The Monarch's Guide to Reinventing Yourself for the Holidays

Year in and out, the kings and queens of the world face the same old holiday blues. They are so busy being king and queen that they become a bit complacent about working on their inner royalty. This lack of "keeping it real" sometimes gets them into big problems with their subjects. A feeling of distance is created. They seem unapproachable. They appear greedy and unsympathetic. And they wind up saying dumb things like, "Let them eat cake!"

So as Thanksgiving and Christmas--holidays of giving--roll in, those who wear crowns might take note of the story of the King Who Loved His Bling-Bling. All this King cared about was what he could wear in his ear or around his neck. He was the King of Bling and everybody knew it. And when he wanted more Bling-Bling, he just raised taxes. New diamond earrings? Raise those taxes. New ruby studded necklace? Raise those taxes again. Before he knew it, the King had raised taxes so many times that his royal subjects didn't have any more to give. And not having anything to give is really not a great state to be in just before Thanksgiving Christmas.

The people grew very unhappy. The King notice that the people blamed him for their dire straits because they would protest outside the castle with signs that said, "King of Bling Sucks." Thus, the King realized he needed to do something about his people problem. It wasn't that he really cared about them so much as he cared that he might never get to buy any more Bling-Bling.

King Bling called a meeting of his trusted advisors: Sir Thomas, Sir Dick, and Sir Harry. He explained that he needed to do something quick to make the people like him again (because he had his eye on a emerald nose ring that he just had to have). He figured if the people liked him again, he could slip in a tax or two and fill up the Bling coffers. So the advisors put their heads together to figure out a way to make King Bling more popular.

The next morning Sir Harry and his co-workers presented the king with a plan. It was time to show his countrymen his warm, human side. But the King was stymied. As far as he could remember he did not have a warm, human side. Sir Harry explained that all the king had to do was show his subjects people how much he loved dogs and Halloween. This was a sure-fire way to get the "Oh, he's a nice guy after all" vote. The king liked the idea except for two things: He hated dogs and he was deathly afraid of anything that was black and orange. Then Sir Thomas piped up that they could probably skip the Halloween thing so long as the king could muster up a little faux dog petting. Perhaps a monthly "set the pound dogs free" day with a portrait-op (they didn't have photo-op's yet) would do the trick? The king got on board with the idea considering it might get him some new Bling.

The next day it was announced that the king was freeing all the dogs in the Royal Dog Pound. People poured out on the streets to watch this historic event. And sure enough, as the people stopped their holiday baking to watch, the king let all the dogs loose. It was a touching moment. That is until the dogs ran wild and stampeded the people's houses, attacking their holiday turkeys and pretty much dirtied every couch and bed sheet with paw tracks.

Back to the drawing board. This time the king's advisor's suggested he do the Don Quixote thing and get the attention of his subjects by slaying a fire-breathing dragon. The king liked the idea, but again had some issues. First things first, he had skipped Slaying School during his Prince days and didn't have a clue about proper sword wielding. And secondly, the kingdom didn't have a fire-breathing dragon.

The advisors chimed in that neither of this issues would be a problem. The slaying would be set up by a local B movie stunt coordinator and the dragon would actually be a big balloon like the kind they used in the Royal Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The appointed dragon-slaying day was planned out and came to pass some two days later. On that day, the town was alerted to the "dragon problem" and rushed out of their Christmas decorated houses to see the kind do battle with the beast. Unfortunately the king forgot his speech and while looking for his notes tripped over the balloon's cord causing it to deflate. The townspeople realized it was a fraud and now hated the king more than ever.

The advisors met one last time (if they goofed this time it was their heads, really). What the king needed was to show his subjects he had the golden touch. That everything he laid his hands on would turn to gold. The king loved the idea... except he had no clue how he would suddenly make everything gold. The advisors said the concept could be summed up in three words: cheap gold paint.

So the king grabbed the spray can on the appointed day and turned everything into gold. He changed hats. He changed bushes. He even changed rocks. By the end of the day EVERYTHING was gold. There was just one problem: since everybody had more make-believe gold than he or she could used, gold began to lose its value. Soon it took a wheelbarrow of gold just to by one pair of tube socks. The country was forced to go off the gold standard. In its place, the country had turned to potatoes. And everyone of the angry townsfolk had potatoes (they lived near Ireland). That is, everyone but the kind. With nothing but his Bling-Bling (which was mostly gold), the king became the poorest man in the kingdom.

And so the moral of the story is that Royals need to connect with their subjects or possible be dealt a worse fate than King Bling. Of course, the other moral is that one should always have a stash of potatoes just in case.

 

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