Christmas Unhinges Granite Staters

The pressure of the holidays got to be too much for some people in the state. For example, just before Christmas, I expected to find serious workers in the local post office hurrying to handle the flood of mail. Instead, a man behind the counter was telling awestruck kids that Santa was hard at work in a back room reading their Christmas lists.

He disappeared, but a moment or two later, customers heard loud knocking on the inside of a door leading to a back room and what seemed to be the boisterous laughter of the jolly, old elf himself. Holy St. Nicholas, short staffing at the post office must be worse that I thought when the Old Guy has to pitch in to help.

Apparently, after Santa left the post office, he had enough time to pay the school kids in Hollis a visit. But it wasn’t the kind of stop school officials expected. According to the Nashua Telegraph (12/20/2013),”Hollis police were summoned to the Hollis Primary School on Silver Lake Road shortly before 10 a.m., when administrators spotted a man dressed as Santa running around the outside of the school, tapping on the windows and waving to students, according to Lt. Rich Mello.”

Nowadays, school employees are suspicious of everyone, including Santa. Recesses were abruptly cancelled; parents were notified about a strange man in a Santa suit at the school; police were called in to investigate; and other schools in the district were notified.

Upon seeing the commotion he had created, Santa fled the scene. Later, he turned himself into the police saying he was just trying to spread some holiday cheer. Interim Superintendent Dr. John Moody commented in the Telegraph article, “He just thought it would be a cool holiday thing for the kids to see Santa wave through the window. He kind of set off a firestorm of precautions.”

Santa wasn’t charged, although after his trip from the North Pole to warmer climes, he might have enjoyed a stay in the “cooler.”

Our last story might be attributed to “alcohol-induced psychosis.” As the Valley News (12/24/2013) points out, Granite Staters will go to virtually any lengths to avoid higher taxes. As a result, a bizarre assortment of revenue sources is employed, including the sale of liquor, lottery tickets, and a hodgepodge of fees. Inevitably, they fall short of meeting the demand for funding.

The shortfall of cash has imperiled the preservation of more than 100 historic flags dating back to the Civil War. According to an AP story (12/18/2013), “Many of the silk and cotton flags, some with gold leaf and lead-based paint, have been displayed in the same large oak cases since 1899 and have slowly degraded. The cases are not air-tight. Officials estimate it will cost more than $1 million to preserve the flags.”

What to do to produce that money? Another state might have added a penny to the gas tax or the sales tax. Not tax-aversive New Hampshire. The creative geniuses at the New Hampshire Liquor Commission, aided and abetted by Gov. Hassan, came up with a novel idea. They put on sale for $29.99 each a limited number (9000) of bottles of vodka featuring a picture of the Old Man of the Mountain and the state motto “Live Free or Die.”

As the Valley News notes, “Come to think of it, it’s hard to imagine any other state undertaking such a bizarre enterprise as retailing a commemorative line of vodka.” Alcohol-induced psychosis, indeed.

Well, at last, we have the chance to rest and regain our mental equilibrium following the frenzy of Christmas. However, beware.  New Year’s Eve is fast upon us, providing the opportunity to once again act more than a little screwy.

If you would like to read more about the penny-pinchers and eccentrics who live in New Hampshire, may I suggest my new book Outtastatahs: Newcomers’ Adventures in New Hampshire.

Outtastatahs (as in out-of-staters) was recently selected on the NPR program The Exchange as a “best holiday read by a local author.”

 Outtastatahs can be purchased for $13.99 at River Run Books in Portsmouth; at the Water Street Bookstore in Exeter; at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord; or on-line at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com.