An Alien Christmas

One of the problems with being a Christian and a SF/F movie fan is that occasionally the two concepts juxtapose and your perceptions become a little off from the mainstream. I found out that my dh, definitely a SF and horror fan as well as a conservative Christian (Ah, ah! Watch those stereotypes!) does not care for the Mel Torme Christmas song that begins "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." We hear the version sung by Nat King Cole the most.

"All right, what's bugging you about that song?" I asked the next time I saw him shudder.

He looked at me solemnly. "Tiny tots with their eyes all a-glow," he said. "It makes me think of the 1960's horror film, Village of the Damned."

I thought back for a minute on all the SF and horror movies we'd watched together. "You mean the one where these blond haired kids start taking over a village?"

"Right," he said. "They were tiny tots. And their eyes glowed."

"And their stares could 'paralyze the will of the world'," I said. "They were alien beings, mysteriously concieved in the wombs of the village women. A sort of virgin birth."

"That's right," he said, and his voice lowered with dark portent. "Jesus was the first...but There Will Be Others! Mwahahahahaha!"

"I don't think Jesus did the eye-glow thing," I said. "Or the mwahahaha."

"No, he probably had a benign laugh, but he did glow."

"Yeah," I said. "But it was an overall glow. I think the eye-glows are signs that they're bad guys. Like the Goa'ulds on Stargate. Note that the Ancients, who are generally good guys, glow all over."

"True," he said, his faith evidently restored. Tell you the truth, the idea of Jesus as an alien felt just a teeny bit...weird to me, too. Intriguing, but weird.

He shook his head, sighing. "Village of the Damned. In a Christmas song. Makes you wonder whose chestnuts were roasting. Must have been after they took over the village, doing it out in the open like that."

"And they didn't sleep," I said. "Waiting for Santa Claus. Ominous, that's what I think."

"Damned straight."

We sat in silence, contemplating the fate of Santa in the hands of glowy-eyed alien tots.

"We are so not getting that movie on DVD," I said.

"Right," he said, and grinning, went off to do some Christmas shopping with our son.

I got the Serenity DVD for Christmas instead, thank God. Even so, I am never going to think of that Christmas song in the way I used to.

--Karen H.