1. Though my son's grown up now, he's still creeped out by "Frosty the Snowman." He sees it as an existential tragedy: Frosty's brief moment of life and play before melting into oblivion. And will Frosty "be back again someday?" Yeah, right, he's melted, he's dead.

2. "Jolly Old St. Nicholas." In that song, there's the line, "As for me, my little brain isn't very bright; choose for me, old Santa Claus, what you think is right." Sounds cute - except for the fact that my late father's older brothers always pointed to him when singing that line, making him feel like shit.

3. "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer." Here we have a North-Polar with Disability who's only accepted because of a special situation, sort of like a Little Person who might be asked to crawl down a sewer to save a puppy. But when things get back to normal, you guessed it, Rudolph will be excluded again.

4. "Good King Wenceslas." Here you've got a great believer in "trickle-down economics," a guy coming out of his palace to make one grand gesture to one poor slob. But will the good king now institute sweeping reforms so it's no longer necessary for anyone to scratch for firewood in the snow? Fat chance.

5. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." For those who don't recall the opening line, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light." But did you know that the lyrics originally began, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last?" That lyricist may have missed his calling as a horror writer!

6. "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." This song's lyrics were penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864, and as it goes on, it gets darker and darker. Maybe that's because not only was there the Civil War, but three years earlier, Longfellow's wife's dress caught fire and she burned to death before his eyes.

7. Famous deaths on Christmas Day: James Brown, Dean Martin, Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields. Hope they got to open their presents first, and that at least Chaplin and Fields laughed wanly.

8. But on the other hand, the old thing that there are more suicides on Christmas because everyone else is happy and the suicidees aren't, has been statistically disproven. Instead, anyone can kill themself at any time.

9. Famous battles on Christmas Day. 1776, Washington crosses the Delaware and kills a bunch of Hessian mercenaries. 1941, Hong Kong falls and a bunch of Canadian troops are sent to 44 months in a Japanese prison camp. 1942, huge artillery and tank battle in Stalingrad. Hope those guys also got to open their presents first.

10. And of course, there are the eternal, lesser Christmas tragedies: the present that's "exactly what I wanted" (yeah, right), the turkey that won't cook.

11. Not to mention that the guy for whom the whole thing is named, and whose birth is so wonderfully celebrated (that is, after Walmart is closed), was destined to die not in a peaceful old age, like Grandma, but in total agony on a cross.

12. But Merry Christmas (or whatever your seasonal version) anyway, everyone! Because we horror types know, don't we, that going through the darkness is the best way to find the light.