It’s the holiday season. Be warned.
We’re coming to your neighborhood. We’re coming to your street. We’re coming to your door. Then we’re knocking politely.
Pray answer.
Behold as heaps of waves of sonic blasts of feral Yuletide jollies incinerate your holiday blahs as though a thermonuclear merriment-bomb detonated a mere four feet from your virgin ears.
Here the Wassail family comes a-wassailing.
We Wassails have awoken from our traditional January-November cryogenic slumber. That’s right, the Wassail family has been clinically dead since the final eleven pipers piping of Christmas 2021. Birthdays were missed. Milestones were shunned. Opportunities were ignored. Life was lost. Pshaw! Gotta recharge for the holiday. “IF WE AIN’T WASSAILING, WE AIN’T LIVIN’.” That’s the timeworn Wassail family battle cry, and the exact words Meemaw Wassail ceremoniously carved in our chests after surviving 48-straight hours of belting Old King Wenceslas while ensconced inside the 4-ft thick soundproof concrete walls of a subterranean wassailing gulag Preepaw Wassail constructed far outside the range of any modern GPS and long before Google Earth existed.
Living our best life. Cause wassailing.
A little Wassail history…
Father Wendell Wassail was born to wassail. Literally. Meemaw Wassail was impregnated by Peepaw Wassail under controlled conditions solely to carry a wassailing-savant fetus to term. As the legend goes, she of the “fa la la” siren song and he of the “pa rum pum pum” golden pipes were shot from 75 yards with rino tranquilizers by expats hired off the black market, dragged from church choir practice to god knows where, and then starved of carnal fulfillment for a fortnight before being forced at gunpoint to remain in a kind of garland-laced sex pod—where Bing Crosby’s White Christmas played on a loop—until they finally copulated a’ la a-wassailing Ling-Ling and Sing-Sing. Nine months later, baby Wendell Wassail came out of Meemaw.
*Meemaw often joked that Peepaw had her at “the female is presenting” sung to the melody of Oh Come All Ye Faithful.
Wendell’s hardscrabble upbringing chiseled him into the seasoned wassailer he is today. Peepaw Wassail was more unforgiving wassailing sensei than loving father. Have you ever seen the movie Whiplash? Peepaw made the drum instructor seem as downright bubbly as Dominick the Donkey. To wit, a teenage Wendell wasn’t permitted to lick this daily bullion cube for sustenance until Peepaw had determined he’d sufficiently “untangled and dangled that jangle”—Peepaw’s euphemism for projecting glee under stressful conditions—consistently throughout predawn wassailing drills. Eighteen years of blood, sweat, and cheers paid off: Rehearsing lyrics like “Jing-a-di-jing hee haw hee haw” ad nauseum while being forced to watch amateur elf claymation snuff films Clockwork Orange-style were critical steps that led to Wendell blossoming into the wassailing virtuoso he is today.
But Wendell doesn’t wassail solo. Despite her upbringing far from the world of wassailing, Mother Wendy Wassail will be in tow. Be not fooled. Despite her disarming perma-smile and buoyant step, Wendy is arguably the more militant wassailer.
Anyone not living in an Asthenosphere-deep Pittsburgh pothole knows the saga of Wendy Wassail. Born Leslie Henrietta Turnhauer, daughter of sheetrock magnate Chester Manfred Turnhauer III, Leslie made a name for herself as a world-class and charitable surgeon. Leslie H. Turnhauer MD donated her youth and utility to perform life-saving medical procedures on children in some of the most destitute and remote areas of the globe. But she abandoned it all to dedicate her life to a newfound passion: wassailing.
Inspired after performing several last-ditch vocal cord surgeries amid the aftermath of the Cambodian Wassail Massacre of ‘98, Leslie tossed her medical license in the Mahjong River and pursued a wassailing apprenticeship under Wendell Wassail. The two quickly fell in love after discovering their mutual hatred of Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time.
*Universal disgust for SHAWCT is largely attributed to the then newlyweds, who assembled popular musicians and celebrities to record Do They Know ‘Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time’ Is The Single Most Atrocious Goddamn Christmas Song Freaking Ever to raise funds to round up every last LP, cassette, 8-track, and digital copy of SHAWCT and ‘splode ‘em back to whence they came at SHAWCT Demolition Night.
Wendy does not regret abandoning her globetrotting humanitarian past. In fact, her only regret is wasting a decade-plus performing critical procedures on ailing impoverished adolescents instead of belting Ding Dong! Merrily On High at a doorstep near you, blissfully unaware of the famine and disease ravaging communities around the globe.
What Child Is This? Why, it’s little Baby Wyatt Wassail. Conceived and born between life-size blow-mold versions of Balthasar and Melchior at the local Kroger nativity scene, Wyatt Wassail has arrived. Although he is only eight-and-a-half months old, Wyatt is already wassailing at a first grade level. Despite drooling and shitting himself on the reg, he can sing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing with the veracity of a turtlenecked Fun Dip addict at the Boondoggle Orphanage Holiday Choral Concert.
Now you know a bit about the wassailing Wassails. Lucky you.
Though the lord comes as a thief in the night, we Wassails will be coming to your house like a thousand carolusing elephants at a specific date and time. That date is next Thursday, and that time is 8:37 PM. Please see fit to salt your stoop.
Like a-wassailing Walter White, we’re the ones who knock.
Believe us, you have not truly experienced wassailing until you have experienced the Wassails a-wassailing. Ain’t no party like a-wassailing party cause a-wassailing party STOPS…abruptly…at 8:49 PM.
So be waiting. And for the love of all things Holy (Night)…”Don’t be a Wassail Fossil!”: The Wassail family motto we self-branded on our foreheads with cattle irons so we’d never ever forget.
Caution: Small children and those with sensitivities to high levels of melodic cheerfulness should consider seeking refuge several counties away due to the extreme and sometimes life-threatening nature of our arguably way, way, too-exuberant wassailing.
Happy holidays!
Gunmeddle 