December 24, 2003
I have a confession to make.
I’m beginning to lose faith in santa.
If there really was a God or Santa, then they wouldn’t let me be sick today. I’ve been looking forward to this day since I got offered the job in Antarctica. Since I had to say “Sorry, Soren, I cannot come to Tokyo with you for Santarchy, I’ll be working on Santarctica: The Biggest Congregation of Santas Furthest from the North Pole.” This was supposed to be the biggest day of my Santarchy career. Ever.
(If you are just tuning in and you one of those Antarctic blog chasers and have no idea who I am, or what Santarchy is or what any of this Santa business is all about anyway, then go to http://www.santarchy.com . Now.)
It’s Rob Schmitt’s fault. Somehow he heard I was in Antarctica and wanted to see his brainchild grow. Bless his heart. He and Dave Caulkins of the San Francisco Santarchy Society posted 36 santa costumes to me. This is Dave’s conversation at the post office:
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I received them sometime around Thanksgiving and resisted, for a whole month, to not break them out and wear them randomly around town. There were so many instances that called for mass santafication even as we neared the Holiday Season, but I fought the urge to destroy the surprise. We had to debut them at Christmas Dinner. Christmas Dinner is the biggest day of the year for McMurdo. All 1100 people attend the dinner at three different sittings, and that way we could reach the most citizens and spread the word of santa. But still. The one day I wanted to freak out the community, and I had to be sick. Poo.
Family meal is the time that the galley workers, cooks and DA’s, eat together. Our family meal was at 1:30. The community would shovel in their food at 3:00, 4:30, and 6:00. since I was feeling crappy, I still wanted to make a grand entrance. I asked medical if I could borrow their wheelchair for an hour and have someone wheel me in to family meal, but they said they needed it for real emergencies. Then I figured I could get my firefighter buddies to carry me in, but they were all stationed at the Runway a couple of miles away. So I just trudged in on my own, with my red nosed inflatable penguin caught up in my old hairnets, only to see my coworkers already clad in santa, sneaking around. My original plan was to not tell my boss anything about the suits, but to just show up at family meal dressed up and see what she would say. We had her boss keep her away till everyone was dressed. I’m either going to get thanks or fired. She walked into the galley to an army of santa:
Then, santas milled about, filling their trays and faces with food.
santas Lavonne and Elaine, cherishing the taste of freshies!
It was a joyous occasion indeed. Everyone was filled with the love of Christmas.
There was a wonderful gallery display of gingerbread houses. Like the Gingerbread Crackhouse:
the Gingerbread House of the Condemned (the man in the front has a gun):
and an Antarcticake, (complete with penguin ranch in the lower right)!
End of part 1
Read Part 2