Christmas is a magical time filled with love, kindness, good will toward men, and some really bizarre holiday traditions.
Now that we've survived another one, let's have some fun with those bizarre traditions.
Although I have never personally taken part in any holiday pickle hiding (get your head out of the gutter!) many families in my neighborhood do.
If you aren't familiar with the tradition... first of all, you are normal. Second, here's a little background on it from wikipedia:
"The Christmas pickle is a Christmas tradition for some people in the United States and Canada. A decoration in the shape of a pickle is hidden on a Christmas tree, with the finder receiving either a reward or good fortune for the following year. There are a number of different origin stories attributed to the tradition, including an origination in Germany. This theory has since been discounted, and it is now thought to be an American tradition created in the late 19th century."
Recently, I was making fun of a buddy for his following this tradition. After making every inappropriate joke I could think of, he looked at me and said, "Come on man. I'm sure your family does something weird too."
At first I scoffed at his impudence. Then I started to remember some of my own Christmas traditions. Some are current. Some are from my childhood in the 1970s. All of them are a little weird. One of them still gives me terrible nightmares.
Apparently in the 1950s and 1960s, it was all the rage for families to buy Santa Clause costumes for the dad to wear to play Santa for his kids. One of the strange parts about this was the fact that many included a mask. Not fake hair and a beard. Not a hat and glasses. A mask. Do you know what doesn't look like a jolly old elf? Your dad in a cheesy mask.
I believe this was the universal 1950s mask (probably ordered from the Sears catalog).
Merry christmas! Give me your soul!
How would you like to see that staring back at you on Christmas Eve?
I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but rubber made in the 1950s was not intended to be permanent. These masks were not meant to last forever. Thanks to the ravages of time and being stored in uninsulated attics resulting in exposure to both extreme heat and cold, these masks began to break down. Most families tossed them out after getting a few years of use out of them.
Most families.
Not mine.
My family continued using the exact same mask when I was a kid in the 1970s. Do you know what the only thing scarier than that 1950s rubber Santa mask? That same masked after it has become cracked and faded. Toss in the fact that what little cotton beard remained was stained gray and you have the thing from which nightmares are born.
This is not an actual photo of my family. Our mask could not be photographed. Well it could, but no one would process the negatives out of fear of their soul being consumed on the spot.
At least most families would only bring out such a monstrosity one night a year.
Most families.
Not mine.
From Thanksgiving until Christmas, "Santa" would make unannounced appearances outside my grandparents' windows just to make sure my sister and I were being good. One minute we would be sitting eating dinner. The next minute Satan (that is not a typo) would be menacingly gazing at us through the dining room window. Did he catch us being good? Hell yes!!!! Of course we were good. We weren't worried about some "naughty list". We were afraid that thing was going to eat our soul right then and there.
Have we been good? Of course we have. We're scared to death!
There has always been rumors of my sister and I having an older brother who fell at the hands of that creature... but we don't talk about that.
Christmas became more of a relief than a celebration. We would have to meet the monster face to face one last time and then he'd be gone... until next Thanksgiving.
This went on until around 1980. It was at that time that family legend states the mask finally disintegrated and returned to the depths of Hell from whence it came. By the time my brothers were born, our family had started to hire a professional Santa.
Because of this ordeal, my sister and I share a special bond that can only be born out of pure terror. We will be forever connected by surviving this horror. From time to time, we will catch each other's gaze, nod, and say "The Mask". It is a little reminder that it actually happened and we are not going completely insane.
If you didn't think that tradition was weird enough, let me add a cherry on top. When I was very young, my grandparents would require my five aunts and uncles to pray before receiving their Christmas gifts. And they made them pray to this...
Yep my aunts and uncles had to kneel down and pray to that beast before receiving their tinker toys, lawn jarts and pet rocks.
Luckily, because my sister and I were so young, we only had to sing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer to it.
I hate that freaking song!
*This story is 100% true. I actually downplayed some of it out of fear that the creature may return some day to exact it's revenge.