The holidays were quite the experience this year. Usually we go all out to make the kids’ Christmas special. It is, after all, a special time of year for everybody. This year was markedly different, however, as we planned to take the kids to my wife’s family home in Vermont.

We hadn’t seen this side of the family in two years due to, you know, the whole pandemic thing. I’m blessed to have the family I do. Somehow I tricked them all into thinking I’m this incredibly nice guy and my wife’s lucky to have married me.

I’m not joking. That’s basically what the last birthday card my in-laws sent me said to the letter. Continue reading →

Welcome to 2022! We made it through the year in which “Mad Max” was to occur and there’s no signs of any roving motor gangs terrorizing wastelands. Yet.

Admittedly, the bar was very low this year compared to the absolute dumpster-fire of a shitshow that was 2020. That doesn’t mean 2021 wasn’t without its milestone achievements, like killing off the scientific method’s credibility in favor of “THE SCIENCE!” Continue reading →

Jesse Custer was never one to celebrate Christmas. This year, however, Tulip made a convincing case The Grassy Knoll Pub should be decorated in a festive manner to attract “holiday traffic.”

So one December morning, Christmas lights replaced the yarn on the conspiracy theory boards. At one end of the bar sat a plastic replica of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. A Santa hat adorned the alien head on one wall. Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Who doesn’t fight with loved ones at some point during the holidays? Fault Lines alumni Mario Machado and Chris Seaton seem to love arguing with each other, so they put a debate topic on Twitter, and with over sixty percent of the vote, SJ readers chose “Resolved: Die Hard is a Christmas Movie” as the SJ Holiday Debate topic. Chris will argue the affirmative, Mario the negative. Below is Chris’ argument.

Ah, Christmas. A time when we hang the stockings by the chimney, put decorations on the tree, and watch Hans Gruber fall to his death from Nakatomi Tower to celebrate the season.

Hey, some people go for “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” or “It’s A Wonderful Life.” There’s no denying, however, that Bruce Willis’ action classic “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. Continue reading →

With music provided by Tom Lehrer

Christmas time is here by golly, disapproval would be folly
Deck the halls with hunks of holly, fill the cup and don’t say when Continue reading →

When we last left your humble humorist, he was touring Uzbekistan helping legless pig farmers resettle into their native homeland. Vowing a vacation on his return, we now rejoin our intrepid adventurer…

SHG:

This is the worst vacation ever, and I had to spend an entire week with the in-laws once.

So the IDEA was for me to return from Uzbekistan to the States by way of Florida, where I would meet my family and enjoy a nice little beach trip prior to Thanksgiving. Continue reading →

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Friday Funny to bring you my unsolicited thoughts on the second season of “Tiger King,” the Netflix docuseries about a gay meth-head country singer who once owned a bunch of tigers.

The following will contain plenty of SPOILERS (which I am advised I’m to type in all caps for those who believe such warnings necessary), so if you’re really interested in taking in the whole experience for yourself, come back to this post after watching the five episodes. For the rest of you with better things to do, read on! Continue reading →

Dear SHG:

Greetings from an undisclosed location in Southeast Asia!

I think you got a little confused when I emailed you last about me taking time off from the Friday Funny. I didn’t say anything about “finding inner peace.” That part of the email actually said “striving for synergy.” It’s okay, I misread things sometimes too.

Anyway, I’m overseas right now with an NGO helping repatriate legless Uzbekistani pig farmers. It’s a bigger problem than you’d think! Continue reading →

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth Tuesday, when progressive and leftist campaigns suffered losses in election races around the country, top Democratic strategists met Wednesday and Thursday to discuss how the party would regroup for the 2022 midterms.

“I don’t understand why we didn’t handily win Virginia,” one strategist sulked. “We did everything right! We told the concerned parents they were crazy racists who bought into conspiracy theories Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson peddle nightly!” Continue reading →

Prefatory note: Someone apparently had a rotten couple of weeks at the National School Board Association. My hacker contact “BlueDragon72” passed along this copy of a draft apology letter the NSBA planned to send to parents. After reading it you’ll see why they changed things.—CLS

Dear Parents:

By now you’ve probably heard about a troubling letter sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland by someone from our offices equating parents attending school board meetings with domestic terrorists. This letter also said “hate crimes” were being perpetrated by parents attending school board meetings. Continue reading →