It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like HISSmas!

Somewhere in my house lies an alternate take from this Christmas card photo shoot from like 10 years ago. It’s a snake nativity scene, featuring Mary and Joseph figurines I got at the 99 cents store with Butter the boa constrictor as baby Jesus.

It was way less offensive (that’s not really the word I mean tho…I want the one that’s disrespect plus entitlement plus too much knowledge…ah, irreverent!) than it sounds, if only because I didn’t intend it to be antireligious but rather pro-snake. It’d probably offend some people, and I don’t want to go trashing Jesus, for cripes’ sake. So maybe it’s just as well I couldn’t find it.

Anyway, my original point was…look at this cute snake in this here photo! One of my coworkers couldn’t look at this pic (“This just creeps me out,” she sez), so I had to say a few words in defense of these so elegantly turned-out beings:

1) Snakes, or at least boas, are so sporty! Look at the racing stripes down B’s face, and his bicycle seat-shaped head. Love it! And you can’t really see it in this photo, but the lil’ nostrils and bright eyes give him such a sweet, earnest look. No foolin’!

2) Slimy? Blimey! Snakes are this lovely combination of dry and slick, like water if it weren’t liquid. (How’s that for a mindf**k?)

3) I love their spine-liness. What a movin’, groovin’ lesson in the importance of being flexible in life! And they’re such perfect examples of economy of movement, which my awesome Pilates teacher Dallas is so hot on.

4) Still a mystery to me! I think it’s really hard for always-stuck-in-our-heads humans to tune into the reptilian mind. I bet cobra pose is the door that takes you there, but that’s one of those poses that leaves me lost at sea. I can physically do it, sure, but I know I’m missing the real meat of it. (I hate that phrase. The juice of it, then.)

P.S. I don’t currently have any snakes of my own, and don’t think I ever could. It doesn’t seem right, for me, to keep them in captivity. Note I said “FOR ME.” But what do I know? It could vary from individual to individual. A friend who can communicate telepathically with animals talked to a Gaboon viper at a zoo who knew he was gorgeous and enjoyed being looked at and taking it easy.