A Grey Christmas

Up on a Rooftop

"Fire up the reindeer!" I yell up to Taylor, who's standing on the roof with Santa's sleigh— the piece d'resistance we've spent the last hour trying to put together. We wound lights around it for what felt to my back like half my life, only to realize that we had to do it all over again because Rudolph's nose ended up on Blitzen's ass, making it look like he was shitting a cranberry in midair. That was nearly the last straw. I survived the animated baby snowman choir that sings Santa Claus is Coming to Town via loud speaker (fucking continuously!) with jumbo flat screen accompaniment for sing-a-long purposes; the gum drop garden with twirling candy cane striped poinsettias and lollipops taller than my children that line the front walk; even Taylor and I spelling out Hoof Stop in lights with a teeter-tottering flashing red arrow pointing to a landing strip on the roof we also made. But, these reindeer games—these were almost too much. I would've quit, but two things kept me going: my family's holiday happiness and fucking Bent Dicks—hard.

Taylor flips a switch and the sleigh is aglow. And boy does it fucking glow. It looks like Santa's team got struck by a comet and kept going until it hit a house. But, overall everything looks good. Rudolph's nose is on his face; the rotating lights that make the reindeer look like they're running through thin air look realistic (ten years off my life to make that happen!); even Santa's beard has a nice fluff to it—well, as fluffy as you can make it with hard wire and electricity. Just as my hopes are high that we can move on from this nightmare and onto to the next, Houston—or rather the North Pole of Seattle's got a problem.

"We have to turn it around!" I yell, motioning my arms in a circular fashion aimed at Santa's back end.

"Nice isn't it, sir?" he says, giving me an enthusiastic thumbs up. He's far too excited about Santa's ass.

"No! Turn it!" I point a finger and twirl it in the air.

"Yes, first place, Mr. Grey!" What the hell? Does he think my finger is a one and I'm already celebrating victory?

"No! It's the wrong way!"

"I can't hear you, sir! The wind really whips around up here!" It's just a little fucking breeze; he acts like he's about to be swept up and under a house with a witch in striped socks on his way to meet Oz.

"It's facing the wrong way!" I yell, louder, with hands cupped around my mouth.

"How's that, sir?"

I'm sick of having a conversation with him like we're in two separate beds of a nut house talking on a string-and-can phone, so I climb up the ladder to him. At least then we can talk nut to nut—so to speak. Fuck, it's quite a climb. I never realized my house was this high. I feel like I just scaled GEH with my fingernails and one lung. When I look down all I see are life-sized gingerbread people with no fingers and toothless smiles, who look like they're just waiting for me to fall so they can exact revenge on me for all the limbs and heads of their ancestors I broke off and ate over the years.

"Santa's got a full sack and he's flying away from the chimney, not to it!" I say, after reaching the top. Any man should see the problem in that.

"Maybe he's finished his fun with this house, his presents have been left under this tree and he's happily on his way to take the toys still in his sack to put under another tree before he's been found out by the first tree, sir."

Why do I think he's speaking from experience? I wonder if Taylor got discovered putting packages under other trees in other houses in his first marriage by not making a quick enough getaway.

"People want to see Santa coming, not going." Doesn't Taylor know anything about delayed gratification and the art of anticipation? Funny, Santa Claus and the playroom have a lot in common—they're both red, carry toys and give you a helluva surprise gift in the end.