The Stupidest Angel
Beatriz Terrazas on why she re-reads a book about zombies every Christmas
Holiday fireplace display (see book list) at the Carl A. Pescosolido Library, known as “Pesky Library” by students at The Governor’s Academy, Byfield, MA, 2010. Photo: Pesky Librarians
Those of us who grew up celebrating Christmas have our standing holiday traditions.
Some of us put up our trees the day after Thanksgiving. Others make a themed Christmas photo—in matching pajamas, or posing as a favorite rock band, or re-creating the same pose year in and year out to show how kids are growing. Still others attend the same church services or holiday concerts to mark the occasion.
My Christmas tradition is a lot less Hallmark and more reformed Grinch. Every December, I read Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Story of Christmas Terror (William Morrow & Company, 2004),” a novel I discovered in 2010 or 2011. That’s about a dozen years of settling into my couch with the story about an angel—yes, the heavenly kind—who misunderstands his Christmas mission, leading to strained relationships, untimely resurrections (zombies!), and a horny bush pilot, a talking fruit bat, a stoned cop, and his sword-wielding wife all trying to save the day. Irreverent? Oh, yeah: Not safe for work? Nope. Funny? AF! I still cackle when I read certain lines. And wonder if Moore LOL’d when he wrote them.
To understand my tradition, you have to admit that the holidays bring most of us at least as much stress as they do joy. At least as much anxiety as they do love. There’s that oh-so-human desire to have a perfect holiday with people we love. You know, that tableau: The family gathered around the table with a meal in which nothing is overcooked or in need of more seasoning. Then the scene around a tree surrounded by gifts thoughtfully purchased to elicit just the right amount of awe. And no one over-imbibes or starts an argument by talking politics.
In truth, we all have family fractures that have never quite healed. There are past hurts we thought forgiven until a poorly timed word or action triggers that pain again. There are present things we’re dealing with as the holidays approach—divorce, custody battles, financial debt, illness, addiction, etc. We push these aside, pretend, for the sake of a holiday truce with reality, that all is perfect. But what’s wrong with acknowledging that we aren’t perfect and neither is the holiday? Isn’t this failure to acknowledge that we are human and flawed and imperfect the very source of our stress?
When I discovered The Stupidest Angel, my family was going through upheaval. We were watching my mother approach the end of her Alzheimer’s journey. And there’s nothing that makes one feel more helpless than to witness this horror. Not to mention fearful. Would she decide to walk out of the house one day and become a Silver Alert? Just once, she got lost, and it was as awful as we had imagined it would be. Would she forget who her family was? Yes, and it was as painful as we thought it would be.
Francisca Corona Terrazas. Courtesy of Beatriz Terrazas
“…we longed for a semblance of that perfect holiday…Almost ten years after her death, I still miss my mother.”
My mother died in 2014, but my memories of those last few holidays are a blur of driving across the state to relieve caregivers and to be with her. We spent a lot of time at my sister’s house, which was ablaze in Christmas lights, coaxing our mom to eat, to drink, even to open a gift. She didn’t even know what a gift was anymore, but, like everyone else, we longed for a semblance of that perfect holiday–no matter how diminished our mother had become.
Don’t get me wrong. We had some good moments. But we had some awful ones, too. One Christmas, all of us caught some bug that had us laid up with fevers and chills. Another Christmas, my mom slipped out of my grasp one time as I helped her in the bathroom. She fell backward into the tub, and I just barely caught her in time to keep her from hitting her head on the wall.
That’s why The Stupidest Angel became a release valve for all the other emotions of the season. I would read and laugh and laugh and laugh. At Moore’s deeply flawed characters, who, so much like my family, wished for a Christmas in which no one was sick, the food wasn’t burned, couples didn’t break up, and everyone was happy. Of course, sometimes with the laughter came tears. Of frustration at this disease. Of anger at the injustice of watching Alzheimer’s steal away my mother. Of grief over this incredible loss. One moment, I’d be howling, tears of laughter rolling down my face, and the next, I’d realize that those tears were over something else entirely.
Almost ten years after her death, I still miss my mother. And I still find Christmas to be stressful. There are the usual things—work, home repairs, rocky relationships, financial strains. That’s life. But it always helps a little bit when I settle into my couch and start reading The Stupidest Angel. It makes the season a bit more palatable to know that, somewhere, people are battling zombies with the help of a talking fruit bat, even if they are all imaginary people. And fruit bats.
READ MORE
List of books in Pesky Librarians’ 2010 Holiday Fireplace Display:
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Story of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore (2004) [READ EXCERPT]
The Winter Solstice by John Matthews (1998)
The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey by Roger Highfield (1998)
Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (2013)
The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford (2008)
The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems, eds. Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark (1987)
Christmas in Texas (Clayton Wheat Williams Texas Life Series) by Elizabeth Silverthorne (1990)
A Christmas Story Recipe Book by myrecipes.com (2008)
Have Yourself a Punny Little Christmas by Richard Lederer and Jim McLean (Illust.) (2006)
Deck the Halls by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (2000)
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping: A Novel by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (2001)
Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story by Wally Lamb (2009)
The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America's Most Cherished Holiday by Stephen Nissebaum (1996)
The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans (1995)
Christmas Customs Around the World by Herbert Wernecke (1959)
Sharpe’s Christmas: Two Short Stories by Bernard Cornwell (2003)
Knit the Season: A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel by Kate Jacobs (2009)
Skipping Christmas: A Novel by John Grisham (2002)
The Tree Nobody Wanted: A Christmas Story by Tom McCann (2007)
Christmas Lessons by Jamie Boissard (1984)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)
Matchless: A Christmas Story by Gregory Maguire (2009)
The Joys of Christmas: Christmas Customs and Legends around the World by Kathryn Jackson (1976)
The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holidays, eds. P.J. O'Rourke, Taylor Plimpton, and Michele Clarke (2009)
A Christmas Guest: A Novel by Anne Perry (2005)
The Christmas List: A Novel by Richard Evans (2009)
Mr. Ives’ Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos (1995)
