KRIS KRINGLE
GOES KOSMIC
by Hank Davis
What is there to say about Christmas that hasn’t already been said? There was no room in the inn? God bless us, everyone? And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose? Yes, Virginia? I’m dreaming of a copyrighted song lyric? (Sung by the late, great Bing Crosby, of course.) ‘Tis the season to be jolly? (That one’s in public domain.) They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph join in the Saturday night poker games? If you’re looking for that last-minute gift for that special someone, we’re open till midnight every night this week? Well, that’s beginning to get off topic . . .
If trying to write an introduction to a Christmas anthology that doesn’t recycle clichés rehash old sentiments is difficult, writing a Christmas-related story must be harder, what with centuries of story tellers, from oral traditions around the fire in thatched huts to the annual TV Christmas “specials” (if only they truly were . . .) to the e-words lurking invisibly in that handy iPad, Kindle, Nook, Cranny, or other display gizmo which can deliver the original version of Mr. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in a trice, unless the battery’s run down.
At that point, I might say, “This looks like a job for science fiction,” as I step into a convenient phone booth. Except that phone booths seem to be an extinct species. No more real than fantasy creatures like unicorns or dragons. But then, this looks like a job for fantasy, too. Both of those trans-reality genres can take the familiar and give it a new twist, a new perspective, a view through future eyes, alien eyes, or paranormal senses beyond any mere eyes.
After all, Christmas itself, like daily life, has already become downright science-fictional. Consider how someone as late as the 1960s would react to the wrappings coming off the packages scattered under the tree to reveal cell phones, computers that can fit in a brief case, but have more number-crunching power than all that was available to the Department of Defense and the IRS combined (a scary thought more appropriate to Halloween) back then, video games with more realistic animation than most TV cartoons had, or those aforementioned electronic “books” that can hold more volumes than the entire school library had when I was a rotten kid. Oh, and everything except maybe the tree was ordered by computer, using the Internet. (Or maybe Christmas trees—real trees, not aluminum or plastic—can be ordered online. Need to look into that . . .)
Maybe there’s a GPS under the tree. I wonder how many people griping about money “wasted” on the space program (what’s left of it) are depending on a GPS stuck to the dashboard to get over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house for Christmas? (The horse knows the way, but a Volvo doesn’t.) Imagine someone even twenty years ago seeing something the size of a paperback book that talks to you and tells you to take the next right turn. No rocket belts or keys to the new spaceship sitting outside in the driveway yet, but Christmas is very science fictional nowadays—or “futuristic,” to use a term employed by literary critics who don’t like sf. And in the future to come, don’t be surprised by Christmas being celebrated in Marsport, on a planet of the Centauri system, or in much more distant realms and times.
And fantasy? Ever try to get through a yuletide without encountering one of the many versions of “A Christmas Carol?” In fact, a Christmas tradition in England is having the family sit down together at Christmas time while someone reads a ghost story aloud. Accounts differ as to whether Charles Dickens started that trend, or whether it preceded him, but certainly his account of Scrooge’s spectral visitors is the high point of the tradition. Even aside from that, the season’s folklore involves levitating reindeer, living snowmen (if Frosty came back to life next Christmas as he promised, would he be a zombie snowman?), elves, and other supernatural critters.
One popular supernatural entity, the vampire, isn’t usually associated with Christmas, but we’ve got an example between these pages.
In fact, we have all sorts of Christmas yarns, past, present, future, both scientific and supernatural. If variety is the spice of life, it must also be the nutmeg in a winter’s eggnog. Here are humorous and serious stories, and some falling in between. Long ones, short ones, feel-good stories, and at least one scary tale. (Christmas ghost stories are a tradition, remember. Besides, a bit of shivering is good for the spine.) Recent stories, and a couple from the grand old days of the pulp magazines. Above all, these are fun stories which I hope will brighten your holiday.
And may all your Christmases be cosmic!
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