Nano Christmas.

 

Okay, let’s do your presents. Start with the big one. No, not that one – the bigger one. How can you not see that? It’s almost 3 centimeters across!

Oh, hi. Just caught us in the middle of our annual Christmas ritual – gathering around the abandoned drill press in the Cheney Hammer Mill and taking turns opening our gifts from Satan …. I mean, Santa! (Unfortunate typo, though one that may find a receptive audience among the fans of Pagan Christmas). It’s Marvin (my personal robot assistant)’s turn, actually, but of course the order of the present-opening makes no difference. It’s the thought that counts, right? And well … a certain amount of thought went into this year’s pile of sugar plums. (Just to be clear – there are no actual sugar plums in the offing. That’s just a metaphor.) Not in the sense that they were well thought-out, but due to the fact that … well … we had very little cash to work with.

Times being what they are, we haven’t been playing any gigs – along with the rest of the musician world – due to COVID club closures and the simple fact that we’re too shiftless to find club work in the first place. (Usually the first place we play is an unspeakable dump. Now, the second place … that‘s worth the booking right there.) For that reason, this year we were forced to resort to nano-gifts – gifts that would be totally awesome at normal size, but which are shrunk down to near-microscopic dimensions, just to keep the costs down. For instance, our gift to Marvin is a 3 centimeter long bicycle that Anti-Lincoln lifted off of somebody’s charm bracelet. Now before you start in on me, let me just say that I don’t condone that sort of behavior – Anti-Lincoln acted on his own initiative, as he often does, and well … times being what they are.

Actually, we did see a couple of practical gifts. For instance, Mitch Macaphee gave me a guitar string, full-size – a G string. It was a little hard to wrap, without the envelope it originally came in, but he managed – longest, skinniest Christmas present I ever saw, frankly. I think he pulled it out of one of Matt’s sets, but I didn’t want to say anything – when Mitch is in a good mood, best not upset the apple cart, so to speak … because the apple cart may contain a few hand grenades. Matt, for his part, received an aluminum thimble, which can be used for sewing, or drinking small drinks, or as a bottleneck on a very tiny guitar, which itself would have been a totally appropriate gift for Nano Christmas. After all of the exchanges, we all sat around the fire (i.e. the part of the mill that happens to be on fire today) and had a cup of what passes for eggnog, but what is probably some soy milk that was left out of the fridge for a few too many days. (Hey … a little nutmeg and who could tell the difference?)

However you celebrate, whatever you celebrate, I speak for all of Big Green when I say happy holidays and be well. (And may your Christmas be more macro than nano.