Christmas

So This Is Christmas.. Already?

If you’ve read the other posts about how I don’t feel that Christmas can start until I hear John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over), you will understand this post just a bit better.  If you haven’t read them, go find them and come back here.  I’ll wait…

(Hums Jeopardy theme song)

Back now? Good.  So for some reason, my Spotify playlist just played the song.  So I guess Christmas 2018 can now start? We just got the decorations down! At least it gives me an excuse to start the Christmas shopping early. And with the Central Florida Highland Games (Albannach & Rathkeltair providing the music, and another visit to And Sarah Smiled for more Celtic pottery) this weekend, we’ll have the chance to pick up some early presents!

So Happy Holidays, I guess??

Peace,
B

Gynger Makes Her Debut

It seems our little Elf had a bit of mischief just before she left us on Christmas Eve. We kept these pictures from the girls.  Maybe when they’re old enough, we’ll show them.

 

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I thought Elves drank maple syrup? Don’t think she knew that that’s a jar of ‘shine from North Carolina. The apples and cinnamon stick must have confused her. And on our ancestor altar too!

The liquor really got her into the mood..

 

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She tried a little “pole dancing”. She said it was “for exercise”, but I fail to understand what taking the skirt off had to do with exercise.

 

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And, as usual, She ended up “praying to the porcelain god”. Happens to the best of us!

 

 

Ginger The Elf – The Last Week

This is our last week with Ginger. She will return home to the North Pole (a.k.a The Shed) on Sunday the 24th.  I hope she gets a good employee evaluation from the Head Elf, or Santa or whoever.

Here’s what she’s been up to this week;

 

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Quite the engineer she is!

 

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I guess this is a game of “tag”? The Gingerbread man got caught.

 

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Let it snow baby!

 

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Just how many pieces of bubblegum did it take to get a bubble that big?

 

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It’s a nice thought to welcome the girls back (how did she know they would be with us a day early?), but those post-its ain’t cheap!

In case you can’t read her note it says “I brought you a snowman from the North Pole”. But this is Florida and it melted. Silly elf!

 

Caught her with some popcorn watching “Christmas Vacation”. At least she has good taste in Christmas movies.

 

 

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On her last day, she tried to make breakfast for the girls. She needed a little help. The note says, “I brought you breakfast. Daddy needs cooking, can you help?”.  I did the bacon, daddy did the chocolate chip pancakes. 

So Ginger goes off to the North Pole until next year. We hope she didn’t do anything to get into trouble with Santa so she comes back next year. We’d hate to have to train another Elf all over again!

 

Peace,
B

Winter? I Call Shenangians…

Here we are, just two days until the official beginning of “winter”. And it’s 80 freaking degrees. I know this is Floriduh, but this is the time of year we should be sleeping with the windows open enjoying the relative cool breezes. Instead, I have my AC cranked down to “morgue” setting and I still have sweat dripping off my body parts that you don’t want to hear about.

No climate change?  Sorry, but I call bullshit. There is less Arctic Ice this year than any year since Arctic Ice has been measured. In school, I was always taught that we were headed towards another Ice Age. More like a flood of “Biblical” proportions (and no I don’t believe the story of the ark is a true story, just another legend in a collection of legends). But it interesting that most ancient cultures have a flood story of some kind.

But! We “just may have” a Christmas Day cool down into the 60’s! May need to break out the parkas and gloves. Of course, this is only a “maybe”. I should have gone into meteorology, it’s got to be the only profession where you can be wrong 90% of the time and keep your job.

Growing up in Miami it was quite common to get bicycles, skates, water skis and other “summer” type of gifts for Christmas. Miami lies in a subtropical region (the line is right around Vero Beach on the East and Bradenton on the west. Daytona is about 4 hours north of there and not in a “subtropic” zone, merely a “tropical” zone. More here.

“Hazy Shade Of Winter” indeed…

Peace,
B

Tuesday Morning Blues

Tried to get Rashi, the cat to cover for me at work today as I have virtually nothing to do (Christmas holiday means damn near everyone is off). But as you can see, she was already into the catnip and was in no shape to do anything…

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I’m just a bit jealous..

“They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad…”

Peace,
B

Ginger The Elf, Week 2

This is Ginger, our apprentice Elf’s second week with us. Let’s see what she’s been up to over the week.

 

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Saturday found her hiding out in our Celtic water pitcher.

 

 

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Sunday she decided to make snowflakes with Q-tips. Those things cost money ya know! 

 

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She put on a fashion show, first the red skirt.

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Then the blue skirt. All on the top of the cat condo. A “catwalk”?

 

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Getting a little aerobatic! Ask Wifey about the “Legend Of The Trapeze”!

 

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Snow angels!  In Florida??? Our “snow” comes in little gram baggies. But what would I know about that?

 

 

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Looks like she got into the chocolate. That will not help her keep her elfish figure!

Nothing like a nice refreshing mini-marshmellow bubble bath.

Looks to me like she was trying to put candy canes on the tree and something happened. Looks like an Elf slide for life now.

Be sure and check back next week to see what this crazy little Elf is up to! 

Peace, 

B
 

 

 

Christmas Movies

Since I STILL haven’t heard John Lennon’s “So This Is Christmas”, I thought I’d do a post about Christmas Movies.  I’m not talking the made for TV crap that Lifetime and Hallmark channels play. You could cut whole scenes out of those movies, switch them with scenes from another movie and other than there being different actors, you wouldn’t notice the damn difference.

So I checked out several sites that have rankings of Christmas movies to see who ranks which movies versus other lists.

I looked at Rotten Tomatoes, Thrillist, and Buzzfeed simply because they were the first three in my Google search (links above go to the lists I used).  What I basically learned from these sites is that I have not seen damn near any of this movies.

Let’s start with some of the classics;

White Christmas; #25 on Rotten Tomatoes, #33 on Thrillist and not listed on Buzzfeed.  I have only seen snippets of this movie.  Usually when Wifey® elbows me to stop snoring and I wake up just enough to see that it’s still on before rolling over and going back to sleep.

Elf; #19 on Rotten Tomatoes, #6 on Thrillist, and #12 on Buzzfeed. I have never seen this movie nor do I intend on ever watching this movie. For whatever reason, I just have an aversion to Will Ferrell.  Nothing personal, just don’t care for the man.

A Christmas Story; #9 on Rotten Tomatoes, #2 on Thrillist and #6 on Buzzfeed. Again, never watched it. I can’t really give a reason why not. It just doesn’t appeal to me.

Miracle on 34th Street; #2 on Rotten Tomatoes, #3 on Thrillist, and not listed on Buzzfeed.  Nope. Not interested at all.

It’s A Wonderful Life; #1 on all three sites. It’s a bit strange that I’ve never seen this one. If I understand the plot (and please correct me if I’m wrong), the main character (Jimmy Stewart?) wishes that he had never been born.  Someone (Santa maybe?) grants this wish and he gets a glimpse of what his loved ones/town/I don’t know, would have lived without him. Since my bipolar depression leads me into those kinds of thoughts on a semi-regular basis, maybe I could learn something from this movie. But that damn phrase “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets her wings”, is enough to keep me away. That did come from this movie right? Or am I confusing it with 34th Street??

So now, some of the movies that are listed as Christmas movies for reasons I don’t understand.  No rankings on these.

Die Hard; Just because this movie takes place during a company Christmas party doesn’t mean it’s a Christmas movie. Last time I looked, Christmas is (for some – not all) about the birth of the “Christ Child”. I don’t see how blowing shit up and automatic gunfire qualifies. I have seen this movie, it was during my Army years, and then I enjoyed it. Now, not so much. I’ve grown way to pacifist for this level of violence.

Trading Places; Again, just because the storyline takes place during the holidays doesn’t make it a Christmas movie. Maybe it’s the greed versus the people on the margins of society that qualify it, I don’t know.  But I have seen this one and I did enjoy it. I enjoy both Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy.

Batman Returns; Seriously? A Christmas movie? SMDH… (But did enjoy the movie).

Now let’s talk about some Christmas movies I have seen.

Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer; My favorite character is Lemny the Elf who wants to be a dentist. A good study in breaking out of a class structure.

A Charlie Brown Christmas; One of my all-time favorites. Even with Linus’ soliloquy of Luke (a direct quote too). An interesting fact is that the network pressured Charles Schulz to take the bible quote out. He refused, and it’s still there to this day. It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is also a classic holiday treat.

The Nightmare Before Christmas; A Tim Burton masterpiece!  Absolutely love this one as it spans two holidays. And the animation is just so cool.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas; The original animation from 1967. I have not seen the live action mainly because I don’t want to compare it to this one. This has become my favorite Christmas cartoon.

And my All-Time-Favorite Christmas movie is (drumroll please); National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. How did you not see that one coming? Without a doubt, this movie cracks me up no matter what time of year. The script is amazing, the acting is beyond belief.  I have an Army buddy that’s nicknamed “Sparky” in tribute to Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold. But all in all, my favorite character of all the Vacation movies is Cousin Eddie. He reminds me of a sudden depressive episode that comes with the bipolar. He shows up at the worst possible time, he turns the situation upside down, and you just can’t get rid of him.

An honorable mention goes to Christmas With The Kranks.  Wifey® got me to watch it just last year. And while not quite up there with Christmas Vacation, it was still quite enjoyable. And I will admit I will watch Jamie Lee Curtis read the phone book.  I’ve always enjoyed her work.

So there’s my list. I’m sure I’ve left off your favorite movie, or maybe you disagree my views. It’s all cool!  Leave me a comment below and let me know! (And don’t text me bro!)

Peace,
B

Ginger the Elf

The girls convinced Wifey® to buy them an “Elf On A Shelf” this year. They named this one Ginger. Luckily the box said that this elf was a girl because the only difference I could see between the “boy” elf and the “girl” elf is that this one has painted on earrings. And we all know that earrings are not a gender identifier anymore.  So thank you whoever designed the boxes.

Since we only have the girls at our house on weekends, we figured Santa sent us an “apprentice elf”.  This is just a training mission, with light weekend duty only. So it’s only natural that poor Ginger gets bored during the week.

Although she hasn’t done anything inappropriate, we have found her in some unusual places in the mornings.

 

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Ice fishing for goldfish. Seems she caught one too!

 

 

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Having a tea party (with the girls best tea set) and two other elves.

 

 

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Toy shopping in a catalog. Not sure who the gifts are for though…

 

 

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Touching up a foot painting of the youngest granddaughter.

 

 

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Watching the Charlie Brown Christmas play. If you look closely you can see she’s petting a catnip mouse!

 

We can only imagine what she’ll be up to next!

Peace,
B

So This Is Christmas… (part 2)

So in a galaxy far, far away I used to be a Worship Leader in a non-denominational church (Yes, it’s true. I have pictures and everything).  I had played in several worship bands for years. But that was another life.

However, during that time I found and really enjoyed the music of an Alt/Punk/Emo Christian band, Relient K. And if you’re old enough, you know the car they’re named after.   They released a Christmas album “Let It Snow… Let It Reindeer”.

Here are two great cuts from the album (that’s before CDs kiddies);

First is “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”.

Second up is “The 12 Days Of Christmas”

I tried so hard to get my worship team to play these. You should have seen the dumbstruck look on their faces.  Made me laugh, especially my 16-year-old lead guitarist.

And for classic “Christmas Music” I just had to pick a song that doesn’t mention the holiday at all, but as soon as you hear it, you know it’s Christmastime. Here is “Lucy and Linus” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” performed by The Vince Guaraldi Trio.  Naturally, this is the dance version.  I absolutely love this show. It never fails to bring a smile to my face.

And you can’t do “A Charlie Brown Christmas” without Linus’ soliloquy.  From Luke 2:8-14. (Even though I don’t believe this is a true story, it is beautiful poetry. After all, that’s pretty much what the entire bible is, poetry.

Do you have any other non-traditional Christmas music to add? Or do you think, as I tend to, that it’s all rubbish?  Leave me a comment with your thoughts, please. (And don’t text me, brother o’mine).

P.S. Son, the younger® and I walked around Wal-Mart last night (shudder), and I didn’t hear “So This Is Christmas”. So I’m still waiting.

Peace,
B