Author: Wil

I can’t believe it’s already Christmas Eve. It seems like just a week ago, there were six shopping days
until Christmas . . . where does the time go?

Anne and I finished our shopping yesterday, including a frenzied trip to the mall, where I learned that people who waited until the last minute to buy clothes aren’t exactly rational when the store doesn’t have the size they wanted, and tend to freak out at the cashier, as if the cashier conspired to keep that pair of size four jeans available until seconds before Angry Shopper wanted them.

I also learned that there is some serious plague out there in the shopping areas, because I woke up this morning with a bitch of a sore throat and a pretty severe sinus thing. Merry Christmas to me.

The kids are with their dad tonight, so Christmas won’t actually be Christmas until they get home tomorrow afternoon (parents will understand what I mean, you non-kidlet-having types may not, but that’s okay, because it’s Christmas.) Tonight, we’re headed up to my mom and dad’s house to have dinner with them and my siblings. Chance of watching A Christmas Story is set at about 99%.

I hope everyone who celebrates it has a very merry Christmas. For everyone else, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And to everyone, regardless of anything, I wish you all the peace, prosperity, and joy the world has to offer.

I came home early from the WPBT Winter Classic in Las Vegas, so I could attend the annual Wheaton Family Christmas at my parents’ house.

I absolutely adore my family, and I will drop just about anything so I can attend a family get together. The fact that it’s Christmas just gave me an excuse to bring a really stupid White Elephant gift, and gave my brother an excuse to make his world famous Brined Barbecue Turkey.

This year’s Wheaton Family Christmas was exactly like any other of the always-awesome Wheaton Family Christmas (WFC?) gatherings, with one exception that was so painful, I wrote an essay about it for Salon.com called The Real War on Christmas

This year it looked as though it would be a typical family gathering.
But that all changed when I walked through the living room on my way to
get some eggnog. I asked my younger sister, who was flipping through
the channels on the television, what she was looking for.

"I’m trying to find Court TV," she said.

"Why?" I said.

"Because the governor is supposed to announce whether he is granting clemency for Tookie Williams at 3 p.m.," she said.

I was surprised to hear she cared, because my sister has always been
pretty nonpolitical. "I don’t think he will grant clemency…," I began
to say. But before I could add, "because he’s going to try to win back
his hardcore base with this," she spat at me, "He’d better not!"

My sister was a death-penalty proponent? That was news to me. I didn’t
want to upset the family gathering, so I decided to just let this one
go.

"OK," I said, "I guess we’d better not talk about this."

But just then, my father walked into the room.

"Wil thinks Tookie Williams shouldn’t be executed," she said.

Oh boy.

"What?" My dad said. Not to my sister, to me.

Here we go.

"Well," I said, "I don’t believe in the death penalty, so…"

You know those optical illusion drawings, where you’re looking at a
smiling man, then suddenly he’s become a werewolf? Faster than you
could say "Fox News," my dad was screaming at me, Bill O’Reilly-style.

"… an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! He killed four…" he stabbed at the air with four fingers on his left hand, "four people in cold blood and deserves! to! die!"

I briefly made eye contact with my stepson, Nolan, who sat just behind
my father on my parents’ couch. His face flushed and he quickly looked
away. My sister had stopped her channel surfing on a shopping network,
and he looked awfully interested in putting a sapphire ring on
easy-pay. While my dad continued to scream about biblical vengeance, I
went into shock. Just minutes earlier, we’d stood together outside on
the deck and laughed with each other as he congratulated me for a great
finish I’d had the previous day at a poker tournament in Las Vegas. In
fact, I’d cut my trip short, specifically so I wouldn’t miss the family
Christmas.

What a difference five minutes makes. While he screamed at me, I wanted
to ask, "Who are you, and what have you done with the man who raised me
to be tolerant, patient, peaceful and charitable?" Instead, I said, as
calmly as I could, "Dad, I just don’t believe in the death penalty. It
is unevenly applied to poor people, and clearly doesn’t work as a
deterrent…"

"It doesn’t work as a deterrent because they allow these scum to stay
alive for 25 years before they give them what they deserve!" I hadn’t
seen my dad this angry since I was a sophomore in high school and my
friends and I woke up my mom after midnight one night because we got a
little worked up in a Nintendo game of "Blades of Steel."

"Dad," I said, "living in prison for 25 years isn’t anything to be happy about…"

"Like hell it isn’t!" he bellowed. "They get satellite television, and weights, and free meals, and jobs, and a library…"

"And raped, and beaten by guards, and sold as slaves by prison gangs,"
I said. "That really sounds good to you? Because it sounds like a
pretty lousy life for violent criminals, which is exactly what they
deserve."

He violently shook his head at me and drew a deep breath. "The victims’
families get to watch that animal die! If they don’t get to watch him
die, how can they get the closure they
deserve?" Before I could reply, and he could launch into another round
of talking points, I was unintentionally saved by my brother, who
called our dad to come outside and help him with the turkey on the
barbecue.

He turned quickly, and stormed out of the room, followed by my sister.

To read the rest, you can get a free day pass to Salon by watching a quick advertisement. (Make sure you have cookies enabled.) You’ll also get access to everything else that Salon offers for the day, too. I’ve been a subscriber for years, and my Salon subscription has out-lasted subscriptions to Harper’s, Esquire, and The New Yorker, for what that’s worth.

I hope you’ll take the time to read the rest of my essay, and share your own stories about The War on Christmas (from whatever side you’re on.)

I’m pretty sure this will stir up some very powerful emotions. Please think carefully before you post your comments.

If you grok Farkisms, you’ll love this animation, and the fark nativity.

If you like to play in the Thursday Night WWdN game at PokerStars, it’s set up and ready to go at 7:30 PST tonight.

Carly gets a letter from the DMV:

Dear California Driver

Dear form letter!

Drivers with crashes and traffic convictions on their records are
at greater risk at causing future crashes. Your recent record of bad
driving (see below) places you at increased risk of causing crashes,
injury and death. We do not want you to suffer those consequences and
we want you to avoid them.

Okay. First of all, it was hardly a crash so much as it was a fender bender, but we all know the story on that one
(and yes, my insurance company was faulted. Hooray!) Second of all, it
was a speeding ticket that I got seven months prior to that little
mash. Before that, I had maybe one other ticket in my entire California
driving career. That’s it. And now I’m on the list of Drivers With the
Potential to Cause Vehicular Manslaughter?

[. . .]

While you may be a good and safe driver most of the time, your record reflects at least momentary lapses in driving judgment.

No shit. That’s why they’re called “accidents” and “I’m sorry,
officer, I didn’t know how fast I was going.” What can I say? This year
was a bad year that I don’t intend to repeat.

At highway speeds, a moment of carelessness might become a
tragedy. Good, caring people who make careless decisions while driving
can cause injury or death.

I know, mom.

In our effort to urge you to drive safer, we are offering you a
choice. You can choose to prevent further action from the DMV by
avoiding additional traffic convictions and by not causing any crashes.

Oh my god… it’s genius! I never thought of that before! Thank you,
DMV, for pointing out the obvious! If you hadn’t have said that, I’d be
driving over medians and plowing into school kids right now!

It’s kind of pretty awesome that Californians can now enjoy the irritation and idiocy of the DMV, right from the comfort of our own mailboxes. It’s twice as kind of pretty awesome that Carly can make me laugh this hard.

We sat outside on the cafe’s patio, and talked about the things writers talk about. We made notes in our respective Molskine notebooks. Though clouds obscured the moon much of the night, the air was cold and dry.

My friend is far more successful than I am, and I should feel awkward, like the rookie we both know I am, but our relative levels of success don’t matter to either of us. We both share a passion for creating, for telling stories, for putting you where we are, and keeping you interested enough to turn the page.

As I emptied my second mug of chamomile, a group of young Mediterranean men walked out onto the patio, and filled a table behind us. They broke out a backgammon board, and started to play. Across from them, a group of older Mediterranean men smoked cigars and sipped espresso. The young men shared complicated handshakes and slammed their dice cups onto the table, while the older men said very little, and thoughtfully blew clouds of fragrant blue smoke at each other. I wrote in my notebook, "They looked at each other; into the future and into the past."

Two girls in their early twenties sat at a table next to us, and gossiped. I wrote, "She just realized how big it all is, and she is terrified."

Groups of teenagers drifted in and out. All drank huge coffee drinks. Some smoked cigarettes. Many wore Ugg boots, an equal number wore flip-flops. Most intermittently talked on cell phones. I wrote, "They are happy to be here. If you asked them where they were, they would tell you, ‘not at home!’"

My friend and I traded stories until the exhausted cafe workers closed the umbrellas and began to stack chairs. I would have written something in my notebook, but that was our cue to leave.

We gathered up our things, and said good bye. I drove home ’round midnight.