Being ‘woke’ on Christmas morning
Gift ideas to avoid triggering snowflakes, left or right
Jeffrey Denny
Following the Trump impeachment — Washington’s gift to America just in time for the holidays — our nation is even more politically divided and honked off.
To paraphrase that James Joyce story from “Dubliners,” snowflakes are general all over ire-land. Good, decent Americans despise other good, decent Americans for being despicable.
Yet whether you’re a MAGA, a Trump-complicit Republican or a Trump-hatey Democrat, whether you’re a coastal elite left-wing Antifa immigrant-loving Socialist or a flyover real America right-wing Proud Boys immigrant-hating Fascist — or even among the uncommitted 0.001% — the holiday season is still a wonderous time to come together in peace, love and understanding.
I want to help. As a clinically diagnosed middle-child-of-divorced-parents “pleaser” who tries to manage differences and avoid triggering anyone’s sensibilities, I’ve researched some perfect holiday gifts sure to salve political division with shared confusion:
Kellyanne Barbie
She’s not a feminist, no way! That’s angry woman pink hat liberal man-hate nonsense. Still, she’s badass like Susan B. Anthony, Germaine Greer, Virginia Woolf, AOC and Pelosi. She loves her husband who attacks her boss, which keeps their marriage fresh like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
“Excellent Gifts for Woke Babies”
While few exhausted parents want to wake their sleeping babies, courtesy of Buzzfeed’s compilation we have “The Genderific Coloring Book,” which explores “the subjects of transness, gender creativity, intersexuality, and sexism in a positive and playful fashion.”
Also featured, the Frida Kahlo stuffed doll, matched onesie and baby blanket are popular with infants disoriented by Kahlo’s surrealism yet inspired by her remarkable herstory.
Babies will also love the “A is for Activist” alphabet board book. It’s “written and illustrated for the next generation of progressives: families who want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything else that activists believe in and fight for.” At least this is how the greedy capitalist worker-hatey Amazon describes the book in making it available to the masses.
These woke baby books will inspire BarcaLounger MAGA uncles and elite urban hard-driving Wall Street hedge fund Range Rover Jivamukti yoga moms to roll their eyes and enjoy a hoot together for altogether different reasons.
White Panther Action Figure
With his enormous paws, sinuous haunches, deft Twittering with preternatural command of spelling, syntax and emotional self-control, plus supernatural powers to overcome facts, reason, Congress and democracy, this 12-inch scale “Greatest President” Donald J. Trump figure from the Marvel Legends Series will thrill all children whether they’re indoctrinated by parents on the left or right.
Wealthy liberal America-hating private-schooled children will delight in throwing White Panther to their bespoke Aussiedoodles to chew to pieces and then flushing the pieces down the toilet. Real America-loving children will rush off to their rooms to build a glorious shrine to their presidential role model for winning by bullying to overcompensate for deep-seated insecurity. Mind the candles, kids!
Call of Duty, Impeachment
This new COD video game installment allows players to pound the dais and thunder in rhetorical high dudgeon at each other, like America’s Founding Fathers did, for the elite coastal mainstream broadcast media such as #1 cable network Fox News.
Kids will learn the fundamentals of our Constitution as well as the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and rule of law and procedural motions and liberal assault on America, ad nauseam. All leading to White Panther’s reelection in an historic landslide and vindication because, as our kids need to learn, democracy can be hilarious sometimes.
Nothing
Give bupkis to teach everyone a lesson about ugly consumerism that’s killing our planet and overlooks what’s important in life, which is loving our loved ones with our love and saving money to spend on ourselves.
You can also unite smart MAGAs and stupid liberals in common cause of hating Jeff Bezos and Amazon.
Hahaha, kidding. Giving nothing is no fun. Not in the holiday spirit. Unless you’re poor or a flinty anti-capitalist Bernie-loving vegan New England organic paleo spelt farmer still driving your 1975 Subaru with 250,000+ miles because it starts when it’s minus 20 degrees out.
Sure, you can protect your credit rating and retirement savings AND reduce the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by denying everyone you love the needless gifts of holiday cheer. Whatever makes you happy and respects your personal viewpoint and agency, Ebenezer.
***
But what if we all woke on Christmas morning — or any holy-day morning — with the “wokest” gift of all:
That is, whatever our righteous political feelings that divide our democracy, we all accepted that every one of us is just a fragile snowflake?
To torture the metaphor, no two of us are alike. We’re all complex in our design. We’re all delicate and can melt easily. But together, piling up, we can create either beauty (a quiet snowy morning) or disaster (a ten-hour highway traffic backup), and sometimes both at the same time.
How about if, at least for holiday season, we could lean into the beauty? Like the Barbie BMR1959 Ken Fully Poseable Fashion Doll with Neon Hair?
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer
