by Greg Wymer
Photo: © Depositphotos.com/jorgophotograph
Editor’s note: Greg picked this photo and then emailed to ask if there were more pictures available with the same model or from the same photo shoot.
I had no idea what he had in mind. Then he made this:
Some folks call me Nick, but my real name is Warren. Warren Christmas.
Perhaps you’ve heard of me? Supposedly there’s been a big to-do about whether or not “the Warren Christmas exists.”
I can guarantee you that, in fact, I do. However, the way my social life has been going lately, I might actually be a figment of people’s imagination. Well, the ladies at least.
Just last week my friend Rudy was throwing a party and there were three very pretty women chatting by the Yankee Swap table. I gathered my confidence, walked over, smiled, and cheerily said, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” They all slapped me.
I work with a lot of guys and they suggested that I was too wound up from trying to find the perfect gift for myself. So they took me to The North Pole, the local strip joint, and had me “make it reindeer.” Those ladies know how to sit on a lap. Real vixens those dancers.
There was one girl — Virginia — who took me back to the Nog Room for some private dances. While peeling off twenties, I asked, “Who’s your daddy?” and she said, “Father Christmas!”
However instead of cheering me up, the next morning I woke up feeling like a grinch. I had that hollow feeling inside, like when all the presents you get are clothes or gift cards.
It was time to try another angle so I asked my sister Mary to set me up. First was Carol, but she was a bit cold. When I asked if she wanted to go deck the halls sometime, she kept saying she’d be away in a manger. We had noel chemistry. Then there was Macy, but we weren’t compatible either. She was Jewish.
Finally Sis showed me a photo of her friend Holly and, yeah, I was smitten, so I put on a shirt and tie and told her to meet me at Kringles for a drink.
We really hit it off. I told her I liked to travel and that kids loved me. She said she came from a long line of maids a-milking and for fun she liked to compose jingles.
After a couple of frostys, we were really feeling the holiday cheer and grabbed a sleigh back to my workshop. She seductively asked, “Can you keep a secret, Santa?”
I said, “Tell me what you want and maybe I’ll slide down your chimney.”
Holly walked over to the mantel and hung up her stockings. My candy cane was quickly turning into a yule log. She said she wanted to wrap my package and put it in a box.
And then … the elves showed up for third shift.
Needless to say she screamed, grabbed her clothes, and dash away, dash away, dash away all. I was despondent and the elves grabbed the power supply for the outdoor light display just in time before I harmed myself.
I was depressed for weeks. Every day felt like a Black Friday. I ate way too many fruitcakes and a vat of figgy pudding. I wished the guns we made in the workshop could shoot more than just caps. One of the workers said I started to look like Billy Bob Thornton.
I took up smoking.
My heart was a lump of coal and I knew I had hit bottom when I was a click away on Travelocity from purchasing a one-way ticket to the Island of Misfit Toys. But then I realized that I couldn’t give up.
What about the kids?
It wasn’t about me and my love life, it was about making all the children of the world happy. If I abandoned my duties, then the stories would be true: Warren Christmas doesn’t exist. And I won’t let that happen on my watch.
Things are better now. I’m seeing a therapist and she’s prescribed a mild dose of Celexa to help ward off a blue Christmas. I’m also going to get back in the dating pool. I just downloaded Tinder and hope to meet some nice women for coffee. Who knows? Maybe Christmas will come more than once a year.
***
Greg Wymer handles marketing for a department at MIT. His father was President Nixon’s dentist and his mother dated Bob Crane before the period chronicled in the film “Auto Focus.” He successfully named all 9 videos in the Craftmatic Round of MTV’s “Remote Control” and won a free trip to the Bahamas. Greg worked in alternative radio in the 1990s, was a member of the ImprovBoston cast for 7 years, and has DJed in bars and beyond for nearly 30 years. To hire him for your next party, follow him on Twitter @wymer.