Sybil Bruncheon's "Christmases Past... Controversial Cards & Weird Wishes!"...

Boys and Girls, did you know that before Hallmark began writing nice little messages about reindeer and elves for Grandma, there were Holiday cards that were much stranger and sometimes had messages that might have frightened Grandma... or even killed her. And instead of Mrs. Santa Claus baking a pie there might be a bad man called Krampus eating a little boy! Mummie has put together some old cards for you to look at and learn from, and the next time you're singing carols or making cookies or opening a present, just remember that if you jumble the letters in Santa's name, they can also spell S-A-T-A-N!!

Bwah Ha Ha Haaa!!!!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Christmases That Mostly WEREN'T!"... It's the THOUGHT that counts!

Gift giving time is always so lovely... especially with someone very special. At least that's what Ken and Cindy thought on their first Christmas together. They'd only been dating for a few months, but they both splurged a little more than they expected on their gifts.

They met at Cindy's place before going out to Spinelli's for a festive little Holiday dinner... They kissed under the mistletoe in front of the fire, and then exchanged their presents. Ken's was wrapped perfectly with a cheerful little bow and the tag addressed to his "Sweet Cindy"...

...and Cindy's had a tag on it "To My Hot Man-Stud, Biff!"... uh, oh...

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Sybil Bruncheon’s Christmas Tales For Young and Olde;

Krampus tells a story at Christmas time: "..and so dear little children, the bad man with orange hair said that everyone liked him, and should always do what he told them to. Sometimes he would touch a Mommie in her special place, and tell his friends about it and maybe draw pictures of what he did… Every day he would tell a funny story, and then change the story… and then change the story again… and laugh about it!… or yell.

That's why I finally threw him into the fireplace!… and when he stopped screaming, I made him into a juicy plum pudding! The end.

Now, did you like my little story?... and who would like a piece of my delicious plum pudding??"….

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “CHRISTMASES PAST: ...The story of Lester Schlumvigg...”

Lester Schlumvigg was always crunching numbers at his CPA office on Holidays, never really unwinding and taking time off to visit with friends or his family. He had never married (or even dated seriously!) which had opened him to the suspicions, (whispered mostly) that he was gay. Word of these rumors got back to him which only made him more sour... and less available.

And so it was on this particular Christmas that Lester was finally pranked by some of his coworkers at the office. They had hidden a present for him under his family's tree "from Santa!"..... he opened it, and was talked into putting it on for everyone to see. His parents, his siblings (seven in all), and neighbor friends of his family all began to point and laugh...POINT AND LAUGH!! He couldn't understand why...until they handed him the card that they had opened.... it was a photo of his grandmother in that very sweater. She had been what was referred to as "an ample woman", about 6' 4", 212lbs, and a notorious lady-wrestler in the Midwest's "Beefy Broads Wrestling and Roller-Derby" circuit... and everyone congratulated Lester on how he looked “JUST LIKE HER!!!".....

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Holiday Notices From Around the.... um.. UNDER-world..."

....and so, the Little Sisters of Carefully Considered Caffeination after many years of charitable works and loving kindness to the community lost their way.... probably at the corner Starbucks at Court and Joralemon Streets. It all started on an "extra-bonus-points" Wednesday when they were offered the super-super-venti hot, (VERY HOT!) mocha-mint-caramel-nutmeg-chili-flakes-South-of-the-border-Mexicali frappuccino...with glitter-sprinkles and a sprig of holly....or possibly poison ivy.

...within hours, all the formerly innocent Sisters were caught making lewd comments during reruns of the Flying Nun, playing strip Old-Maid, and finally doing nude hula-hooping to Chubby Checker records. They were excommunicated shortly after drawing bare bosoms on 8x10 glossies of Deborah Kerr, Audrey Hepburn, and Rosalind Russell. To say that they ended up "going to Hell in a hand-basket" doesn't begin to describe the awful degeneracy and damnation that they descended to.... They disappeared into a giant hole in the ground at Coney Island amid raucous laughter, horrified shrieks, yowled hymns of indeterminate origin, and blaring horn-blowing and Demonic braying! Inexplicably, there was also a strong smell of sulfur, farts, and strawberry shortcake. They were never seen again.... but their Starbucks bonus points are still waiting to be cashed in... by the prayerful…

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Christmases Past!".... Little Cyrus At Christmas Time....

...Little Cyrus felt so grown up since he'd decided not to go trick-or-treating with the other neighborhood children at Halloween. Dressing up as a vampire, a werewolf, or a mummy were "kid's stuff" in his sober opinion. But passing out candy to the kids that came to his own home still elicited screams of horror and panic in the street. He retreated to his room to study biology with his microscope… or to look through his telescope. At Thanksgiving, as "the man of the house", he offered to help carve the turkey, but his mother thought that might be dangerous... because of his slight ...um… “depth-perception problem” while holding a knife.

    ...And then at Christmas time, Cyrus began to feel sad. None of the neighbor kids would go sledding with him, or build a snow fort, and his snow man would always end up with one lump of coal in the middle of its forehead in the morning. On the day his mother put up the tree in the parlor window, Cyrus would spend the whole afternoon by himself. It was his job to carefully unwrap all the lights and ornaments and tinsel... he would string the cranberries and popcorn, and untangle the garlands, and after working several hours, his Christmas tree would be the loveliest and most famous in town!!.

    ...Then, as the darkness would gather, and the lighted tree would take on its magic, he would make his own special secret Christmas wish... for the present he wanted more than anything! ....He wished that he was a grown-up, and distinguished, and respected. Like a professor! Or a scientist! Or a senator! Or a President! Or even a King!!! ...with his very own monocle.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s Holiday Tales: A HUMMINGBIRD AT CHRISTMASTIME.....

….no one was sure when or even where it came from. And once people were honest, it turned out that very few people had actually seen it with their own eyes. Witnesses, such as they were, were either braggarts in taverns, fish-story-fable-ists on the docks, or mystics and fortune tellers on the carnival circuits. 

     But there were a few folks whose reputations were beyond reproach; who could be relied on to be almost modest when asked about strange or miraculous happenings! None of the flashing, darting eyes, the too-loud laughter or wild gesticulating that often accompanies outlandish claims of the “whimsical” and “given-to-notions” among us!...you know the type, don’t you? 

    Anyway, it was always near the Winter solstice, when the chill weather had really set in, and the frost had settled on the last roses of the Fall; when Nature had begun its deep yearly sleep in the gardens, fields, and forests. It was then that the sightings would begin again. The great quiet would have settled on the land, and then, when one went walking home at dusk after work, or in the silence of a grey Sunday morning through the woods, the only sound would be the muffled crunching of one’s own footsteps through new-fallen snow on dry brush…..and perhaps the occasional cheep of a hardy little sparrow, or the rustle of a squirrel burrowing for his remembered stash of treats. 

     It was in these still and somehow comforting times of solitude that some of the folks who reported what they had seen told of the vision. …at first, it didn’t seem possible. A flash in the corner of your eye! Flitting just there! To the left…or now, in a branch?...No! just to the right!...and then there it would be hovering for a moment…a precious moment or two! Sparkling like “silver lightning”, “broken glass”, “a lover’s eyes”, “a shooting star”, “the full moon on rippling river water”….. those were the words that the serious witnesses had used… the ones that others believed by the fireside when you could get them to tell…perhaps over that second cup of mulled wine, and they trusted your discretion and your friendship. 

     It was definitely a bird! A HUMMINGBIRD…. “No!.. not a bat, Uncle Harry. It hovered…no! Floated!! Even more beautiful than a real hummingbird!”…. and so the stories would be whispered within the lucky families who had a member who had actually witnessed the little creature!...Not the louts who bragged about it in loud public places, and were more often than not NOT believed anyway by their leering and mocking listeners! …and “Lucky” was exactly the word that described the rare families who had been told of the true sightings…by people like old Mrs. Grace Fairley, by wise Dr. Levi Carpenter, by Miss Helga Hibbard the 3rd grade teacher, by funny cousin Stefan, and by sweet Michael Moore, only eight years old, but wise beyond his years. 

    They all told their loved ones their stories, and within a few days their households began… to lift. A feeling of quiet joy began to spread inside even the humblest home. The simplest meal tasted more delicious than ever, warm bread from the oven and melting butter became a feast out of a child’s fable. Candlelight could fill an entire room, no brighter than before and certainly not glaring, but full and golden in a new and loving glow. People found themselves humming while doing their most tedious chores, and, realizing they were all humming, would begin to sing remembered family songs from the past, children and grandparents joining in together, laughing and amazed. 

     At first, no one associated the sighting of the little hummingbird with the lovely change in the households! As a matter of fact, it was the neighbors of the witnesses’ families who actually noticed. To be in the household was to just feel lovely, increasingly lovely as if a weight, long borne and resigned to, was melting away, day by day…moment by moment. The oldest folks, bent from the wear and worries of life, began to straighten in their stance…rising ever more briskly from bed in the morning with none of the usual and expected grunts that “old people do!”….Neighbors would finally comment to their friends saying how fresh and lively they would be looking, even as the thickening Winter would weigh heavier on the world around them.

     The crisp night air, the glinting light on ice and snow, the whistling wind seemed to be refreshing and invigorating the witnesses and their families! How was it possible? Their cheeks glowed! Their eyes twinkled!...even the oldest among them had complexions that looked like their own newborn great-grandchildren! Where they walked, they seemed surrounded by laughter and music… Their homes smelled of simple but hearty dinners, gravy and butter and roasted potatoes, freshly sliced oranges, punch made with apples, nutmeg, cinnamon. Pine-needle garlands hanging from the eaves!... and crisp cotton sheets and warm, cozy blankets.

     How lucky! How very, very lucky the witnesses were. And knowing them, being near them, and perhaps sharing a meal with them, or joining them for a cup of wine and some songs by the fire spread the luck and the gladness… the witnesses were each made to tell their different little stories, over and over again….where they had seen the hummingbird. What day? …and time of day? Was it early at dawn? Or was it at dusk with the first star coming out? What was the weather like? Where in the woods? By the creek?...Or was it behind the house?... What were they thinking when it happened?...What were they feeling??... Was there a voice?...a voice that told them to look? 

      Each told the story that was theirs and theirs alone….and the listeners, the listeners of the TRUE stories, sat very still, leaning a little forward, barely breathing but at great peace. And their eyes. Oh, the witnesses couldn’t look away from their eyes..just as the listeners couldn’t look away from theirs… and the only other sound in the room would be the merry little crackle from the fireplace….. chuckling …and glad, so very glad for all of them… and their good fortune.……. 

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