An Introduction to the Holidays

ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY SINBOY

I’ve been asked to say a few words about the holiday season for this, the Vice Guide to the Holidays. To be honest, I don’t really want to say anything about “the holidays” because it is such a massively general and vague term, and also, I think the whole thing is a money-making scam cooked up by Hallmark, Coca-Cola, and the Freemasons. However, I’d feel terrible if I bummed any of you devotees out, so I’ll try to be festive. On that note, there’s no doubt about it, the holidays are a wonderfully special time of year. A time of good will among men, a time of kissing ’neath the mistletoe, a time of cooking stuff on the ends of sticks, and a time of lying to children about the existence of God. Most of all, the holidays provide an opportunity to get together with your family and be reminded of all the reasons you moved out. Each year I’m especially reminded of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Or rather, I remember that I still don’t know or care what it means, and then I start gearing up for what’s really important to me—singing my own ribald versions of all the Christmas-carol standards at the top of my lungs, for the entire time that I’m under my parents’ roof. When I was a young whippersnapper, I started off, like most kids, with “Jingle bells/Batman smells/Robin flew away./Wonder Woman/lost her bosoms/flying TAA/HEY!” Hilarious, I know. But as the years passed, and Trans Australia Airlines was absorbed by Qantas, I was forced to develop my own new and improved repertoire of bawdy lyrics. And now, some twenty-odd years later, I have enough material to release a double album of offbeat seasonal hits. Just look at these gems! Rudolph the Red-Nosed Retard
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Syphilis
Have Yourself a Merry Little Syphilis
Oh Syphilis Tree
Santa Claus is Bumming a Clown
Silent Night—Really? Get Fucked
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus… on the Cock
All I Want for Christmas (Is to Not Have Diarrhea)
Chintzy Shit-Hole Blues
Do You Hear What I Hear? No.
Mele Kalikimuthafucka
Frosty the Snow-Jerk And that’s just disc 1! I can’t wait to get horribly drunk and belt these out in front of grandma and my sister’s kids. Yes, friends, “the holidays” are a magic, magic, super-joyful time, and we recommend you take a moment this season to take stock of just how lucky you are to have family and friends, even if, deep, deep down, you don’t really like them. Merry holidays.