I’m tellin’ ya, I don’t know how I’m gonna get through today without having a merry mistletoe meltdown, ’cause when I asked Levi to come on over to our place for Christmas dinner, I never dreamed he’d say yes!
He’s been bad-mouthing me all over the media, although of course I’ve been doing Oprah and Barbara Walters while he’s been stuck with Extra and Inside Whatever. But still—what is that boy thinking? When I told the ladies on The View that all I really wanted for Christmas was to have my whole family together, I was just—well, it sounded so Christmas-y! Like the Palins could be a sort of live-action nativity scene, only with video games and flat-screen TVs instead of, I don’t know, bales of hay and a buncha smelly Bethlehem farm animals. I’m sorry, but if I was Mary, I would’ve said, “Joseph, I’m givin’ birth here, so just get that darn donkey outta my face before I blast its effin’ head off!”
Calm down, Sarah. You can do this. You’ve been goin’ great guns, you’ve got a huge best seller, everyone’s startin’ to call you, what’s that word they all use … Relatable. And even though that liberal media keeps yellin’ that my book is full of lies, well, pardon my it-took-me-four-different-colleges-to-finally-graduate French, but—fuck ’em! Have any of them got a No. 1 best seller? Okay, maybe if I was gettin’ attacked by Danielle Steel they’d have a little traction, but you know why Democrats are acting so stinky? I think it’s because a whole lot of ’em, they don’t get to have Christmas, if you catch my drift.
You know what I’m gonna do? I’m just gonna think of this whole dang holiday as if it was the Sarah Palin Christmas Special.
Like it could start with a whole buncha carolers, in parkas and camouflage gear, singing right outside our window. And then Todd will open our front door—I don’t care what anyone says, I love my Todd. Just like when I first laid eyes on him in high school, when I said to myself, Sarah, that is one mucho-grande hot dumb stud, with that nice thick TV-star hair, like Tom Selleck. And Todd will welcome Americans everywhere and say, “Come right on in for some 90-proof Palin-family-recipe eggnog!”
Then the TV cameras will prowl around, and everyone’ll see Willow holding little Trig, with both of them dressed up like the cutest little Polartec elves. I love ’em to pieces, although I do wonder—ever since Bristol’s unwed pregnancy—I mean, what’ll the other ones get up to? Crystal meth? Will Piper become some kinda sulky teen lesbian with an Inuit gal? Will she start whispering to Trig, “Mommy loves you, but so does Satan?”
Well, for now everyone’s doin’ just great, and look, there’s Grandpa and Gramma and all of those other relatives who keep asking me for money. Well, I’m just gonna tell ’em, say, hey, I’m not the governor anymore, and I have to pay for my own hair and makeup people, so if any of you want another ten bucks, go ask Hillary! Or Tina Fey!
Tina Fey. Gosh darn it, I was on such a nice Yuletide high, and then I have to go and think about her.
Well in my opinion, she should get down on her knobby little knees and kiss my perky hockey-mom butt! ’Cause I gave her a career! Before I came along, what was she? Just some kinda eggheaded writer gal with thick glasses and no muscle tone and a TV show that nobody was watching, except maybe some gay college kids and her mom. And I’m sorry, but when I got an up-close look—I am way, way prettier. Even Todd said so, although he did say that it’d be wild if he had sex with Tina, just so he could compare, or maybe he could have sex with the both of us at the same time, and that it wouldn’t be cheating because Tina and I, we’d both be me.
But I’m not gonna go there, no sirree, Bob, not on my Christmas Special, ’cause look, there’s Bristol and Tripp and—Levi. All right, I’m just gonna say it, right out loud here in the privacy of my own personal brain, but when I saw those Playgirl pictures, I just wanted to text Bristol and say, okey dokey, holy smoky. Fire down below! Oh, I know I should be so ashamed of my decent Christian self. But like mother, like daughter, there’s nothin’ like some prime 19-year-old unemployed Wasilla man chunk! I just wanna hug that Levi and say, welcome back to the family, and keep workin’ out!
Wait, did I say that on Oprah? No. No, I don’t think so. Whew. But you know something? We’re all here together, the entire extended Palin family, at home for the holidays, and that’s not just good for sales and ratings and Levi’s calendar and coaster sets, it’s good for my soul! This is the year I got everything I wanted! I’m rich and I’m famous and thank the blessed Lord I don’t have to be vice-president! Merry Christmas!
Rudnick’s book I Shudder: And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey was published this fall.