THE CHRISTMAS NOUN

I’ve noticed a trend. Richard Paul Evans wrote The Christmas Box and The Christmas Letters.  Then there was the Christmas Jars by Jason Wright. Now we’ve got the Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck. Notice anything?  All best-selling novels.  All written by Mormons!

 

So as a novelist and a Mormon, I too am entitled to write a best-selling Christmas novel. Now I’m a slightly different type of novelist than the gentlemen above, so I’m not sure how this is going to work out. So I am proud to present to you, gentle reader, excerpts from the upcoming, as of yet untitled, Larry Correia Christmas novel project: THE CHRISTMAS (insert noun here). 

 

I will, of course, come up with whatever the noun is as I go along. I’m thinking cookies. Or maybe a tree… or something.  Inevitably however, everything I write seems to turn back into rampaging monsters or terrorist plots.  Go figure. So here are some excerpts from my rough draft of THE CHRISTMAS NOUN:

 

***

 

From Page 2 Prologue Flashback sequence: “Well, I’m really sorry about Christmas being so tough this year, little Timmy. After your father was crushed to death cutting down that Christmas tree, and your mother lost both of her hands at the candy cane factory, and your brother died from that rare mistletoe allergy, and…”

 

“That’s okay, Grampa. I understand. I’m eight years old. I’m sure this will be the best Christmas ever!” Little Timmy said, just knowing that he was going to get that limited-edition Millenium Falcon he had always wanted.

 

Grampa paused to wipe the tears from his good eye. He had recently lost his other eye in a freak reindeer accident. “Well, here’s your present, Timmy,” he said, pushing the wrapped package forward…

 

Young Timmy ripped it open. It was a rock. “But, Grampa. It’s a rock,” he said sadly. “Where the hell’s my Millennium-Falcon? You could have at least got me the Optimus Prime with laser ax and eyeball cannon!”

 

“It’s all we could afford, Timmy. I’m sorry. Just remember that Santa Claus still loves you. Just not this year. Because we’re poor.”

 

Timmy looked out the window to where the neighbor kids were playing with their new ponies or flying around on rocket sleds. “You suck Grampa! Christmas killed my entire family, and I still get a friggin’ rock. I hate Christmas FOREVER!”

 

Grampa raised his fists to the sky and theatrically shouted, “NOOOOOOOO!” kind of like Darth Vader at the end of the last Star Wars movie, but without so much reverb. Then he died.

 

***

 

From Chapter 1. 

 

Young Timmy grew up until his friends just called him Tim. But he was a bitter young man, who had sworn a blood vendetta against the spirit of Christmas. One year Tim got a job as a mall Santa as a condition of his parole.

 

On Christmas Eve morning, Tim was working at the mall, when he happened to bump into Sally Love-Interest.

 

“Well, hello, Tim,” said Sally. “Do you have any plans for Christmas Eve?”

 

“No, Sally,” said Tim sadly. “I figure that I’m going to loaf around my slum apartment, shoot rats with my .22, then drink Thunderbird until I pass out in a pool of my own vomit. If I’m lucky I might live through the night. How about you?”

 

“Well, I’m going to the protest. Industrialist-billionaire-Republican-capitalist Chuck McScrouge is trying to bulldoze the Orphanage/Old Folk’s Home/Teddy Bear Hospital and evict all of those orphans, old people, and teddy bears… on Christmas Eve!”

 

Tim shrugged. “Whatever.”

 

***

 

From Chapter 2.

 

Tim’s Mom was really glad to see him when he came to visit her at the Orphanage/Old Folk’s Home/Teddy Bear Hospital. “Oh, Tim. I’m so glad you could come.” She waved at him with her stainless-steel hook limbs. Tim noted that she had gotten into the season by painting them with red and white stripes, like pointy stainless-steel candy cane hands. “You look so handsome in your Santa suit!”

 

“Hey, Mom. I hear Mr. McScrouge is going to bulldoze this place today. You and all of the old folks will probably freeze to death or something I guess.”

 

“Oh, no. I believe in the miracle of the Christmas (Noun),” she said.

 

“The Christmas (Noun)? Well that just sounds stupid.”

 

“No stupider than Jars, Letters, Boxes, or Sweaters, and look how many books those sold!” his mother admonished him.

 

***

 

From Chapter 3.

 

“Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha!” Mr. McScrouge laughed with the laugh that only industrialist billionaires can produce. “Foolish Sally Love-Interest. You really think that your feeble protest can stop my fleet of bulldozers?”

 

“You’ll never get past the Christmas (Noun)!” Sally shouted from across the picket line. “Because it represents goodness, redemption, forgiveness, and puppies!”   

 

“I’ve bulldozed a leper colony, three hundred acres of old growth forest, a spotted owl habitat, and a homeless shelter before breakfast.” Mr. McScrouge said around his Cuban cigar. “Your orphanage/old folk’s home/teddy bear hospital is next.”

 

“Never, Mr. McScrouge!”

 

He held up his hand. “It’s pronounced Screw – Jay.  It’s French.”

 

“Oh, sorry.”

 

***

 

From Chapter 5.

 

Tim ran into the room, his fake white beard twirling dangerously above his padded belly. “Wait! Where did that old book go?”

 

Sally looked up from Tim’s Grandfather’s chest of secret Christmas memories. “You mean that big ancient scary one bound in what looked like human skin and inked in blood? I gave it to those carolers.”

 

“That was Grandpa’s book of forbidden mysteries and Cthulu summoning!” Tim shouted. “He had it buried under the town nativity scene. When those atheists burned it, they freed the book!”

 

Sally was embarrassed. “Oh, I thought it was ancient Summarian Christmas carols.”

 

“The only song in that book is the song that ends the world.  It will rip open an unspeakable hole in the fabric of space and time and turn everyone into zombies. Which way did they go?”

 

“They were going to sing to the old folk’s home,” Sally said. Tim spun and ran from the room. “Wait, where are you going?”

 

“To get my shotgun!”

 

***

 

From Chapter 7.

 

BOOM

 

Tim used his Santa hat to wipe the gore from his face. “Man… who would have thought that old people still contained that much blood!  They look so dried out, but it’s like they’re pressurized or something…”

 

“Tim!” Sally screamed. “The portal is getting bigger. Something is coming through! Something big and evil!”

 

There was a scream of incomprehensible terror from the portal to hell. “HO HO HO” Then a sleigh made of bone and chaos exploded into our world in a flash of fire and a stink of corruption, pulled by eight tiny Hell-Deer, being whipped onward by a horned demon in a jolly red suit wielding a cat-o-nine tails made of Christmas lights and barbed wire.

 

“On Stalin! On Hitler! On Sodom and Fred!” shouted the demon at its hell-deer. “On Carrot-Top! On O.J. Simpson! On Rosanne Barr! Move your lazy ass, Ted Kennedy! Ho Ho Ho!” His belly shook like a bowl full of jelly. Poison jelly-fish that is!

 

“Santa?” Sally asked stupidly, as Sally was actually pretty dim-witted, but she was really easy on the eyes.

 

“No,” Tim said as he pumped another 12 gauge slug into the chamber. “It’s the Anti-Clause.”

 

“I’m checking my list, and checking it twice, and now I’m going to swallow your souls,” bellowed the Anti-Clause.

 

“Not if the Christmas (Noun) and my Black Tiger Style Kung-Fu can help it!” Tim shouted.

 

***

 

From Chapter 8.

 

The last of the zombies burst into flames and collapsed around the mall.

 

Tim slowly lowered the dripping chainsaw. “I think we did it!” he shouted. “We saved Christmas.”

 

“What!?” Sally shouted.

 

“Oh, yeah.” Tim shut off the chainsaw. “Sorry about that.”

 

“I love you, Tim,” said Sally as she kissed him passionately. At the beginning of the book she had looked kind of nerdy, and had been wearing glasses and had her hair in a bun, but by the end she was just in a torn tank-top and was looking pretty hot, in classic B-movie tradition. “Especially now that you have the spirit of Christmas and stuff.”

 

“I couldn’t have done it without the Christmas (Noun) and that extended dream sequence from the last chapter.”

 

Then it snowed. And the orphans, old folks, teddy bears, and special guest star Hulk Hogan had the happiest Christmas ever. Cthulu was displeased.

 

THE END

 

 

(Note to people who actually read books, the above is satire. No. Not the little guys with the goat legs… Satire. There is actually no Christmas novel in the works.  Do not let the strangeness you just read dissuade you from purchasing my actual (not sucky) novel, Monster Hunter International, available now on www.amazon.com) http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-International-Larry-Correia/dp/1439132852/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229922500&sr=8-1 

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

Update: There is a new Christmas Noun post in 2009: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/the-christmas-noun-2-the-nounening/ 

2008 Year In Review
Eat Sushi or DIE

40 thoughts on “THE CHRISTMAS NOUN”

    1. F**k yeah Larry! I’d read that book! I’d read it hard!!
      Also, nice turn of phrase with the Anti-Clause bit…

  1. This needs to be written. I was laughing the whole time. After MHI 2 is done, you need to write The Christmas (noun). I can’t come up with a good noun at the moment, but I’m confident you’ll come up with something.

  2. I get the feeling that it would make a better movie than a book.

    I’d buy it on Blu-Ray. It might even displace Die Hard as my favorite Christmas movie ever.

  3. Genius, Pure Genius me boy-o !
    And you really should keep the title ” The Christmas Noun”
    Also, The anti-Claus ?
    Actual historical fact,
    People did believe that good old Saint Nick had a brother Who punished the wicked.
    For some reason, that part of the Christmas Tradition didn’t stick.
    Odd…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LjF_q6ettI

  4. “They look so dried out, but it’s like they’re pressurized or something…”

    *laughing out loud*

    MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL: THE CHRISTMAS MASSACRE

  5. “The Christmas Vampire?” Though the aforementioned Christmas Glock sounds appealing, it should be “The Christmas 1911.”

  6. I agree with Rich in keeping it as the Christmas (Noun). It is hilarious on so many different levels. Its great satire.

  7. I am in tears. I haven’t laughed that hard in a damned long time!

    Great stuff man, thanks for the early Christmas present!

  8. The Christmas Pumpgun?

    “There is actually no Christmas novel in the works”. You have no idea how much this sentence crushed my admittedly feeble spirits. This work has “Made for TV Movie” spray-painted all over it.

    I’m thinking Scott Foley for Tim and Reese Witherspoon for Sally.

  9. Man, you need to have Trey Parker and Matt Stone do the movie (the creators of south park)
    The Christmas (noun) would be an instant hit

  10. How about the Christmas Rock? Like the one from the first chapter? Use that to beat the Anti-Clause’s brains out. “You wanna rock? well here you go!”

  11. I may just read this to my grandchildren some day…scare the bejeezus out of them forever…like every good grandparent should do.

  12. Why is there not a whole book like this? It’d be perfect to read to my daughter on Christmas eve. She’s likes that TV show ‘Monsters Inside Me’ so this story won’t disturb her.

  13. Thanks to u/Firecow21 for reposting a link to this in the
    r/TheMHI subReddit this year!

    This Christmas (Noun) classic is every bit as good in 2021 as it was in 2008!

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