Old man yells at reindeer

At Readercon this summer I did something that, for me, is almost unthinkable any time of year, but especially in summer: I bought a Christmas item. The item in question was a tiny Pomegranate Press edition of John Updike’s The Twelve Terrors of Christmas, a grinchy little satirical number illustrated by whimsigothic genius and asexual lifestyle icon Edward Gorey. Each of the twelve Terrors, which start with “Santa (the man)” and “Santa (the concept),” has a few short sentences of maximally cynical and paranoid observation (Christmas tree ornaments are “bomb-like” in shape, which is certainly one take on “round”) about how dreadful the thing is, paired with one of Gorey’s characteristically pseudo-Edwardian line drawings. The whole thing takes about 45 reasonably amusing seconds to read; the purpose of the book is to stand it up on a shelf with the other Christmas decorations so people know you’re not too bought into the whole thing. I put it next to my fancy red copy of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol so people know that I think Christmas is predominantly about ghosts and lamenting the miserliness encouraged by industrial/post-industrial capitalist society (I don’t want that little Nativity set I’ve got to send the wrong idea or anything). Whatever, it was worth the 8 dollars to be able to incorporate some Gorey illustrations into my Christmas decor–no offense to Updike, the actual author of the thing.