Tag: Santa Claus

Christmas on Mars by William Morrison

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Christmas on Mars by William Morrison (Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1941) is an early piece1 by the author of the reasonably well-known Country Doctor (Star Science Fiction Stories, 1953).2 This one perhaps gets off to a more realistic and gritty start than other works of the period with Kel, the leader of a group of four ragged youths, sharpening his knife for an impending robbery:

“I ain’t gonna cut nobody up,” Kel grunted. “Not if they come across, I ain’t. But if they’re wise guys”—his arm flashed out suddenly and the jovite blade glittered in the air—“I’ll slash ’em to pieces. That’s what I’ll do. That’s what my old man would have done.”
They were silent, impressed by the mention of Kel’s father. Buck Henry was the first to recover.
“Hey, fellows,” he piped, “you know what night this is? Just before Christmas. It’s a holiday.”
Monk, proud of his changing voice, growled: “You’re nuts. Christmas comes in winter. This is right in the middle of summer.”
“Are you a dope!” Skinny put in. “Everybody knows the seasons on Earth ain’t the same as here. It’s winter on Earth, or at least on one hemisphere—eastern or western, I forget which. That’s what counts.”
“They say a big, fat guy called Santa Claus,” Buck Henry offered uncertainly, “gets all dressed up in a red suit and comes around handing out presents.”  p. 84

After Kel ridicules Buck for offering up this children’s tale, the group prepare to rob the next passerby—but that turns out to be the local cop, who suggests they go to the Martin Rescue Home for a free meal, but that they should move along in any event. Later, they hear the sound of whistling, and the four leap out to rob the man they have heard—who quickly disarms and restrains them, and reveals himself to be Michael Diston of the Interplanetary Police. He tells them that he sees no point in handing them over to the local police, but that he can’t set them free to rob someone else—so he asks the group if they would like to go for a meal and to see Santa Claus:

“Save that stuff,” Kel growled. “We ain’t babies.”
“Yeah,” said Skinny. “A guy gets dressed up in red, puts a pillow next to his stomach and makes believe he came down a chimbley. You can’t kid us.”
“I wouldn’t dream of trying,” the man drawled, “but it’ll be some swell dinner.”
He couldn’t lose them after that.  p. 87

Dilston takes them back to his mother’s house where, after they get cleaned up, they wolf down Christmas dinner. During the meal we learn about the kids’ troubled domestic situations—mostly parental sickness, addiction or absence, but we also get confirmation of earlier comments that Kel’s father is the Black Pirate. Afterwards, the kids are invited to go through to the living room, where they find a Xmas tree that wasn’t there previously. Then they see it is snowing outside (impossible on Mars) and someone starts coming down the chimney. Santa appears, and gives each of the four kids a present that particularly suits them. Then, exhausted, they go to bed.
Afterwards (spoiler) Dilston tells his mother that Santa was really the unused robot butler he got for her some time previously, the snow was from a machine on the roof that he installed last year and, finally, the presents were originally intended for the neighbourhood kids, but he discovered what would suit each of the four as he listened to them over dinner. Dilston then asks his mother to sort out the kids and their dysfunctional families (Dilston has to return to work the next day).
The story finishes with Dilston listening to a news report where he is mentioned as the one who has just finished hunting down the remanants of the Black Pirate’s gang, and who also killed the Black Pirate—Kel’s father—in hand-to-hand combat several years earlier.
This is better than a lot of stories from the period—gritty start, sentimental Xmas section, and a bittersweet ending which offsets what has come before. I thought it much better than the recent Asimov Christmas story I recently read.
*** (Good). 6,200 words. Story link.

1. This was the author’s seventh SF story from his first year of publishing.

2. I reviewed Country Doctor here.

Christmas on Ganymede by Isaac Asimov

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Christmas on Ganymede by Isaac Asimov (Startling Stories, January 1942)1 opens with Olaf Johnson hanging decorations in the colony’s dome when he and all the other men are summoned to a meeting with their boss: they learn that, thanks to Johnson, the native Ossies (who are the colony’s labour force) have learned about Christmas and will go on strike unless Santa Claus visits. Johnson is nominated to be Santa.
The rest of the story sees the conversion of an anti-grav sled into a sleigh, the capture and sedation of Ganymedean spineybacks for use as reindeer, and the costuming of Johnson:

“I’m not going anywhere in this costume!” he roared, gouging at the nearest eye. “You hear me?”
There certainly was cause for objection. Even at his best, Olaf had never been a heartthrob. But in his present condition, he resembled a hybrid between a spinie’s nightmare and a Picassian conception of a patriarch.
He wore the conventional costume of Santa. His clothes were as red as red tissue paper sewed onto his space coat could make it. The “ermine” was as white as cotton wool, which it was. His beard, more cotton wool glued into a linen foundation, hung loosely from his ears. With that below and his oxygen nosepiece above, even the strongest were forced to avert their eyes. p. 88

Johnson’s perilous flight to the Ossies’ camp is made even more dangerous when the spineys wake up en route, but he eventually gets there safely. The Ossies get Christmas tree ornaments for presents (they think the globes are “Sannyclaws eggs”), and then demand a visit every year—which to them is a seven-day revolution around Jupiter.
This is an early work by Asimov that’s longer than it needs to be and whose characters are rather cartoonish (one of the prospectors—sorry, colonists—chews tobacco). But it’s a pleasant enough piece that produced a couple of smiles.
** (Average). 5,450 words. Story link.

1. This was published around the same time as Nightfall and the first ‘Foundation’ stories (late 1941 to mid-1942), but was written a year or so earlier, as Asimov notes in The Early Asimov:

The success of “Reason” didn’t mean that I was to have no further rejections from Campbell.
On December 6, 1940, influenced by the season and never stopping to think that a Christmas story must sell no later than July in order to make the Christmas issue, I began “Christmas on Ganymede.” I submitted it to him on the twenty-third, but the holiday season did not affect his critical judgment. He rejected it.
I tried Pohl next, and, as was happening so often that year, he took it. In this case, for reasons I will describe later, the acceptance fell through. I eventually sold it the next summer (June 27, 1941, the proper time of year) to Startling Stories, the younger, sister magazine of Thrilling Wonder Stories.

A Proper Santa Claus by Anne McCaffrey

Posted on by Paul Fraser

A Proper Santa Claus by Anne McCaffrey (Demon Kind, 1973) opens with a young boy called Jeremy painting a cookie (which he eats) and drinking a glass of Coke (which he drinks). As the story develops we see more of his artistic creations, and realise that he isn’t imagining all this but has an ability to make what he paints come to life:

Although he dutifully set out trick-or-treating, he came home early. His mother made him sort out his candy, apples, and money for UNICEF, and permitted him to stay up long past his regular bedtime to answer the door for other beggars. But, once safely in his room, he dove for his easel and drew frenetically, slathering black and blue poster paint across clean paper, dashing globs of luminescence for horrific accents. The proper ones took off or crawled obscenely around the room, squeaking and groaning until he released them into the night air for such gambols and aerial maneuvers as they were capable of. Jeremy was impressed. He hung over the windowsill, cheering them on by moonlight. (Around three o’clock there was a sudden shower. All the water solubles melted into the ground.)

As the story develops, Jeremy is unable to produce work that satisfies his teacher’s requirements, and this comes to a head with her criticism of his Santa project. This gives him “so overwhelming a sense of failure” that “he couldn’t imagine ever creating anything properly again”.
I suppose the message of this piece (criticism of children’s creative endeavours can be destructive) is valid enough, but I’m not sure that it provides a good story.
* (Mediocre). 3,300 words.

The Santa Claus Compromise by Thomas M. Disch

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Santa Claus Compromise by Thomas M. Disch (Crawdaddy, December 1974) opens with the Supreme Court giving children of five and older full civil liberties. Various societal changes ensue, including the ability of children to work as reporters: this leads to Our Own Times’ Bobby Boyd and Michelle Ginsberg running a story stating the there is no Santa Claus!
We learn about the evidence that the pair have uncovered to support their story (Bobby finds receipts for items similar to the gifts Santa brought him, etc.) and, when the news starts breaking through to other youngsters, opinions change; eventually there is a serious economic impact when people don’t buy Xmas presents and other merchandise.
Eventually (spoiler), the President has to take the two intrepid reporters to the North Pole to restore the status quo ante:

What they saw there, and whom they met, the whole nation learned on the night of January 24, the new Christmas Eve, during the President’s momentous press conference. After Billy showed his Polaroid snapshots of the elves at work in their workshop, of himself shaking Santa’s hand and sitting beside him in the sleigh, and of everyone—Billy, Michelle, Santa Claus and Mrs. Santa, the President and the First Lady—sitting down to a big turkey dinner, Michelle read a list of all the presents that she and Billy had received. Their estimated retail value: $18,599.95. As Michelle bluntly put it: “My father just doesn’t make that kind of money.”
“So would you say, Michelle,” the President asked with a twinkle in his eye, “that you do believe in Santa Claus?”
“Oh, absolutely, there’s no question.”
“And you, Billy?”
Billy looked at the tips of his new cowboy boots and smiled. “Oh, sure. And not just ’cause he gave us such swell presents. His beard, for instance. I gave it quite a yank. I’d take my oath that the beard was real.”

A droll story about the mercantile aspects of Christmas.
*** (Good). 2,000 words.

Icicle Music by Michael Bishop

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Icicle Music by Michael Bishop (F&SF, November 1989) starts with a twelve-year-old called Danny getting up early on the Xmas morning of 1957. When he goes downstairs he finds that his (single) mother has scrimped and saved to find the money to buy him a shotgun. As he loads the gun and plays with it, Danny hears what he thinks may be a burglar coming down the chimney; eventually, a grungy looking man in a heavy red coat and khaki trousers appears.
Danny challenges the intruder and, after ducking an ornament thrown at him, shoots. His mother hears the altercation and comes downstairs, taking the shotgun from Danny and reloading. But by the time she is ready to shoot, the man is almost at the top of the chimney—so she goes outside to get a clear shot:

Unless [Danny] was imagining things, there was a deer on their roof, a buck with twelve to fifteen points. The guy who’d tried to steal their Christmas was mounting the jumpy creature. He encouraged it—“Up, Blitzen, up!”—to fly him to safety over both the riverside dump and the rooftops of their sleeping town.
“Stop!” Mom shouted. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” She sounded just like a sheriff on a TV cowboy show.
“No, Milly!” the man on the roof pleaded. “Don’t!”
“Clifton?” Mom murmured. Then, louder: “Clifton?”
The compact little buck (a courser, Danny thought, like in “The Night Before Christmas,” which Mrs. French had read them on the day before their holidays) soared up from the house. It lifted like a dream creature, pawing the night air and defining both itself and its desperate, neck-clutching rider against a blowing purple scrim of stars. All Danny could do was marvel. There should have been seven other reindeer (if the words of that silly poem counted for anything), but one was about all Danny could handle.
The deer—the courser—drew an invisible circle over their backyard. Mom and he looked up to see its glinting hooves and white belly. Then the thief sprawled across the deer took a shiny ball from the pocket of his coat and nearly unseated himself sidearming it with all his wounded strength at Mom and him.
“Here’s something for you, Milly!” And the stolen ornament—a second one, Danny realized—shattered on Mom’s forehead.
“Ouch!”
“Merry Christmas to both you and the brat, bitch! And to all a good ni—”

Danny’s mother shoots, and (spoiler) the man falls off. The reindeer then crash-lands into a barbed wire fence. Both die. The mother subsequently takes her ex-husband’s body to the dump and burns it, while Danny butchers the reindeer for meat.
After this captivatingly bizarre start the story leaps forward thirty years, and we find Daniel in hospital. He has just finished telling a man called Philip about the incident, and goes on to tell him about what happened on the tenth anniversary of the altercation in 1967, when he was camping alone in the wilds: Danny was visited by the ghost of his father, and his sleeping bag and tent disappeared (presumably his father’s doing) while he was following the apparition. He almost died from exposure.
Danny then recounts what happened on the twentieth anniversary in 1977, when his father’s ghost came and took the soul of his terminally ill mother.
After listening to all this, Philip gets up to leave. He kisses Danny on the forehead, and notes that it is the thirtieth anniversary that day. Daniel then asks Philip to get Gary to visit him, but Philip has to remind Danny that Gary is “gone” (there are hints in the latter section that Danny is gay, and presumably in hospital with AIDS). Philip leaves.
The story ends with this:

Outside Daniel’s window, faint icicle music. The glassblower’s panpipe hanging from the cornice had begun to melt, releasing long-pent melodies.
“Come on,” Daniel murmured. “Come on.”
He couldn’t wait. He wanted his father’s bitter ghost to get a move on. If it materialized in the room and stole his soul, that would be a welcome violation: a theft and a benediction, the first Christmas present his daddy had given him in over thirty years.
Come quickly, Father. Come.

This is an odd and very dark Xmas story but it works, and I suspect it’ll stay in reader’s heads for some time.
***+ (Good to Very Good). 4,400 words.

Holiday by Richard Christian Matheson

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Holiday by Richard Christian Matheson (Twilight Zone, February 1982) starts with the narrator on holiday at a Bermudan beach when another tourist, a fat man with white hair and a rosy complexion, starts talking to him. After some chitchat the man says his name is Santa Claus. The narrator humours the man (who he thinks is a nut), and asks why he didn’t get an autographed photo of Joe DiMaggio when he was a kid. Claus mutters an excuse, and they briefly talk about other matters until Claus says he has an early flight to catch, and leaves.
This is okay I guess, but the ending isn’t really a surprise.

** Average. 1950 words.

Cyber-Claus by William Gibson

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Cyber-Claus by William Gibson (The Washington Post Book World, 1991) is set in the near future and begins with a house AI detecting activity on the roof on Xmas Eve. The defences are activated and the owner prepares to confront the intruders.
This very brief piece ends (spoiler) with house AI identifying eight quadrupeds and one biped on the roof—and then the latter starts to come down the chimney . . . .
A lightweight squib.

* (Mediocre). 550 words.