A shady Santa Clause-looking figure.
He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake and he doesn’t give a flying fu– either way. To some, he’s Uncle Christmas. To others, he’s Daddy December. Growing up, I only knew him by one name: the Yuletide Man. Every year on the night of Christmas Eve, my parents would sit me down in front of the fire and tell me the legend of the dreaded Yuletide Man.
“With a beard of white and a heart of snow, the Yuletide Man, he always knows. Of the kids in the cupboard and the hidden treasure troves, the Yuletide Man is a wicked soul. In an old trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat, the Yuletide Man knows where it’s at. He stomps and he stammers as he kicks down the door, the Yuletide Man has the might of Thor.”
It goes on for another 11 verses, but I’ll spare you the misery.
Cookies and milk? Oh, I don’t think so. If you want to get on his good side, the ancient lore suggests that you leave him a bottle of whisky and a cigarette. The thing about the Yuletide Man that sets him apart from other Christmas creatures is that instead of leaving you things, he takes things.
The Yuletide Man—upon entering your house—can choose any item he likes with no restrictions. He then takes this item, puts it in the back of his white 1998 Ford Transit van, and drives away into the unknown regions of the night.
You’ll know when he’s coming and you’ll hear him long before you see him. As he nears, the earth rattling bassline of his odd hellish song will shake your house to its very foundation. The noise will echo ominously through the night, as if it were the booming heartbeat of death itself growing louder and louder until your teeth are vibrating in your skull. When it stops, you know he has arrived.
When he came to my house, my parents urged me not to fight back, telling me, “Resistance is futile. You will only be postponing the inevitable!” They warned me that if I laid my eyes on him, “All would be lost.” Being young and dumb, I didn’t heed their warnings. Many moons ago on Christmas Eve, I rose from the safety of my sheets and traveled downstairs to pee. I thought I smelled smoke coming from the living room, and as I walked over to investigate, I saw him…the Yuletide Man! He was leaning back in my father’s recliner, smoking a cigarette and smiling menacingly at me. He took a long swig of whiskey, and then he spoke, “Merry fu–ing Christmas kid!”
The next thing I remember was jolting up in bed after what seemed to be a nightmare. It was Christmas morning, so I ran downstairs only to find my mother standing alone silently in the living room. Everything appeared to be in its right place. He hadn’t taken the television, or the microwave or the Nintendo Wii. I peered out the window and saw that even the cars were still outside! I looked up at my mother who was still standing silently and asked, “Where’s Dad?” She looked at me with tears streaming down her face, and it was then that I realized what the Yuletide Man had taken.