CHRISTMAS CLANGERS

Collected with care, compiled with caution, and cranked out confidently with wild abandon by The Quipping Queen for your sheer amusement and unadulterated delight


As the ho ho ho season rolls around, one is reminded of some very wicked words from a few Wise Men, a smattering of Witty Women, and a handful of Wonky Wunderkins who wish to remain anonymous.


"A Merry Christmas to all my friends except two." (W.C. Fields)

"I am a poor man, but I would gladly give ten shillings to find out who sent me the insulting Christmas card I received this morning." (George and Weedon Grossmith, The Diary of a Nobody, 1894)

"Christmas, that time to of year when people descend into the bunker of the family." (Byron Rogers, Daily Telegraph, 27 December 1993)

"There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas." (Robert Lynd, “On Christmas," in The Book of This and That, 1915)

"Ever since Eve gave Adam the apple, there has been a misunderstanding between the sexes about gifts." (Nan Robertson, "On Christmas shopping", New York Times, 28 November 1957)

"George, a camel, stepped on the foot of a Rockette; six sheep came off the elevator as three kings bearing gifts got on; human Christmas trees bumped into eight maids-a-milking at the water cooler and an elf came down with the flu." (William E. Geist, on the day “pandemonium paid a visit backstage” at opening of Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas spectacular. New York Times, 29 November 1986)

"As if being eighty-five or ninety and terrified and talked down to loudly and pushed around in wheelchairs by the staff all day weren’t bad enough, for tonight’s entertainment the local Brownies have come to sing Christmas carols....". (Mary Jo Salter, “Brownie Troop #722 Visits the Nursing Home,” 1994)

"From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it." (Katharine Whitehorn, “The Office Party,” in Roundabout, 1962)

"At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows."
(William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour ’s Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.)

"Christmas begins about the first of December with an office party and ends when you finally realize what you spent, around April fifteenth of the next year." (P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners, 1984)

"For a halo up in heaven
I have never been too keen.
Who needs another gadget
That a fellow has to clean."
(E.Y. Yarburg, The Man who has Everything, 1965)

"What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus?
Answer: Claustrophobic" (Anonymous)


HOW TO COOK A CHRISTMAS TURKEY

Step 1: Go buy a turkey
Step 2: Take a drink of whiskey (scotch) OR JD
Step 3: Put turkey in the oven
Step 4: Take another 2 drinks of whiskey
Step 5: Set the degree at 375 ovens
Step 6: Take 3 more whiskeys of drink
Step 7: Turn oven the on
Step 8: Take 4 whisks of drinky
Step 9: Turk the bastey
Step 10: Whiskey another bottle of get
Step 11: Stick a turkey in the thermometer
Step 12: Glass yourself a pour of whiskey
Step 13: Bake the whiskey for 4 hours
Step 14: Take the oven out of the turkey
Step 15: Take the oven out of the turkey
Step 16: Floor the turkey up off of the pick
Step 17: Turk the carvey
Step 18: Get yourself another scottle of botch
Step 19: Tet the sable and pour yourself a glass of turkey

(Anonymous)


And, whatever you do -- never, never, never leave home at this time of year without a copy of the following authoritative sources of seasonal scallywaggery:

• Twinkle, Twankle and Twunkle by Arthur R. Griffith (an illustrated picture book of model elves) and

• Flooty Hobbs and the Jiggling, Jolly Gollywobber by J.W. Dixon and Jem Sullivan (for those who need an alternative to the popular symbol of commercialized Christmas Coots -- you know the soot-covered, snickering sort of sprites sporting scarlet red tunics and sitting smugly in those sleighs designed especially for sybaratic seniors of size).
  
  

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If you're at a loss for words, then fear not... you can always go on line and find out what's up with Santa these days at http://www.claus.com or even track the big guy's every move along with those raucous ripsnorting reindeer at http://www.noradsanta.org