“Dad, why do we eat pizza on Trumpmas?” Cody asked out of the blue.
“Because President Trump pardoned all the turkeys,” Kylie chirped in.
Dave looked at the kids and decided to go with that one, ”So it would be kind of a jerk move to eat turkey on Trumpmas.”
Cody’s eyes lit up for a moment but he wasn’t satisfied. “Isn’t there like another reason?”
Dave hesitated, “Probably but Trump lived a long time ago back on Old Earth. Nobody’s really sure why that wall he built was so important…”
“Can we build a wall? I wanna build a wall!” Erik yelled excitedly.
“Pizza’s ready!” Karen announced finally bringing the much anticipated dinner to the table and saving her husband from additional embarrassment. “Second one’s in the oven.”
“Hey Karen, is there a specific reason we eat pizza on Trumpmas?” Dave asked. “Is there a Christian thing that I’m missing?”
Karen looked confused for a moment, ”No? I can’t think of any. It’s just the tradition. I think we picked it up from the Magdenese.”
Dave grumbled slightly before he took the pizza cutter and begin cutting slices for the increasingly excited and impatient children. “It’s just weird that we really only eat pizza on this one day.”
“What’s wrong with having one day a year where we wear cowboy hats and eat pizza?” Karen replied. “The fourth of July* is the start of the summer holiday why not have a party with a few silly rituals?”
“Right, right sorry ignorant pagan here,” Dave grunted. “Cody was asking about it and it just got me wondering. Usually there’s a reason traditions get started.”
Karen eyed Dave wearily, neither of them were exactly Old Earth history experts. “Just eat the damn pizza, cowboy. Those illegals aren’t going to round themselves up.”
Dave shrugged, took a huge pull from his beer mug and after making sure all three of the children were taken care of made a plate for himself.
“I think I got it,” Karen announced. “There’s an old fairytale about Saint Donald and Jeff the Wizard breaking into Hell in order to rescue the children.”
The kids stopped eating and looked eagerly at their mother.
“But… what does that have to do with pizza?” Kylie asked.
“I don’t know.” Karen admitted. “I don’t remember the story that well.”
“Is there a movie?” Cody asked.
“There has to be a movie,” Erik added. “Can we watch it?”
“Saint Donald?” Dave muttered as he got up.
“Are you seriously going to search for it now?” Karen grimaced.
Dave drained the last of beer in a quick decisive gulp. “Yeah it’s a holiday and I got nothing better to do.”
“Any movie involving Hell is probably not going to be suitable for young children,” Karen scolded.
“Won’t know until I look,” Dave replied walking over to the television, and punching in the first few search options.”
Erik darted over to help his dad and Dave had to yell at him to go back in the dining room.
“I think I got something?” Dave announced. “But it’s in Russian, with subtitles.”
“English!” Karen yelled. “We speak English on this planet.”
“I know,” Dave laughed. “It’s just hilarious that that’s the first thing to come up.” Breyland’s vast electronic libraries were full of little gems like that. “It’s public domain so there has to be an English version somewhere.”
“And what’s the rating?” Karen demanded. “Just because it’s a fairy tale…”
“Bingo got it! Animated, Full English redub, seventy two minutes.” Dave announced triumphantly. “Are we watching it?”
The boys cheered loudly. They had no idea what the movie was but it had to be awesome right? How could such a thing not be awesome? Everything about Trump was awesome. That was what made him Trump.
“Kylie is five!” Karen said sternly as she stomped over to the television.
“Rated youth-seven.” Dave replied. “That’s probably pretty reasonable.”
Kylie sheepishly wandered over to her parents, “It’s a fairy tale, right?”
Karen reluctantly nodded.
Kylie continued, “and the good guys win, right?”
Dave and Karen looked at each other. The world wasn’t always fair but yes sometimes the good guys won and when they did win you made a point to tell their stories.
“Okay,” Karen agreed. “Let’s do this.”
Dave nodded wordlessly and then very carefully unhooked the television from the wall. Traditions always began somewhere and he was definitely curious about this one. Legends and myths passed from hand to hand twisted and reforged over the eons of time but as always the heroes and villains remained; such was the fabric of cultures weaved…
A sudden buzzer sounded and shattered that fleeting chain of thought as his wife frantically herded their daughter back into the dining room and darted towards the kitchen to take the second pizza out of the oven.
Dave said a wordless prayer to whatever deity might be listening and wheeled the television into the dining room. Hey it was a holiday why not have a little fun.
*Breyland uses a 13 month planetary calendar.
We think that’s a Poe… but nobody can be sure about anything.
Of Wolves and Men 