The ButtChocolate Advent Calendar
A light snow gently dusted the cobblestones, illuminated by the gentle glow of Christmas lights. Laughter filled the crisp wintry air as the townsfolk gathered to hear carolers and wish each other Merry Christmas. Truly it was the season of goodwill to all men. But suddenly a door swung open and the townspeople gasped as a sword-wielding man leapt through.
“Oliver Cromwell!”
“That’s right! And with my army of puritan Bionicles I’m here to put a stop to Christmas once and for all! Mwahahahaha!”
***
“ButtChocolate, honey, are you down there playing with your legos again? Why don’t you come upstairs? It’s Christmas Eve, after all.”
“Bah humbug! What has Christmas ever done for me? Why, ‘tis only a sham; a time of a year when men put on a false shell of jollity and lust after presents to mask their emptiness. And it was invented by greeting card companies! Nazi greeting card companies!”
“Fine then, stay in the basement all Christmas, see if I care. It hasn’t even been properly established who I am, so it’s entirely possible that I don’t.”
As the mysterious, possibly-a-woman slammed the basement door, BC sighed and knelt down to look for his lego blunderbuss, which had rolled under the table. As he groped around, occasionally stopping to giggle about the word “groped,” his hands felt a strange cardboard box.
An advent calendar! It looked ancient, too. That was just typical of Christmas consumerism. People spent money on a perfectly good advent calendar and then never bothered to use it. Still, there was no reason for it to go to waste---he’d read somewhere that chocolate never went bad. Or was that sharks? If you were being attacked by a shark, you had to get it drunk, which you could do with chocolate liqueurs because they never went bad. Yeah, that sounded right!
But when BC opened the first little door, he was surprised to see, not chocolate, but a tiny picture of a hobo, gathering jars of urine for the winter. And somehow it seemed like the picture was getting bigger and bigger and…and realer! Until suddenly it wasn’t a picture anymore, but a living, breathing, smelling person.
“I am the spirit of the advent calendar. Er…woooooo!”
“No, you’re a homeless man and you’re in my house.”
“Shuuuuuut uuuuuuup! Woooooooo. I have come to deliver a terrible warning! Woooooooooooooooo!”
BC waited 30 or 40 minutes. “Well, what is it?”
“What?”
“The warning!”
“Oh. Tonight you shall be visited by 31 ghosts!”
“What?! That is an insanely high number of ghosts. Do you at least count as one?”
“Noooooooo! Now seriously shut up, first ghost’s here.”
Suddenly a bright orange light filled the room. It was emanating from the eyebrows of a mysterious woman clothed all in white. “ButtChocolate, I am the Ghost of Christmas That Didn’t Actually Happen In The Past But You Remember That It Did Because Memory Is Inherently Unreliable.”
The homeless ghost interrupted her, “You have to say wooooooo! It’s spooky!”
“Er…woo. Anyway, I am here to show you a vision of your past. Do you remember this Christmas?”
An image appeared of a young ButtChocolate waking up on Christmas morning and running down the stairs only to discover an empty house.
“I…I remember this. My parents were flying to Paris to assassinate Charles SeaGaulle, the popular satirical puppet. We were all supposed to go, but in the confusion I was left behind. I was…Home Alone.”
“And do you remember what happened next?”
“Yes…of course! There were burglars trying to get into the house and I held them off with all sorts of wacky traps and tricks.”
“Except they weren’t burglars at all, were they? They were from Child Services. Your parents had called them from Paris, as any parent would. And you put three of them in the hospital. One guy’s head was literally on fire.”
BC stumbled back. “Oh my God, yes. I had to go to juvie for like a year. I must have repressed the memory. Spirit, do you think that trauma is why I hate Christmas so much?”
The ghost shrugged, “I dunno, whatever. Look, I’ve got to go. We’ve still got 30 ghosts to get through in like half an hour. Peace out, homeslice.”
“Wait, spirit! Tell me what this vision meant!” But the ghost had already faded away, replaced with a spectral cow wearing a crown.
“I am Moo, the Ghost of Christmas Probably Happened In The Past But You Don’t Remember Because You Overdid The Eggnog. Do you remember that adorable red-nosed reindeer who gave you rabies? Wait…shit I think I just spoiled the twist.
***
[13 Ghosts Later]
ButtChocolate nodded. “Thank you Ghost of Christmas False Past Implanted By My KGB Handlers. I now realize that while using my Red Ryder BB Gun to murder the Grinch may well have saved Christmas, it probably also created deep psychological trauma that surfaced years later in my current hatred of the holidays.”
“Uh…if you say so, man. Wanna see a picture of Fornier’s gangrene?”
“No.”
“You’re no fun.”
***
[Seven Ghosts Later]
“ButtChocolate, I am the Ghost of Christmas Past Participle and I…hey, where’d he go?!”
The Ghost of X-men: Days Of Future Past briefly stopped flexing his biceps. “Uh…I think he escaped into the vents. Kept shouting something about how he couldn’t take it anymore and 31 ghosts was way too many.”
“That’s unacceptable. Give me your phone. I’m calling in the Ghost of Christmas Having A British Accent And Taking Over This Building And Basically Being The Baddie From Die Hard…Hi Marcuse, we’ve got a problem.”
***
ButtChocolate stumbled across the roof on bloody feet. The last ghost watched him carefully, while holding a gun pressed to his hostage’s head. BC stopped. “Ok spirit, I’m going to say this one last time. Let go of Santa and nobody gets hurt.”
“Ah BC, it was very clever of you to get past my army of ghosts, especially the Ghost of Christmas Being A Huge Spider and the Ghost of Christmas Terrifying Mirror Demons. But you know I can’t release my hostage until you’ve learned the true meaning of Christmas and stopped being such a Scrooge.”
“What are you talking about?! I did that after the first ghost!”
“D…did you? We kind of assumed you would be a harder sell. Maybe you should be more confident in your opinions. Anyway, how do I know you’re not lying. Prove you love Christmas.”
BC shrugged and pulled out the Christmas cracker taped to his back. “Yippie-kay-yay Mr. Falcon.”
***
ButtChocolate woke up with a start. He had been having the strangest dream. But wait! He still had multiple bullet wounds, bleeding feet, and a hobo snoring in the corner of his basement. It hadn't been a dream after all!
He raced upstairs like an excited child. "Oh I see now! Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year! And I've got so much celebrating to do! You there, boy!"
"Hey, I'm 42 ya jerk."
"Run to the shop and buy me the biggest turkey you can find!"
"It's Christmas. Shop's closed."
"Look stop ruining this for me."
"I'll ruin your face for you."
"YOU WANNA PIECE OF ME PUNK! I'M GETTING MY BAT AND I'M GOING TO SMACK YOU BACK TO EASTER!"
***
Over BC's house, the ghosts hovered. "So I think we kind of screwed that one up."
"Yep."
"How do you think he's going to feel about the 400 ghosts who are going to show up to teach him the true meaning of Boxing Day?"
"I'm sure it will be fine."