The Christmas Worm: An Enquiry

Recently, a tube of stretchy bandage-like fabric made its way into my life. Really no other way to describe it: it is a big long stretchy tube of bandage-like fabric that you can wear over your whole body. Either you are nodding in recognition or you have no idea what I am talking about, but I am going to proceed on the assumption that most of us, at some point, have come into at least brief contact with a tube of stretchy bandage-like fabric that seems too big to be a bandage for any one specific body part. This is certainly not my first time at the overly large stretchy tube bandage rodeo—over the years I have seen them at the houses of sporty people, or in the shops, and I have thought: Hm. Why does it need to be in a tube like that? What medical or athletic purpose can it serve for the bandage to be in a huge tube like that? Why is the tube so long, in addition, as long as a slightly tall man? There is a very obvious answer to this I am sure, and the athletes among you are scoffing and rolling your eyes, but I have a naturally enquiring mind and find it interesting that you can buy a bandage that you can squeeze your whole body into quite easily and just stand there.

My boyfriend brought it home because he wanted to use it in a shoot, although I have not yet got to the bottom of what he was planning to do with it. Maybe he just saw it in the shops and thought: Hm. Now THERE’S an interesting kind of bandage. I will not speak for him here. What is important, going forward, is that he showed me the bandage and we talked about what we could maybe do with it in the future, and then, and then, he said, “Maybe you could use it to dress up like a worm for Christmas.”

Maybe You Could Use It to Dress Up Like a Worm for Christmas.

MAYBE YOU COULD USE IT TO DRESS UP LIKE A WORM FOR CHRISTMAS.

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It’s necessary to establish here that we have never once had a conversation about the idea of “needing to dress up, costume-wise, like a worm or anything else for Christmas” and that I am not at all sure that the idea exists on this earthly plane. We have also never once had a conversation about whether either of us might want to dress up like a worm, nor have we ever spoken about the putative connection between worms and Christmas. I was obviously taken with the idea, though, and did some research, and I present you with the findings:

1. First of all, it appears that my boyfriend is under the impression that there was a character on South African children’s television called “The Christmas Worm.” There was this kids’ programming slot called Tube, and it had a little girl called Codi and a little alien called Dub and, according to J., a little Christmas worm called “The Christmas Worm,” which only appeared around the festive season. I hope it goes without saying that I don’t know what a Christmas worm is. Also, I hope it goes without saying that there is no evidence to suggest that any such television character ever existed. Why or how would someone have this as a memory? THE CHRISTMAS WORM. I am haunted.
2. If you want to dress up as a worm for Christmas now, but you want to extend your range a bit, you are welcome to this list: “For the purpose of this list, ‘worm’ does not simply refer to earthworms, but also to mythological and fantastic creatures whose description as a ‘worm’ descends from the Old English word wyrm, a poetic term for a legless serpent or dragon. For a comprehensive account of worms in fiction, please see [the Wikipedia entry for] “Fictional depictions of worms.” Well, go ahead.
3. Worms make me feel sick, and so I can’t read about any of this for too long, but of course, there is no mention of so-called Christmas worms on any of these lists. Instead we have “The Worm of Sockburn,” “The Mongolian Death Worm,” and “The Lambton Worm.” Disgusting. Scary. Perhaps unsurprisingly, science fiction and fantasy are both very big on worms. It occurs to me that maybe the reason I have never been able to read either science fiction or fantasy is because of the threat that I might have to read about worms at some point, but to go into this is to move away from the central enigma of the Christmas Worm.
4. As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as a Christmas worm, but if you or your loved ones have a different take on this question, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Christmas is next week, did you know? Next week! We will be traveling from one end of the country to another in order to eat Christmas food with our respective families, and it will be lovely, but also busy and generally distracting, and the question of the Christmas worm will fall by the wayside. Maybe next year.

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