Storytime With Uncle Custer: A Christmas Tale (reprint)
George Armstrong Custer
Storytime with Uncle Custer: A Christmas Tale
reprinted from ten years ago.
Dateline: Monday, December 16 (Day 2218 )
Location: Liberty Advancement Party HQ
Reporter: George Armstrong "Old Man" Custer
Music: Andy Williams - The Christmas Song (1962)
Editor's Note: Today's edition of Custer's Stand is my submission to the latest Media College assignment, full length articles, with guest instructor Gnilraps presiding.
second note: I've been terrible sick the past week or so. no Lap Dancers' Gazette; no Speaker's Word; no contributions to the WHPR. hopefully I can pick myself up and get back on track this week.
"...He knows if you've been bad or good..."
When my dad wasn't being a violent drunk he was a pretty fun kinda whacky genius.. with a warped sense of humor.
For our first Christmas in a real house, he brought home a tree and set it up, but didn't decorate it. Dad said Santa did that when he brought presents-- unless we'd been judged to have been too rotten throughout the year-- in which case we'd get a sack of coal and rocks, and he'd take our tree away and give it to some other kids who were better behaved but couldn't afford a tree. We knew this was true because Santa had brought us a Christmas tree when we lived in the shanty town out between the town dump and the swamp.
My brother and I woke up that Christmas morning to find, at the foot of our beds, big brown paper grocery bags... all dirty and smudged with soot... we immediately knew we were screwed. The old man made a big dramatic thing about us having to face this terrible reality and open the bags.
This was as terrifying an any average day with my dad. Doing our best to hold back the tears (crying always brought more trouble), we sheepishly crawled to the foot of our beds and slowly unrolled the tops of the dirty, wrinkled bags. We knew there'd be more heartbreak inside; we knew we'd have to accept our rocks and coal as our fate; we knew we'd fallen well short of being good boys that year.
Opening the bags we peered into the darkness, fully expecting the worst... But something was wrong, here. Why was there more dirty wrinkled paper in there? There was nothing in the story about dirty paper, just dirty rocks.
We pulled aside the top sheet of sooty brown paper to reveal our presents-- brand new football helmets!
"Go on out to the the living room," the old man ordered, "and see if Santa left anything else for you!"
On our way out of the bedroom we passed by the little pot-bellied wood stove-- we hadn't built a fire on Christmas Eve so Santa could come down the junkyard salvaged stovepipe that served as a chimney, and this morning we had a crackling Christmas fire! There, next to the ever-present big pot of water, was another small pot-- full of hot chocolate! We'd left, the night before, on the little table next to the stove, a plate of cookies alongside a glass of milk and double shot of tequila. The milk was still there.
And there were our very first real Christmas stockings, our names written out in glitter, nailed to the wall next to the stove-- each one stuffed and overflowing with socks and underwear, each with a small hand carved wooden race car poking out of their tops!
Apparently, Santa had spent the whole night drinking Dad's tequila and making Christmas tree bulbs from styrofoam balls and glitter. He'd strung a mile of popcorn, too, and draped it ever so carefully onto the tree. There was even a small train set that was also decorated, puffing real smoke as it circled around the floor under the tree. On the little train, strapped to a flatcar with a big red ribbon, was a real official football!
The old man interrupted our excitement and asked, "Isn't there something missing from the tree?" Of course, my brother and I were never sure how to take Dad's trick questions, so we just stared at the tree silently, taking a quick inventory.. nice fresh tree, popcorn strings, little candles attached to the outermost branches with baling wire, lots and lots of colorful styrofoam balls, and even tinsel--we'd only seen pictures of tinsel in the Sears "wish book" catalog.. Boy, it looks like Santa went all out on our little tree! Nope, can't see anything missing or out of place...
Mom finally broke the silence and directed us to look all the way up to the top of the tree.. it finally dawned on us-- there's no big star to top off this wonderful tree! Dad broke out Santa's Elmer's glue and little tray of glitter. The tree had a little fork right at the top, so there were actually two top twigs, and the old man presented us each with a clean new styrofoam ball, bigger than any of the other decorations on the tree.
We worked so carefully, my brother and I under close supervision, drawing the lines in glue and then rolling the balls in the tray of glitter... And up we went, one at a time as my Dad lifted us, and jammed our decorations onto those two top twigs. Our first Christmas tree in our first house was complete, topped in sparkling glitter with both a Star of David and a Cross. We didn't understand the significance of the symbols, we only knew that Santa had played a really cool trick on us and then drank a fifth of tequila while decorating our beautiful tree.
You can be Santa, too!
Merry Christmas, friends. You probably have more than you need, so reach out and share with a family who just can't cover the basics. Poor kids deserve a decent Christmas, and it really doesn't take much to make a kid smile and know that Santa didn't forget them.
If you prefer to be an anonymous Santa, your nearby fire station or hospital probably has something going on.
George Armstrong "Old Man" Custer, Citizen, Soldier, Statesman
:::
Get the word out-- shout this Shout!
Storytime with Uncle Custer
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2774927
A Christmas Tale
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854
(5870 : 945)
Comments
one of my best stories..
Merry Christmas, friends.. take a minute to help out needy families in your own community.
also published in Ukraine:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2774934
o7
O7
Thanks Mr. President
o7 Loyalty and Courage!
thanks !
Nice xmas story here.
Oh holy night!
Well done sir. Thank you.
just like the rest of my art, I like it and it is good stuff, but when presented to the public it tanks. my Storytime articles are, I think, really good stories well written, yet they consistently hit lower numbers than even my regular work.
I added the screenshot of the top of the original publication just to see if this one can match or beat it. back in 2013 I got high numbers with the LAP Dancers Gazette but my regular work had already seen it's peak numbers and I was scratchin'..
now a decade later and, yeah, I can still write, but the low response isn't very encouraging.
I'm saddened that you hit a road bump
In that case Ill comment as I dident want to interupt. Your dad I mean Santa sure found alot of energy to do all that work with a little help from tequila.
Unfortunately, we play a dying game. Less and less real people.
I'm really here now but I don't know if I have to tolerate fake accounts.
@thee dude whos not real on comments?
I kinda figured multis don't interact, like posting things..voter numbers are so down I doubt there's a lot of multis voting.. it's the battlefields that pay, so that oughta be where we see 'em.
The number of players in eRepublik reduced 90% in the last 5-10 years...
So, although the numbers are low, you are probably getting more attention in percentages at least as good writers and good articles are very rare, rarer as ever...
Keep up with your good work!
you're quite right, Janko Fran.. this one's stalled at 21 votes, which these days is par for me.. we had some really rockin' WHPRs a few months ago that didn't pull 30, but that was par for a modern-era Custer-led WHPR.
we're not in 2010 anymore, Toto.
Good stuff.
VOTE
A good story...
(Un)fortunately true...
The Priceless Gift | Update
erepublik.com/en/article/2774990