Hello. I am Dan Eastman

The Theme of the Show is “Worst Christmas Ever”

Often times I will perform comedy on storytelling shows bound by a specific theme. I like working within a theme because it forces me to be more creative. When my friend Jaime asked me to tell a story on the December installment of her showed with the theme “Worst Christmas Ever” my answer was, as always, yes. However, I don’t have any bad Christmas stories. Probably the worst Christmas I’ve had is the one where I drank a bottle of Yukon Jack and crash my car into my parents’ white picket fence two weeks before Christmas. They were still a little mad at me which made opening presents sort of awkward.

Then I got to thinking, maybe I need to look at the bigger picture. The theme doesn’t specify whether or not it is my worst Christmas. And let’s face it, things can always be worse. There are many others who’ve had plenty worse Christmases than me. This is that story.

“The Lost Business of Christmas”

Every year it gets worse. Each Christmas season there are even less presents sent out of the North Pole shipping facility than the year before it and the year before that. My name is Ernie Kramer and this is my story. This is the story of a man, an elf rather, at the end of his rope. I’m the manager of the shipping facility and by now I know me days are numbered. At one time the North Pole was incredibly successful as the biggest manufacturer of toy trains and pop guns in the entire world. However, within the past thirty years they’ve been unable to sustain growth and keep up with the corporate turn the industry has taken.

Kids these days are just not asking for model train sets. They want the new Spiderman action figures from Hasbro toys. You’re probably familiar with the new Spiderman films based on the popular Marvel comic book. If you’re not, maybe crawl out of your shanty and go to Starbucks and use some of that free Wi-Fi they offer to educate yourself on this thing called Google. Anyway, the toys are based on that. And let’s just face it, there’s no way we could get the brand licensing. It’d be too expensive. Oh sure, Santa could afford it. Lord knows with all the endorsements he’s gotten he could afford the Marvel reproduction agreements. But no. He’d rather cut jobs that are becoming obsolete.

My day is coming and don’t I know it. What am I supposed to do then? I got a family too you know. I got a wife and kid. We were working on another one too but guess what? I can’t sustain erections anymore because of all the stress of my financial situation. The only fantasy keeping me going is that I may someday hit the lottery and become rich and powerful. But the only person I know that’s rich and powerful is Santa Claus. So in order to bring myself to orgasm I gotta picture Santa having sex. And my wife asks me if I’m distracted. Of course I am! Have you ever seen old people fucking? Well, I imagine it’s like violently unfolding a piece of origami made from college ruled notebook paper. You know, the kind with the blue lines and the holes? In case you’re not grasping my analogy those lines represent varicose veins. Varicose veins are formed from age and stress on the skin. I have varicose veins in my mind. It’s sick.

He’s raising the cost of living too. Oh, you know who. Santa! You know what he said to me in my review? “Ernest, I’m only so hard on you because I want you to be successful. I know what you’re capable of.” Then he laughs at himself because he said hard on. Don’t you know what Santa does if you can’t pay the rent on time? He makes you lead the sleigh. I don’t wanna do that. I hate those reindeer, they smell. He laid-off Terrence, the elf who cleaned them. Now the whole place reeks of deer and he blames it on the elves. Guess what happened to Terrence: He’s homeless now. He does heroin and eats snow. You see how Santa treats us? Jolly old Saint Nick ain’t so jolly. That’s why he’s got so many aliases. The man is a bloodthirsty tyrant and a slumlord. And I can’t get another job because there are no other jobs. The economy is broken. I can’t just move away because no one wants to hire an elf who is pretty much a glorified mailman.

This isn’t the North Pole. It’s a toilet. And I’m a turd, not an elf. I’m just a turd in a toilet waiting to be flushed by the fat man in a red jumpsuit. My life is in shambles. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I feel like I’m having an out of body experience where I’m watching myself take so much abuse and eventually I am just going to snap and not take it anymore. I’m going to unleash the beast. I’m going to walk right into Santa Claus’ office and tell him straight up “Look here, you stop it right now. You stop being so damn greedy or else I’m going to break all of your TRON: Legacy DVD’s. We all know you’ve been hoarding TRON: Legacy DVD’s. You think the rest of us don’t like TRON? Also, we’d like you to stop all this bullshit with cutting our jobs and raising taxes.” You know, really freak out and lose my shit in there. That’ll get him good.

After that he’ll probably tell me how proud he is of me. He’ll say how he never thought I had it in me to stand up to adversity like that. And I’ll say “Guess what, Santa? I did. You shut up and gimme a raise because that’s all I want for Christmas. Damn it.” And then I’ll head to Best Buy and get a bunch of iTunes gift cards so my kid will finally shut up about it. Yeah. Everyone will look up to me. I’ll be like Ed Norton in Fight Club but I’m just Ernie Kramer, an elf from the North Pole. That’ll be the day. Until then, I’ve got some packages to mail out.