Good morning, John.  This Christmas, I wanted to share something with you.  Something that I love.  It's a book by Erin Kubo that I saw as a Twitter thread 12 months ago and I loved it so much, I wanted to turn it into a video.  So join me for a reading of The Christmas Creature.


Gather my children, 
this winter night,

The air is crisp and
the stars are bright.

Turn off the tunes
and take a pause,

cease your thoughts,
of Santa Claus,

And hark the season's
vital feature....

Appeasing the great
Christmas Creature!

His trials are strange,
and tricky too
But heed my words and
you'll make it through

The first test will be
the Christmas Boy.

He'll knock and
ask for your favorite toy.

Hand it over and hold back your tears
You'll get it back, so have no fear.

The second test is
The Asking Bird.  

You must tell
the truth with
every word!

The Christmas Creature
can hear your lies,

And watch you through
your own dog's eyes.

The third test comes on 
Christmas morning,

When you receive your
Christmas Warning...

...And yes, you are 
allowed to share!

Call up your friends
and compare!

After that you'll
know it's time,
to make your dreaded 
Christmas Climb

When you hear a 
high-pitched
shriek most shrill,
Coming from your
hometown's
highest hill.

So grab your offerings real quick:
A Lock of Hair
A Real Good Stick

If you've been naughty, 
A Pint of Blood
A Haunted Chalice
A Mound of Mud

He'll judge your gifts, so beware:
Use a bow, and wrap with care!

Climb the hill and as you get nearer,
take our your special Christmas Mirror

You mustn't look
directly at his face,
Or your memories
will be replaced!

Walk backwards 
to him and throw
your gift, 
Into the yawning
blue (NOT RED)
rift

Toss it true
and toss it quick,

Before the fog
around you
gets too thick!

Now, the Christmas Creature
will ruminate,
On your special Christmas Fate

And if you've done
everything just right,
A BONG BING BONG will
ring through the night!

The Christmas Creature's
great eyes will glow,
Your stolen toy will appear
in the snow

...Mostly the same but a little wet,
And now you're in the 
Creature's debt!

It's tradition
so don't be scared

And...
Merry Christmas,
you've been spared!

Aesthetic is weird.  Like, I would have to look really hard and for a long time to have a good idea of why I love that story so much.  Like, I see a lot of stuff on Twitter and rarely do I reach out to the person who made the stuff and say like, I would like to license that for a video, and then I'm gonna get my friend Sam to animate and I'm gonna license the music for it and record narration for like two hours to get two minutes of performance.

I don't know!  I also don't know why I spent like, 10 hours over the last few weeks working on my piece of the unofficial TikTok Ratatouille musical.  The one thing we should know about this is that taste is not, like, universally good or bad.  It's our values and our world views and our experiences and our ideologies.

Like the Vlogbrothers Project for Awesome 2021 calendar, available now.  Designed by Megan (?~3:31).  Why do I love it so much?  I think it goes a long way down, and I think it's a good idea to examine our aesthetics but I also think it's a good idea to indulge in our aesthetics, and thus, Christmas Creature and Ratatouille musical and Project for Awesome calendar and these frickin' socks.

Erin Kubo is selling physical copies of The Christmas Creature on her website.  You can get those at the link in the description.  Same with the calendars and the socks.  The Ratatouille musical is not for sale.  John, I'll see you on Tuesday.