With apologies to Charles Dickens.

HUMBUG! I HUFFED and puffed my way through the newspaper lobby, crammed as it was with holiday well-wishers yammering their loathsome clichés of merry this and happy that. My hand went for the pepper spray kept for such occasions before slumping into the newsroom, an airless warren illuminated by a single lump of burning coal, where the reporters gathered round to thaw their fingers. There they kept very well.

“Humbug!” I growled. “Do you think coal grows on trees? I might as well cancel the Christmas party now that you’ve burned your Christmas present!”

Seething, I made my way to my executive suite. I was late for a deadline on a story about the meaning of Christmas. It seemed as if people just used Christmas to take advantage. After all I’d done for them: The coal, the rain barrel for drinking and washing, and not to mention unlimited gruel in the lunchroom.

Maybe they think running a publishing empire that at one time stretched from Pysht to Dead Dog Flats is easy, but it’s not. It took me years to become an overnight excess. Then everyone wanted a piece of the pie.

Like the gaggle of do-gooders that was clogging the hallway to my office. They were collecting money, of course, for of all things, The Old Guide’s Home, yammering about pity for the less fortunate.

“Why waste pity on anyone but yourself?” I said, “Is the casino shut down?”

That set the beggars packing off to greener pastures.

I was left to discover the true meaning of Christmas, whatever that meant. Soon, the thought of writing anything about Christmas had me in the throes of a fudge binge. At 6 that evening, I gave the staff the rest of the day off. It was, after all, Christmas Eve, the culmination of months of marketing and sales promotions.

There was nothing left for me to do but go home to my walled compound to find the meaning of Christmas. What is Christmas anyway? There has to be more to it than buying things you don’t need with money you don’t have for people you don’t like who won’t remember. Or you can give guilt, the gift that keeps on giving.

Then I saw a vision of Christmas past. The poor staff toiling away while I went fishing.

I knew it was my fault. I’d written a lot of horrible stories in the past year. I had a lot to forgive myself for. Christmas is a time for forgiveness because Christ invented it. He forgave his enemies. But how can we forgive our enemies if we can’t forgive ourselves? The only way I could forgive myself was to give thanks for the whacky antics of the many government agencies that make this column possible. I wanted to wish them a Merry Christmas, but there was no time.

Then I woke up. It was Christmas morning. I’d found the true meaning of Christmas. I beat it down to the newspaper. No one was there. I was glad I’d given them the day off. There was a punk in the alley on a skateboard.

“Do you know about the 100-pound salmon the old poacher snagged out of the hatchery pond last week?” I asked.

“Sure do, that fish is as big as me,” the boy said. “It’s still hanging in the smokehouse.”

“Then here’s $100 lad, if you can get that fish and fetch it back here in an hour.”

“Yes sir!” The punk wheeled away. I never saw him again.

Merry Christmas. God bless us everyone.

_________

Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.

He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.