At this time of year, many of us are asked to ponder the true meaning of Christmas as some way of recalibrating our actions, lifestyles, and character.
Tooling around the Fontainebleau neighborhood the other day, I came across a wasted yard in front of a wasted house in the middle of a wasted neighborhood with trash, debris, and the specter of loss everywhere, and there, on the corner of this pathetic lot, was a wasted little brown tree wrapped in a single strand of white Christmas lights.
One might ask: What is the point? What are they trying to prove? Are we even on Santa’s itinerary this year? Or will he write off New Orleans, grab a quick bite at Ruth’s Chris in Baton Rouge, and continue on to cities that have Fortune 500–based companies, there to stuff their CEOs’ stockings full of FEMA contracts?
Besides, all our chimneys either fell down or are covered with blue tarps. What’s a jolly old elf to do?
Whether this small effort—this one pathetic little Charlie Brown Christmas tree in a town full of Charlie Brown Christmas trees—represents hope, delusion, or faith, I am not sure. I suppose time, God, and the Corps of Engineers will be the ultimate judges of that, and not necessarily in that order.
But tradition marches on, and so it must be. Out in a Kenner neighborhood where I often take my kids to look at the spectacular holiday light displays put on by the rich folks, many of the houses are gutted. But the FEMA trailers parked in the front yards are decorated with twinkling white lights instead.
It is both the saddest and most beautiful thing you ever saw.
And in places with no trailers, some folks have just decorated their curbside refrigerators and left it at that. Merry stinking Christmas to you, Uncle Sam.
Never mind that Entergy is going to bill you $800 for the use of a single strand of lights this month ($1,400 if you blink those suckers), the weird and oddly celebratory manifestations of the holidays around here are just another sign that you can’t stop us.
Sure, you can slow us down, pare our ranks, tear at our foundations until we cry for mercy. But you can’t stop us.
Perhaps no civic organization has shown its resilience in the face of all odds more than the Drunken Santas, a tight-knit group of New Orleanians who, after a round of drinking games at Madigan’s bar one night in 1998, decided to take an activist role in the holidays rather than sit around getting soused by themselves.
So they decided to get soused with others. Spreading the cheer is their aim. So they dress up in Santa costumes (or skimpier facsimiles thereof for the female members of this organization, the Ho-Ho-Hos) and they charter a fleet of limos and they pub-crawl.
These guys are right up there with the Salvation Army and Rex when it comes to giving back to the community this time of year. As Ho-Ho-Ho Natasha Daniel put it, “We have a good time. We push people into garbage piles. Make them take shots with us. You know: all the reindeer games.”
Now, I realize that at this point in the story the eyes of the righteous are rolling. Wait until they hear about this in Congress, I hear you saying. Now they’re never going to give us that $2 billion we need to rebuild New Orleans.
Well, frankly, Congress can go Scrooge itself. And so can the eye rollers, holy rollers, and professional bowlers. (Sorry, I need a third entity to make the rhythm work in that last phrase and I couldn’t come up with a damn thing.)
They’ll never understand the hardships the Drunken Santas have been forced to endure: from ninety-two participants and twelve limos last year, their ranks were devastated by Katrina to the tune of just twenty-two riders this year—only three of them Ho-Ho-Hos, perhaps the worst part of this whole tragedy.
One fellow named Jonathan drove in from Baton Rouge for the event Thursday night only to find that the tree that had fallen through his roof had caused significant water damage to his auxiliary closet (or whatever you call the closet where you keep things like Santa suits) and destroyed his costume.
He was forced to participate in street clothes. When will the horror stop! How much more can we take!
Anyway. Shrunken Santas might have been a more appropriate name for the group this year. But they endured. “We love this city and we love this tradition and we want normalcy and we’re not going to be stopped,” said Drunken Santa Matthew Dwyer as the group filtered out of the Monkey Hill Bar toward their limos and into a night of destinations unknown.
The Drunken Santas did what they did for no other reason than it was something to break pattern in this wretched little city and—as distasteful as this behavior may strike some—truthfully: it’s nobody else’s concern. They rented limos to take everybody home, so no one crashed into your house, so let it be.
Actually, if they had crashed into your house, that might have helped out with the lousy insurance check you’re going to get, but that’s a cause I’m somewhat hesitant to get behind: More drunk drivers!
Now, the more astute of you readers out there may have sensed a metaphorical undercurrent here in this sordid tale of debauchery and weirdness.
Yes, I’m talking about Mardi Gras. And why we can’t even think about canceling it. I was going to go into that in far greater detail in this story but I’m out of room here and sometimes even I get tired of reading me so I’ll pick up that thought in my next column and I’ll let you go after one more thing:
Christmas is a mangled institution and taken all out of context by crass commercialism, awkward passes at co-workers at the office party, and a cacophony of maudlin Christmas carols by Dolly Parton.
But does anyone say: That sends the wrong message! Cancel it!
Do what you do. This Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, Twelfth Night, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Paddy’s Day, and every day henceforth. Just do what you do. Live out your life and your traditions on your own terms.
If it offends others, so be it. That’s their problem.
Personally, I think blinking white lights on those stark white FEMA trailers is all wrong, totally missing the point, but I’m not going to knock on your door and tell you that you’ve got your priorities messed up and you’re sending the wrong message and that the Senate Finance Committee is going to kill the appropriations bill that could save us all because of your stupid trailer.
No, instead, when I drive by your house with my kids next week, I’m sure we’ll all agree in the privacy of our car that a subtle combination of red and green—nonblinking, I might add—would have looked much better.
Now, about that inflatable snow globe . . .