Every holiday needs a Santa Claus. This is one of the primary rules of holidays. Christmas of course has the tried and true Kris Kringle, the trendsetting jollyman. Easter has the easter bunny, the fourth of july has uncle sam, valentines day has cupid, passover has Bernie Sanders, you get the picture. Until now, this lack of a mascot has been the main argument pushed by those who don’t believe 4/20 to be a “real holiday.” But no longer. I am writing today to tell you all the tale of the Santa Claus of 4/20: George Weed.
It feels like a lifetime ago (spring 2019). It was the eve of the hallowed hemp day, and I was feeling that potent holiday mixture of excitement and nerves for my first UVM 4/20. I had just smoked a small joint with a few friends, and we were now in The Grundle. You could view this as a sort of “opening one present the night before Christmas” tradition, but really it was the only way to trick my body into holding down any of that questionably sweet marinara. We were chatting, forcing down food, doing the usual grundle stuff, when we were approached by another friend accompanied by a stranger none of us knew. This unidentified grundler was a friend from home of our friend, visiting for the weekend and thinking about attending UVM the next year. We were introduced, and I learned his name: George Weed.
stuck inwellness
After perhaps a bit of chiding about his name, which I still can’t fully believe is real, I realized that George was a pretty cool guy. If Christian holidays are represented by fantasy characters that invade your home while you’re asleep, it seems fitting that 4/20’s mascot is just a chill regular dude. We discussed our plans for the big holiday, which included smoking at both 4:20s, a.m. and p.m. George promised to wake up and take on this honorable task with us, as you would expect any good 4/20 mascot to do. We departed the grundle and did something else for the rest of the night I don’t remember what though I honestly couldn’t tell you if I tried. Eventually everyone went to sleep, nice and early in order to be fully rested for our breakfast tokage. The 3:55, 4:00, and 4:05 alarms came and went, I rose from my slumber, met people in the hallway, and started our trek to the redstone forest. At 4:19 everyone was there and ready to go, everyone, that is, except: George Weed.
I don’t hold it against him though. I know that the real reason he was at UVM that day was to visit all the good girls and boys who left out milk and girl scout cookies for him and fill their dreams with visions of illadelphs and dab rigs. I would’ve been honored to have the Santa Claus of 4/20 join our blunt rotation, but by the time I was unprecedentedly high in Simpson for breakfast a few hours later I was far too concerned with walking across the dining hall the way normal humans walk to remember his snub. Remember everyone, if ever a stoner should find themselves in need, they should just close their eyes, and pray to George Weed.
Categories: April 20th 2021, around town, michael haydon