The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas Holidays: Insatiable by Jennifer Weigel
In 2020, Haunted MTL brought you the 13 Days of Krampus. Now we offer another exclusive series of holiday horror stories: The Twelve Nightmares of the Holidays. Here’s our very own Jennifer Weigel kicking it off with Insatiable.
He was a jolly old soul with an all-consuming appetite for winter festivities and seasonal accoutrements. Well, at least those focused on one particular holiday at any rate. The other celebrations of the season sort of shrank into baffled silence in the background, whispering murmured concerns amongst one another while shaking their heads. Trying not to draw attention over the spectacle and to hush… Hush…. HUSH!
Every year, the festivities grew. It was innocuous at first. The celebration just crept into the previous occasions, edging its way over a month ahead into traditions under the premise of spreading more joy while the family was together. Everyone seemed so grateful to gather but really needed more to do, so why not start decking the halls and go shopping? It seemed like a good enough bonding activity, and all of the sales and consumerism were supposed to keep the economy going stronger and bigger, so best go ahead and buy… Buy… BUY!
But as time passed, even that just wasn’t enough. There were simply too few fruitcakes and carolers and peppermint scented candles, too little mulled apple cider and eggnog and evergreen flourishes… There was just not enough time to watch all the movies and hear all the music and taste ALL the cookies… The white powder shimmer snow needed to glisten for longer in all of its faux finery, like magic dust to call forth the beauty and majesty of the coming season, yet to be unleashed upon the eagerly anticipatory crowds. The houses needed to be brighter; their blinking lights signaling to all that they were a part of the larger outpouring of joy… Joy… JOY!
But there was still so much room for growth; there just had to be more. So as his appetite grew larger, the jolly old soul loosened his belt buckle another notch and began to eye the next holiday over yet again, although that occasion was all about spookiness and the unexpected, considering death and decay and dread. But surely there was plenty of space for more baubles and bling and yard ornamentation… Oh sure, everything started out a little spookier, but then the overlap began to really take hold and slowly the change began. Stores morphed the two occasions together into all sorts of shopping opportunities and pumpkin spice became king. Even the eerie began to consider the solace and beauty of the coming winter season, the calm and solitude it brings. Because we all know that skeletons need peace… Peace… PEACE!
Yet, even that was not enough, and the jolly old soul began to edge his way earlier and earlier into the year. July seemed like a reachable goal, for we all know that those who like to craft things need an early enough start to get all their projects in order. Especially if they are making gifts for their parents and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces and cousins and second cousins and friends and coworkers and mailmen and garbage collectors and kids teachers and bank tellers and acquaintances and so on… And for those who don’t make things, shopping was becoming an even larger and more pressing need, starting earlier and earlier to be sure that all could disperse as many presents of trinkets or baked goods or money as possible, to shower upon all of those aforementioned, in order to show their goodwill… Goodwill… GOODWILL!
And now the jolly old soul’s minions are everywhere, making sure that everything is running smoothly. Keeping watch over all, whether they are being particularly nice or naughty at any given time, whether they remember to leave out extra milk and cookies, to deck the halls, to trim the trees… Earlier and earlier they come, bells jingling, reindeer hooves click-clacking over the rooftops… With rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, smiling wider and wider… Bearing mistletoe and poinsettias and gingerbread houses and cinnamon spiced nuts and visions of sugarplums and hot cocoa with marshmallows and Charles Dickens and chestnuts roasting over open fires and brightly colored ribbon tied up in bows and paper-wrapped packages and huge feasts with all the trimmings and music and blinking lights and shiny round baubles and plastic icicles and glitter and sparkle and merriment and more… More… MORE!
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Well, that’s not quite right…
Yeah more of the same…
And as you can see this is starting to devolve quickly. Join us again next week to see how this continued to develop… And if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
So we’re going out on a limb here in this segment of Nightmarish Nature and exploring one of the most terrifying, most dangerous, most impactful species to walk this planet. I’m talking about us of course. Sure, as humans, we may not seem all that horrific to ourselves, but to many other creatures we have been a force of nightmares.
Why are we terrifying?
Humans are among those species that engage in massive modifications to our environment to serve our needs, like beavers who dam rivers, elephants who eat all of the new growth scrub to keep the savannahs tree-free, and so on. Yeah, all creatures have some impact on their surroundings, but some take it up a notch, and we do so at an order of magnitude higher still. And we have gotten so good at it that we have managed to exist and thrive in places that would otherwise be inhospitable. We are outwardly adaptive and opportunistic to the point of being exploitative. We are the apex predators now.
We have forced many creatures into extinction, intentionally and not, and have sped up these effects enormously. The National Audobon Society chose the egret as its symbol after it made a comeback from being hunted to near extinction, and it was one of the lucky ones. Many weren’t so lucky, especially if they came in direct conflict with humans, such as wolves and the big cats who were in direct competition, or those who were really specialized in really specific niche circumstances that we pushed out of the way. And this is in only a very very limited scope of our earth’s history, and has since been even more ramped up with industrialization.
But humans aren’t all bad are we?
Depends on who you ask… We have created all sorts of incredible opportunities for some species too. Take mice for example. And coyotes. And kudzu. And a whole host of animals whom we’ve domesticated, some of whom wouldn’t have continued to exist otherwise or certainly wouldn’t exist in anything resembling their current forms. And the most massive extinctions occurred long before our arrival, when the earth was still forming and underwent rapid catastrophic changes and swings, decimating critters as they were trying to get a foothold. Nothing is constant except for change; that has always been true.
So it isn’t my goal to get all eco-conscious and environmentalist here. Just that I feel if we are going to explore some of the more terrifying aspects of nature, we need to look in the mirror. Because if a consensus were taken right here, right now of all living beings globally as to what is among the most terrifying creatures among us, I’m sure we’d appear on that list.
If you enjoyed this closer-than-kissing-cousins segment of Nightmarish Nature on Horrifying Humans, please check out past segments:
