babbles. I'm here to pepper your mind, to instigate mental sneezes, to play with my words before I'm forced to eat them... Sometimes I'll be serious, and sometimes I'll be nutty... but if I ever disappear from the blogosphere, I only hope that there will be someone who notices and hollers: "Don't get a life, Rebekah! Don't get a life!"