A not-so-humorous hit-and-run

Out of all the twisted Christmas songs esteemed so highly in our culture, Elmo and Patsy's 1979 "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" enjoys a distinct and disturbing notoriety. Gruesomely depicting a drunken grandma dying of blunt force trauma on Christmas Eve—her head dashed against the pavement by none other than Dasher himself—it's the silly gimmick track about which your uncle joked and grandmother fumed, and it might just be the most grotesque one of all.

First and foremost is the blatant ageism evident in the very title. Don't get me wrong: As a financially embattled millennial drowning in student debt, I understand that sometimes ageism can feel, well, justified. Considering the wealth they've hoarded and the damage to the planet they've inflicted, the image of a solitary grandma taking a hoof to the face and expiring in the snow might not exactly offend one's sensibilities. But as I've said before we must confront prejudices wherever we encounter them, even the ones in our own heads, and ageism is no exception.

So, yeah. The disdain with which this intoxicated octogenarian is treated, on Christmas Eve of all days, is problematic to say the least. Why is it that nobody, not the husband or the son or the grandson in this godforsaken family offered to accompany the literal matriarch as she ventured out into the snow. Maybe they too had imbibed too much eggnog. Maybe they were annoyed about getting XL sweaters from JC Penney for the eighth Christmas in a row. Or maybe, like all men, they just didn't care.

This poor woman was just going to fetch her meds. She planned on returning to resume the festivities, presumably with an even bigger buzz once she threw a few of those pills back. Sure, they "begged" her not to go, but when push came to shove they watched her depart in a drunken stupor and continued on with their night. Once she was gone not another thought was wasted on her—she wasn't found until Christmas morning, frozen in the front yard. Nobody deserves an end like that, not even a millionaire retiree.

Once the shock of finding grandma gone the way of a Klondike bar settles in, we inevitably and regrettably turn to the other side of such a poignant tragedy: the fate of her life partner. How do you go on without them? It's a question half of us will one day answer. Yet the picture Elmo & Patsy paint about good ol' backslapping grandpa is simply rosy. Grandpa's fine! He's drinking a Michelob, playing some poker, throwing down a few parlays on DraftKings. Grandma's gone forever but hey at least he can finally watch some FOOTBALL in peace. That bitch never shut up!

The piece then cuts to the chase:

It's not Christmas without Grandma.

All the family's dressed in black.

And we just can't help but wonder:

Should we open up her gifts or send them back?

The death is fresh, a day old, the family donning black on Christmas day. It's the perfect moment for some introspection, some insight about the damage their misplaced beliefs have wrought, but that of course would require holding those responsible for their grief to account. So instead they ask the question they've been conditioned to return to at the very moment they begin to question everything: what about the presents. It's an easy punchline, of course, but its role is essential as it shifts our attention, subtly: from a life extinguished to a gift unopened. We must never forget what matters.

What is most ominous about this dystopian track, however, isn't the ageism or sexism or simple tastelessness. It's the ominous, pervasive and inescapable influence of history's true Hitler, Henry Ford. I'm talking about the undeniable autocentrism that suffuses and sustains this very piece.

Everyday Americans are slaughtered in the streets by cars. Smoked, splattered, knocked out of their shoes. Wiped out on a Monday morning run, mowed down on the way to the store. Grandma's fate is no different, and its casual, indifferent illustration serves a singular purpose: a reinforcement of a status quo that elevates our God-given right to kill and maim in the name of steel and speed and our small, small penises. The fifteen minute city is and always has been a socialist hellscape, but grandma dead on the side of the road because there was no place to safely walk is simply the cost of freedom.

But wait! What the fuck is this guy talking about? We were talking about Santa and his reindeer, not automobiles. Nothing in the text supports these ridiculous conclusions!

It's called reading between the lines.

For one, there's the obvious car-based language: "run over", "license", "drives". But more importantly it's the symbolism. Sleigh or Super Duty it makes no difference, they represent the same thing: the acceptance of fatal accidents as inevitable consequences of our fast-paced, unapologetic, productive lives, the offering up of the old, the weak and the no longer valuable to the unstoppable vehicle of progress, big, red and rolling coal. We live by the car and we die by the car. The fact that it is Santa—an Inuit/Yupik brother to Ford in the way their celebrated legacies have profoundly fucked the American people—who takes part in this concrete, consumerist blood rite only serves to deepen the depravity. We are slaves to a way of life that was forced upon us and for which we can imagine no alternative. The Allegory of the Cave.

Instilled in this ignominious jingle are the same old recitations about power, too. This was branded as an attack and thus manslaughter or homicide. Santa Claus fled the scene of an accident resulting in a death, which is a felony. But we all know he would never be charged anyway. Not Santa Claus, not jolly old Saint Nick. And even if he were tried and convicted for the world to see something tells me we'd still be bringing our children to sit on his lap each Christmas, making excuses for him rather than reconsidering our own worldview. It was a blizzard! That bitch was drunk! She was old and fragile! Anything to latch onto the narratives that sustain our own parochial, primitive identities. If Santa is a criminal, and Dasher, too, then everything that has brought our families so much joy and happiness and meaning is a lie. And that just can't be, right?