Mick Jagger told me the truth about the limits of Santa Claus' power on the car ride home from Thanksgiving dinner. "You can't always get what you want."
It was rough stomaching years of such deceit after a meal where canned cranberry sauces constituted itself as half of my main course.
I was too young to face the facts of Christmas.
Before, on the way to grandmother's house, Mick said anything to please me, "I'll never be your beast of burden." To think he was as full of hot air as the Spiderman balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
To think that when there was nothing left at the end of the festive day, not even any more football to look forward to, I would turn on my Jeep's engine only to find Mick had turned on me. He was out to devour my gift-getting dreams like a candied yam.
"You can't always get what you what."
Yes, it definitely was one of his greatest hits -- a right uppercut jab at my Christmas list. It would have been easier to hear the truth come from the mouth of the drunken man who heckles the kids in line for Santa Land at the mall -- but not from Mick. I had trusted him too long. Why was he doing this to me during the holidays?
I looked at my carefully scrawled list, tucked away in the glove compartment.
What I Want for Christmas:
1. That guy from the hit television series "The Bachelor."
2. Ralphie's Red Rider Bee Bee Gun.
3. Band-Aids in case I shoot my eye out.
But now, the truth was revealed, all my Christmas desires were frozen like the black ice on the road. It was rough (the slippery ride that is) and I wished I had a shoulder to rest my wheels on. I considered tossing the Stones plastic case out onto the desolate highway and telling him "Hey, you, get off of my cloud." But that would have been really weak of me. Furthermore, it was his lyric anyway.
Honestly, I had always expected to get what I wanted.
On the morning of the 25th that guy from "The Bachelor" should be under the tree with stick-on big red bows on top. Yes, I admit that I wanted The Bachelor bad, and for all the wrong reasons. I wasn't looking for a Ken-doll-arm-piece shmooze for all the holiday galas -- no, no, no, that would be shallow of me. Honestly, after The Bachelor and I tossed back a few bourbon and ginger ales I just planned to use him for his brain, and make him write analytical essays on how MTV's "Dismissed" fed into the WB's "Elimidate" culture.
Then I'd exploit his talents at our family's Christmas party. While the guests munched on pecan pie, he'd frolic in the hot tub while simultaneously unwrapping Starbursts with his tongue. The tennis moms would go wild.
In my letter to Santa I promised I'd be good to The Bachelor: "Dear Santa,I'll keep The Bachelor in my storage closet and feed him leftover candy canes. Come New Year's Eve, I'll even roll him in chocolate and mistletoe and let him run through the grassy fields near all-girls schools and nunneries. He'll love stuff like that."
I failed to mention that after a few weeks I planned to dispose of The Bachelor with the crinkled wrapping paper and tell him I was just looking for a good time with no ribbons attached.
(Note: Santa wouldn't like to hear that due to his current agitated state. During his one hour lunch break from Santa Land, I caught him in Ruby Tuesday, peeling the labels off bottles of Heinekens. Apparently there's been a lack of "satisfaction," up in the North Pole.)
But now what? No omnipotent Santa Claus? No getting what I want? No Christmas play toy?
"P.S. Santa, I've been good
I mean
I was a lot better this year than last. Honest. Really."
Maybe that P.S. would get me some present sympathy. I've heard Santa even has "sympathy for the Devil."
Times like these, I couldn't help reminiscing about the 80s. Crazy years. Back then all I had to do was leave stale cookies and eggnog with a strong kick in it (and all those kids thought Santa's rosy cheeks were from the cold)
then that Christmas morning the entire Cabbage Patch family came knocking at my door.
I was just getting all sentimental when the road got windy, I began to regret that second piece of pie, and I heard this:
"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you might find, you'll get what you need." Deep thoughts from the 70s.
I tried to tune him out because those tryptophan chemicals in the turkey were hitting hard. I saw a "Shine a Light"
never mind, it was just an oncoming car.
"But if you try sometime, you might find, you'll get what you need." I didn't actually need much of anything for Christmas. Most of us don't, and may we forgive those lost souls who ask for T-shirt sheets or shower gels that smell like pomegranate.
And with that thought, I said a silent farewell to the disposable Bachelor and let my Christmas list flutter out the window and drift down the snowy highway. Ciao el Bachelor. Avoir le Bachelor. Adios el Bachelor (Boy, he had a nice body).
But Christmas was not the time to think about muscles and what not. What I needed was to concentrate on the giving!Yes, I would re-gift (I mean give!) away my Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" CD instead. We didn't appreciate each other anymore. It'd been "Under My Thumb" much too long.
Right during that revelation, when I was turning into my driveway, Mick Jagger begged to stay with me.
"Let's spend the night together," he sang repeatedly, obviously scratched
and emotionally wounded.
"When 'Wild Horses' fly." I replied, and left the car unscathed.
I didn't know what I needed for Christmas, but it was only Nov. 29 and "time is on my side."
It'd be there under the tree, I was not worried
because, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
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