Why limit holiday spirit to the literal universe? For today's diary, we communicate with the world of Mythos for messages of wisdom and cheer from some of the more interesting denizens of that realm. These are not, of course, actual statements from the characters in canonical literature, television, or film work, but rather my interpretation of their thoughts. You see, I have a special gift in this respect: It's commonly called imagination. If you have one too, then perhaps this will further enrich your Christmas experience.
- Hari Seldon
Greetings, people of Earth from the distant past who celebrate Krezmis - hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly, as the historical sources on it are rather sketchy. As I understand it, you commonly take a tree of some sort indoors and decorate it, but there is much debate about whether it was most commonly a fir or palm tree - perhaps you could clear that up. I wish you well in that endeavor, and would wish you great fun in trying to catch the magic burglar Santac Loz before he deprives you of your bovinous milk and confections.
On a more serious note, you should know that I too live in a time of crisis and change, but do keep things in perspective: You are in far less danger than any generation in human history up to your time, and as I can attest, there will undoubtedly be future eras that make your troubles appear trivial. The answer to the challenges of your time is the same as that of mine: Reason, vision, courage, and hard work for the future. These are not mere platitudes, but decisions that, in aggregate, decide the fate of a civilization.
Cynics and backseat hecklers will forever be falling by the wayside of history, content to attack all who try to solve problems rather than pitching in themselves. Whether your society is rising or falling, you should always assume that your actions can make a positive difference: Lacking my science of psychohistory, you can never really know for sure. Whether the precipice before you is the beginning of a terminal decline or the launching point of a grand flight is not within your purview to know, but it is within your purview to choose. Even in the darkest of Dark Ages, there were lights that continued to shine and illuminate every subsequent epoch. There is no excuse for apocalypticism.
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- Tyler Durden
You probably think I hate Christmas, but actually I love it: It's my 365th favorite day of the year - only narrowly beat for 364th by Leap Year days that fall on a Tuesday. Come to think of it, I don't really distinguish between days - the sun rises and sets; people eat, sleep, shit, and fuck the same as always; somewhere, a business executive is grasping for excuses to use the word "paradigm"; and not much changes.
I do like Christmas lights though - especially when they're quietly rearranged late on Christmas Eve to resemble genitalia. Some of the more elaborately-decorated houses in my area will be having an interesting day full of police reports and desperate calls to therapists. I've been wondering what the lights would look like after drinking mescaline-spiked egg nog. Did I mention I've been working the night shift at a factory that makes egg nog the last few weeks?
Then there's my homemade turkey stuffing, which is selling like mad. Let me tell you, liposuctioned human fat has limitless uses. Anyway, have a happy freefall into entropy. I hope your holiday experience does not lead to any form of suicide that requires a mop to clean up.
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- Yoda
Strong, the Force is with this time of year, in the regions of your planet that connect with it. Rescued Santa Claus, I did, many centuries ago when he was shot down over Dagoba by the Empire - out of date, his security codes were. Taught him the ways of the Force, yes. He once got into houses by picking locks, but I showed him a Jedi technique for sliding down chimneys, and also an ancient secret for removing soot stains from clothes.
But active, the Dark Side is. Harder to see, the darker its environment, yes. For it is merely where life becomes perverted by starvation of the vital energy that makes it grow, and seeks to make up the difference by grasping for power over other life. Be whole in yourself, and not spread over so many abstractions that you are but a shadow, a ghost trying to control the affairs of others. If you would tell the world how to garden, be sure you are the world's best gardener. Learn always, and be forever mindful of what you do. May the Force be with you.
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- Malcolm Reynolds
Here's extending some of that old warm and fuzzy Xmas-y cheer from all aboard Firefly. We've been a might busily of late, trying to find just the right gifts to steal from and for each other, it being the season for giving and all. Jayne's been walking around with a mistletoe on his belt-buckle and making un-Christmas-y comments to the womenfolk, but I guess now's the time to put up with people as they are. No worries. If it gets too bad, the airlock's working just fine.
How's things downside on Earth-That-Was? Nice, isn't it - sleeping in beds, hot showers, any kind of food you want, go wherever you want, women everywhere, nobody hunting you, and not much chance of being robbed on any given day. Yeah, real shithole you got there. I can see why you're so angry, since you know that someone, somewhere has it better than you, and that's just intolerable. Or maybe a gorram lot of the misery in life is just that stupid obsession.
I ain't gonna tella ya how to be - I'm the last who would. But seems you got what you need, and you got good people with you, and I don't see much to complain about in that. If you got good ideas too, have at 'em, but it don't much make sense to crawl up on crosses of your own makin'. Merry Christmas, folks.
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- Gowron
Soooo...hmmmm...some humans celebrate the birth of a bastard child to the unfaithful wife of a woodworker...mmmm-hahahAHAHAHA! Do not get me wrong, humans, I think nothing could be more appropriate. Huddle around a tree like squirrels and hope for a fat old man to drop gifts on your heads...ha!
If such a man entered a Klingon's home, the master of the house would kill the bloated petaQ clown and take all his presents, eat his reindeer, and mount their horns in his hall as trophies for the glory of the family name. He would then claim the North Pole by right of conquest, take Mrs. Claus as a wife, and retask the elves to make glorious weapons.
But I understand the...heh...delicacy of humans. You need to festoon your halls with bright colors like a nursery, and mince around singing contralto-pitched songs about nice things and cute little ornaments while you piss away your family's holdings on toys and frippery. I wish my people had met yours earlier, if all it takes is colorful trinkets and gaming machines to enslave you. 'Merry Christmas,' you androgynous, wilting, herbivorous vermin you.
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- C. Montgomery Burns
Smithers informs me that the hounds are currently being walked, so I guess I have to talk to you. Unless, of course, I can find my Luger...nope, not there either. Well then, Christmas - ah yes, that annual lollygag when I am forced to pay my employees to sit at home and teach their spawn the value of laziness.
I built my business up from nothing - nothing but a substantial inherited fortune, and the network of connections from my Yale chums - using only hard work, generous federal subsidies, and an ongoing web of criminal conspiracies to make my fortune what it is, and yet every year I am robbed by that corpulent red-robed highwayman.
I feed these people's children the rest of the year, sometimes even paying more than minimum wage, but where are my milk and cookies? I say Red is precisely the right color for that thieving Bolshevik from the North Pole. Smithers, get me J. Edgar Hoover on the phone at once!
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- Leto II
Across the sea of time, I witness Christmas from behind countless eyes - even those of the man whose birth supposedly inspired it. I see it even before his birth, as a celebration of the winter solstice. From deep within the human psyche are primal, animal currents that flow with the seasons, and recognize something special in the demarcating events that signal the gradual transition to fuller boughs and fuller stomachs. This time is fundamentally one of Beginnings - at least for people with deep roots in the Northern Hemisphere of Old Earth.
Even your time is clear in my Other Memory - the growing cognitive dissonance between awareness of global imperatives and the continued strength of the merchant aristocracy whose prerogatives are often more important to them than their own survival. But you will not worry about that today, because today is about joy in the new: A universal theme, if celebrated in a characteristically Germanic way in your part of the world. Do you happen to know the true origin of that tradition? I do - I remember being there when it happened.
But as much as it indulges the knowledgeable to pretend their awareness gives them power, it does not, and my telling you anything you do not know would be meaningless.
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- Spock
I bid you well during your quasi-religious celebration, and hope the requisite commercial transactions were successful and satisfactory. However illogical the concept of virgin birth in literal terms, the metaphoric connotation of positive emergence from otherwise negative conditions would undoubtedly hold psychological attraction for a species that has not yet evolved a rigorously logical culture.
It may initially have been a sociological necessity in the originating civilizations, and developed a self-sustaining emotional inertia that has carried it forward into otherwise literate technological eras. Fascinating.
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- R. Daneel Olivaw
Hello, friend humans. I wish you a happy and well-protected celebration. My human friend Elijah Baley informs me that Christmas often involves the erection of tall trees within buildings, and the use of decorative lights. Having checked these matters thoroughly, it appears that these practices are generally safe and unlikely to produce harm, but I remain somewhat disturbed at the nontrivial statistical likelihood of accidental injury or fire resulting.
My observation of people's composure and attitude around this time of year suggests that it has a positive emotional effect, so that is certainly a counter-balance on my First Law potentials. However, I am puzzled, friend humans: If a day such as this has such benefits, why are its beneficial aspects segregated to this one day rather than disseminated generally?
It is a matter that I find difficult to comprehend, but as always, I will do my best to protect humanity, and keep the lessons of this day in mind during my efforts. While I would not presume to think a robot should receive Christmas presents, perhaps some day humanity would give me the gift of being as vigilant in protecting itself.
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- Willow Rosenberg
Uh, happy holidays, everybody! I'm kinda Wicca, so this time of year is more about the natural cycles of heaven and Earth than celebrating a single event or going around buying stuff - although I love that too! Please, don't think I would be offended if you get me presents, I really wouldn't!
Then there's Buffy. She's...well, she's...y'know...Buffy. She does Christmas, although kinda weird - she paints her stakes in Christmasy colors and wears a Santa hat out slaying, which may or may not be in the spirit of the day, depending on your perspective. With this one vamp, she said "Have you been naughty or nice?" and Xander got a funny look on his face and seemed really distracted - at one point he sat down and crossed his legs, and looked embarrassed. My friends are weird.
Anyway, you be good, or I'll have to open a can of magical woop-ass. Or maybe just a little baby-food jar of woop-ass, cuz I'm in a good mood. I wonder, why doesn't woop-ass come in 2-liter bottles?
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- Mr. Pink
Let me get this straight. You've worked all year at some shitty job paying for the lifestyle of some douchebag you've never met, who doesn't care whether you live or die, and when finally you get a chance to come up for air and take a breath, you "celebrate" the break by going out shopping, thus giving back the pittance those fucks paid you?
And your consolation prize for being on this hamster wheel is that for a week you have a tree in your house, and your ungrateful brats can say you suck because they wanted the Ultra Super Duper Deluxe Crap Man action figure and not merely the Super Duper Deluxe?
If you think I'm gonna play that fucking game, I've got 6 inches of your holiday spirit swinging low like your sweet chariot. The department stores don't seem to agree that Christmas is a "time for giving," so it's kind of ballsy that they try to tell me it is and play on gullibility to suck my wallet dry. And for everyone who calls me a Grinch, or a Scrooge, or whatever, please allow me to play you a Christmas Carol on the world's smallest violin.
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- Hannibal Lecter
Are you having a Merry Christmas? For myself, I'm having some friends for dinner: Some wine, good conversation, and then the main course. I can't help but return to the etymology of the holiday, Christ Mass, as during Catholic Communion one drinks the blood of Christ and eats of his flesh - what a delightful religion.
But of course, as it is the American reason for being to trivialize all the passions of the European world that spawned it, we are subjected to the version of the holiday that consists of gaudy light displays and insipid muzak pumped into retail establishments to anesthetize the lambs on their way to the slaughter.
One must ask, how did Santa Claus get so fat, living up at the North Pole where there are no farms? However many cookies he eats on Christmas Day cannot possibly sustain him all year. All he has are his reindeer, whose names are constant, and an unnamed and unnumbered quantity of elves. The conclusion cannot be avoided - he and his wife raise and butcher elves like a farmer raises chickens or sheep.
No wonder he is so jolly - slavemasters untroubled by conscience often are. And, of course, one needs protein to carry out such a physically demanding task as climbing up and down hundreds of millions of chimneys in a single night. I must say, the more I think about it, the more I find myself appreciating the secular side of Christmas. Merry Christmas, and good chianti to you all!