Season of giving...black-eyes.

Some people just don’t have any Christmas spirit. Ebenezer Scrooge, JetBlue employees who care not if I miss my sister’s Christmas party, that guy in the Subaru who cut me off, the b**** at Hollywood video who wouldn’t let me rent Love Actually because of “outstanding fines” and “improper identification.” (So what if I want to cause myself anguish with a clichéd holiday romance?) People and their anti-Christmas cheer have been getting in my way a little too much this season.

And I’m not the only one who feels this down turn of holly-jolly-ness. The Pope, the leader of this worldwide religious (ish) holiday, has been taken down in his efforts to celebrate. Taken down to the ground by a crazed woman in her second attempt at tackling him during his Christmas celebrations. Yup, this lady has jumped on the Pope twice. She is now in a psychiatric facility, so she may be foiled in making this event a third annual affair.

His speech, where he reached out to those in need, touched many. So maybe it’s understandable that Susanna felt that she had to reach out and touch the Pope. ‘Reach out and touch’ being, of course, a euphemism for the track-style hurdle and panther-style pounce combination she used to take the old guy down.

Interesting though, was the way that the Vatican security interpreted the whole situation. They didn’t seem too worried about anything, explaining that it’s natural for people to want to be near the Pope. …Okaaayyy. Ya, that justification may work for Jesse McCartney or the stars of Twilight who fend off more offensive attacks than Ndamukong, (granted tweeny-boppers do considerably less damage than line men, but regardless.) Security for the Pope, however, probably shouldn’t consider a rouge CRAZO a “natural” occurrence.

And aside from the fact that he’s the Pope, most 82 year old men don’t love getting abruptly thrown to the ground. The statistics we have on arthritis and muscle degeneration tell us that wasn’t a fun experience for Catholics’ favorite senior citizen. He’s been around the block a few times, so Benedict XVI did not quit after the disk-slipping, brittle-bone-breaking assault. He fell and rallied. Pope Benedict XVI went on with his Christmas Eve ceremony, with class.

And that my jaded comrades, is some true Christmas spirit. We have now seen that nothing, not even the Grinch or an agile Susanna, can stop Christmas from coming.
Thank you, Pope, for bouncing back in the way you did, (I don’t mean how you bounced like a fuzzy, yellow tennis ball off the pavement, but that, too, was cool,) you returned the jolly to my holly. As the Grinch so epically ruminated, maybe Christmas does, “perhaps, mean a little bit more.”