Pagan Scandinavia vs. Christmas at my Aunt and Uncle's House in Minnetonka
Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called Yule held from December through January. Yule logs were lit to honor Thor the god of thunder.
My aunt Joan has the TV turned to the yule log channel in her bedroom and football on the basement and living room TV, football. I am reading a Good Housekeeping magazine and drinking eggnog out of a holiday mug. There are Santas holding hands on my cup.
Pagan Scandinavians would continue feasting until the Yule log burned out. This could take as many as twelve days.
My Uncle Frank is drunk and yelling at me. I don’t know why we let him drink this year.
In Pagan Scandinavia, the mid-winter night is followed by twelve wild nights filled with eating, drinking and partying.
My cousin Debbie got me velour jump suit this year. It’s pink and it has the word Juicy on the ass. I don’t have an ass anyone would describe as Juicy. I go to the bathroom to dutifully “try them on” for my aunt. They're out of toilet paper. Next to the toilet paper under the sink is a copy of the June 1999 Celebrity Skin, thumbed through dotingly. Weird. It must belong to Joan’s crazy third-ex-husband Larry. That seems like Larry. Why does Joan still have it? Does Joan read Celebrity Skin? Is that Denise Richards? Dressed like a naughty mailman and sucking on a piece of pineapple?
Kathryn Holmquist loves Christmas, and snow, and eggnog, and Jennifer Love Hewitt's cottage-cheese-like thighs draped across People Magazine like a pashmina. Happy Holidays!