Thursdays are usually Happy Hour days-they have been for at least the past 20 some years or so. But I am taking December off from Happy Hour to save money, to be honest and that has allowed me to be around the family on these evenings which I have enjoyed.
In light of this, we were at Aunt Laurie’s house tonight eating dinner and I felt more tired than usual. I sat down on the couch and while Peanut was off in the bathtub with Aunt Laurie at the helm, Sue and I watched Nestor The Long Eared Christmas Donkey. I remembered the story, but not the whole thing and I’m glad I didn’t. This has got to be the most brutal Christmas special ever created.
Nestor, the hapless young donkey whose ears are so big he trips on them, is laughed at, ignored and even brutalized at the hands of his Scandinavian owner, Olaf and the other donkeys in the barn. Only Nestor’s mother loves him.
So, when Roman soldiers come to steal buy donkeys from him, they get angry that he tried to pass Nestor off to them and he takes his revenge out on the poor beast, lifting him by his ears and throwing him out of the barn and into the snow. His mother escapes and goes looking for him and when she finds him, she digs a warm hole for him and lays on top of him.
But her act of love, of course, results in her death. Poor Nestor is left alone with the corpse of his mother until an angel come and transports the little guy to Bethlehem. The teasing, the brutality, his mother’s death–I couldn’t take it. I told Sue I was glad Peanut wasn’t there to see it.
I would tell you more, but it was at this point that, quite unusually for me, I curled up on Aunt Laurie’s couch, which has to be the most comfortable couch in the world, and fell sound asleep for something like 40 minutes. It was blissful.
If you’ve got 10 minutes and need a good Christmas cry–here you go….
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Currently writing for: The New York Times, Central Coast Farm and Ranch, The Ventura County Star, Ventana Magazine and Enobytes.com.
