The Night Before a Politically Correct Holiday

Christmas is coming, so it must be time to trot out my holiday poems again.  There must be someone out there who hasn’t read this yet:

T\’was the night before a Holiday, which one I can\’t say

or the politically correct will come take me away.

And I couldn\’t decide, for the life of me

if that thing in the corner was a bush or a tree,

when in front of my house a car horn did blare

so I put down my egg nog to see who was there.

A clean-shaven man in a gabardine suit

stepped out of a taxi cab near my front stoop.

\”On Driver!\” he said, and paid the cab fare

\”Are you Santa?\” I asked of the man standing there.

\”I was once called Saint Nick,\” he said with a gleam,

\”But lately that \’S\’ word has become almost obscene.\”

\”I\’ve been corrected for certain, though improved, I doubt it,

\”Let\’s get out of this cold and I\’ll tell you about it.\”

I offered him cake, and bid him to try it.

\”I can\’t,\” he replied, \”You see, I\’m on a diet.

\”I\’m not to have cookies or candy or sweets

\”I must set an example for what children should eat.

\”Overeaters Anonymous and dentists both feel

\”that I need to stay slim and eat healthy meals.

\”My clay pipe, of course, was the next thing to go

\”The Cancer Society\’s lawyers said so.

\”My fur suit and leather were found to offend

\”militant vegans, so I had to change them

\”for a synthetic blend in this neutral color.

\”And I shaved off my beard to please one group or another.

\”My reindeer all invoked their animal rights

\”then the elves unionized and now they\’re on strike.

\”But I no longer need toys, so they\’re free to go.

\”Leaving presents in houses; that\’s illegal, you know.

\”And my name has been changed, it\’s no longer St. Nick.

\”It\’s now Shirley Abdul Jacob Dinosovitch.\”

I shook my head sadly, stunned by his speech,

was nothing beyond special interests groups\’ reach?

\”But you aren\’t Shirley or Jacob or Abdul,\” I said,

\”If you pretend that you are then you\’re out of your head.

\”These groups want you to act as they think you should

\”as if they are the ones who define what is good.

\”I don\’t have a society, lawyer or cause

\”but I do enjoy Christmas, and I want Santa Claus

\”the way I remember, a jolly red elf.

\”You\’re Santa, godamnit, get hold of yourself.\”

\”You\’re right,\” he replied, \”it\’s to myself I belong

\”they\’ve been holding me hostage to their values too long.

\”I\’m through taking cab rides, it\’s back to sleigh power

\”and I\’ll offer the elves another dollar an hour.

\”Let\’s cap this epiphany with a cup of good cheer,

\”And for God\’s sake don\’t give me non-alcohol beer.\”

Coming soon: The Santa