Home For the Holidays - Mining Moments

 The holidays seem vast and brief at the same time. I always feel a little tinge of something when I'm putting away Christmas decorations.

I open a box to put something back and find an item I tucked away in November when I took everything else out. And it hits me that the time has passed quickly, as all time does. It immediately feels as if it was long ago the boxes were put back in storage and as if it was seconds.

I had a nice holiday season with my wife Christine, and it did stretch a bit in spite of the flash feeling. I watched a lot of movies, of course. We're working to stay safe and sane.

Happiest Season on Hulu caught my interest early on because it was not just another Christmas movie. It's LGBT-themed and semi-autobiographical for writer-director Clea DuVall, and I thought it was fun and equally poignant in its exploration of people finding their true selves while coping with family pressures.

Christine and I watched and liked The Queen's Gambit together,  at the same time everyone was. "You always have liked smart girls," Christine reminded me. 

I got on a Bond kick later in the season. Friends were rewatching and a common podcast led to several concurrent purchases of the Nobody Does it Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond. 

Several Christmases ago, a lot of Christmases actually, I got boxed sets of the films up through the Pierce Brosnans. (Later, as they came out, I got Blu-Rays of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.) During the holiday break that first year of ownership, I rewatched most of the flicks starting with Dr. No and enjoyed the disc extras with each.

That was long enough ago, the new viewing experience was fresh.  

Doing that again was a different but fun experience, and afforded a bit of "where was I when" thinking. The first ever Bond on my radar was On Her Majesty's Secret Service. 

My mom got her hair done in a hair salon across from the theater in the little town where I grew up. One of the younger stylists mentioned the film and that a new star was taking over. I remember looking out the window at the poster of George Lazenby on skis. Didn't  actually see a Bond other than the David Niven Casino Royale until Man With the Golden Gun, though I recall ads for Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die. I can't recall ads for You Only Lives Twice, but it open roughly the same time as The Dirty Dozen, for which I saw ads on TV and in magazines. I went to see that with my dad and my uncle. My uncle feared I wouldn't sit still for a feature film, but I did, half of it on the upper edge of a theater seat because my weight didn't push the folding cushion down. 

SEE ALSO: The Red Cardigan

Back to Now
In the mix this season, I kept up with The Mandalorian though there were still a few spoilers in spite of everything. You can't watch fast enough. When I saw You-Know-Who's Instagram post of himself going Shhhh, I knew what that had to mean. Clearly, as I just noted, you gotta watch it when it drops. 

I fit in a Christmas Day showing of A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim as well, the classic 1951 rendering that holds up so well. It was a nice alternative to Bells of St. Mary's or It's A Wonderful Life, both of which I love but also have memorized.

We got enough cold in Williamsburg for it to feel like the holidays, though it deterred walking a bit too, which Christine and I enjoy.

Christine and I fit in a few walks to look at decorations in spite of the cold, and we got to see the Saturn/Jupiter alignment, though with streetlights and surprisingly busy sidewalks, we didn't get quite the view we were hoping for. Part of the time I thought it might be distant radio towers we were seeing before deciding that had to be the view. So it goes.

We adopted our new friend Zoë right before the holidays as well, so part of the time we enjoyed the journey of her feeling more and more at home. I put Band Aids on a few bites and scratches as she was getting comfortable. 

I also spent a good bit of time shaking out shoes and looking under furniture for feather-tailed toys she enjoyed but had a tendency to lose. 

Nothing profound here, just a few notes so that I'll remember later, because with my friend Lee's death, I've realized how much days can blur together and how hard it can be to mine moments from memory. 

Once that wasn't as hard, but there were fewer years to look back on. Now there are more with more thoughts crowding the attic.

One of My Favorite Holiday Train Ads

 

I like train travel and had started doing more of it right before the pandemic hit. When Christine and I were moving from Orlando to Williamsburg, we did a couple of car train rides. It was the easiest way to get two really packed automobiles from point A to point B.

SEE ALSO: A Vintage Ad That Looks About Right for Coronavirus Times

Train ads capture the flavor of a different era, and the New York Central Railroad did some of the best, part of its competition with rival Pennsylvania Railroad. The two would later merge as train travel waned. 

The Red Cardigan

I was slipping on my red cardigan this week, and I realized how long I've owned it, and how long things last even as time marches on.

I also realized that Christmas in my adult life has become a series of fragments and impressions, of moments that come back to me in no particular order.

I had the sweater when Christine and I were only recently married. I wore it to Christmas lunch with my folks, and I wore it later when Christine and I went for a walk in the (thankfully) cold Louisiana air at our apartment complex. Best guess '91.

I had the sweater the year the highway to my parents house was being resurfaced. You had to take a detour, and it was like going through war-torn territory. A few days before Christmas I drove out anyway and visited around lunchtime. The Bold and the Beautiful was on, and my mom's old Christmas tree glistened beside shots of Brooke walking in the snow. Best guess, '94.

I had the sweater when I worked as a librarian and got low pay but abundant time off. I took several days of leave ahead of Christmas, burned logs in our fireplace, read and relaxed in my sweater. Best guess '98.

I had the sweater after we moved four-hours from my folks. I remember driving home around Thanksgiving then returning on the weekend. Best guess '01.

I had the sweater a little later, the Christmas of the year my old man died. He went into the hospital in late August. As we got him settled in a room, the nurse strangely said, "In four months, it'll be Christmas." My old man didn't make it quite that long. For sure, '03. I'd bought him a series of big band CDs the previous Christmas, the music of his youth. I'd wondered then if it might be his last as his house was filled with Benny Goodman. '02

I had the sweater after my mom was in a nursing home. We went to see her Christmas Day that year and hung out with her in her room even though she wasn't quite sure it was Christmas, but she held up the stuffed animal she'd acquired and smiled. Best guess, '05.

I've had it for Christmas dinners Christine and I have prepared. And for trimming the tree and holiday outings and for Christmas walks we still take if the weather allows.

It's a simple cardigan. Plain, a single color, but it holds a mosaic of memories.

Happy holidays, my friends. 

Doctor Who Christmas Wallpaper 2011

Happily, the Doctor Who Christmas Special, "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe" will be airing in the U.S. on BBC America on Christmas Day, as it's supposed to.

Since a lot of people drop by in search of Doctor Who wallpaper, I thought I'd do an updated link for the new special. Wallpaper including a great wintry shot of Matt Smith holding a sonic screwdriver can be found here.

A prequel to this year's special has just gone online also. Happy Who Holidays!

Holiday Blog Tour: Credible Threat - A Christmas Story

Listen to Blog Tour participants on KPFT radio, Houston, MP3 starting around 31:30

Welcome to my dark little stop on the Holiday Blog Tour.

I love the holiday season and all its trappings, so I was happy to receive the invitation to participate from Icess Fernandez of Writing to Insanity.

As soon as she contacted me, I knew I wanted to offer up a story as a holiday gift.

It's a little grim, though not horror. It's also slightly longer than flash I sometimes post here, so I thought I'd provide it in a format ready for easy digital reading.

Jump to the story on ScribID now.

Or read on to get an idea of what it's about and how it came to be, then jump over to the tale via the button below.

The Back Story

My wife and I vacationed in New York City several weeks back, and the idea for the tale sprang to me as we began our journey home. I sat in the waiting area at my gate, knowing I had a story to write for this blog tour. I began flipping through the battered idea notebook I've carried for many years.

What if it fell into the wrong hands and was read out of context? How would it be interpreted in this paranoid age?

The tale that developed is representative of a kind of dark-humored short fiction I'm writing and beginning to submit in these days of my post-MFA writing life.  It has  reverberations of my early horror writing while going in a slightly new direction.

It's where the muse is pushing me at the moment, and perhaps there'll be a collection of these twisted tales including the one that's in, shameless plug, Soul's Road. A few of the pieces in the collection of my early stories, Scars and Candy, hint at the style, though they're more visceral.

Click below to read "Credible Threat: A Christmas Story," and see if you like it.

And be sure to continue the blog tour tomorrow with a visit to Toni Margarita Plummer, author of The Bolero of Andi Rowe. See all the stops on the tour here.

• E-pub
• Kindle

Credible Threat

Credible Threat by Sidney Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at sidneywilliams.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sidisalive.com.

Biblioholic's Bookshelf Black Friday Edition: 12 Frights of Christmas - Holiday Horror

I break this book out every other Christmas season or so to re-read a few tales. It includes a real chiller by Robert Bloch plus stories from H.G. Wells, Ramsey Campbell and H.P. Lovecraft in addition to the intro by Isaac Asimov.

Mine's an ex-library edition, so it's tattered a bit, but still very readable. 

Apparently a 13 Horrors of Halloween anthology exists also, but I've unfortunately never run cross that one. Need to look for it.

More on the Holiday Blog Tour - The Details

As mentioned earlier, the holiday blog tour organized by my friend Icess Fernandez Rojas  of Writing to Insanity is approaching. 

Icess is a writer and journalist living in Louisiana, where I'm from. So of course, we met in Washington state. Both of us journeyed to Washington to pursue MFA's. You'll find many of our friends and classmates from Goddard College reflected on the tour as well, though that's not all. 

I've been working on a 10-minute play and my story for the holiday tour during my writing time of late, so I haven't had a great deal of time to post here, but let me share the listing of bloggers on the tour for now. 

Hopefully I'll be back with pithy or profound musings before my holiday post, but in the meantime, browse the blogs below in anticipation of the holidays. 

Visit now:

Dec. 1 Julia Amante

Dec. 2 Valerie R.

Dec. 3 Radames Ortiz

Dec. 4 Deborah Grace Staley

Dec. 5 TBA

Dec. 6.Danielle Klenak 

Dec. 7 Lupe Mendez

Dec. 8 Natasha Oliver

Dec. 9 Maria Ferrer

Dec. 10 Sidney Williams

Dec. 11 Toni Plummer

Dec. 12 Mayra Calvani

Dec. 13 Kristy Harding

Dec. 14 Thelma Reyna

Dec. 15.Sylvia Mendoza

Dec. 16 Regina Tingle

Dec. 17 Teresa Dovalpage

Dec. 18 Mirta Espinola

Dec. 19 Kim Brown

Dec. 20 Gwen Jerris

Dec. 21 Paula Altschuler

Dec. 22 Caridad Pinero

Dec. 23 Teresa Carbajal Revet

Dec. 24 Icess Fernandez Rojas

Holiday Blog Extravaganza Coming Soon

One of my friends has organized a blog event for the holiday season. It will include quite a mixture of participants.

As my contribution, I'm at work on a short story about the holiday travel season, with a few dark turns of course.  It hovers between flash and short fiction, so I'm thinking of offering the whole piece as a ScribID download or something like that, making it a holiday gift.

I'll post details and blogs that will be involved soon.

The Christmas Meme

Got this on Facebook from a buddy of mine from way back. OK, way, way back, but I thought I'd bring it over here since these things are essentially blog posts and the blog allows for a little enhancement.

The original argument:

Here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy this entire note and paste as a new note on your Facebook page blog. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then tag this note to a bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you...'Tis the Season to be NICE! OK, if you're reading this, feel free to cut and paste for your own blog.

My answers:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?

Gift bags when I can make them work, wrapping paper as a last resort.

2. Real tree or Artificial?

It’s been artificial for a few years, but we have opened negotiations on a real tree for next year.

3. When do you put up the tree?

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. This year we were a little early.

4. When do you take the tree down?

Pretty quickly after the New Year, coinciding with the post-Christmas letdown they always discussed in "Peanuts."

5. Do you like eggnogg?

Yeah, but I may pass this year. We always wind up with a little left over in the carton.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

Bonanza action figures – Ben, Hoss and Little Joe

7. Hardest person to buy for?

I do all right with everyone. The key is just not to put too much thought into the items you pick up from those novelty racks in big department stores. Unless someone I buy for is reading this. In which case, I put thought into your gift, just not the other gifts.

8. Easiest person to buy for?

My wife gives me a list, calculated to stay within budget, shipping excluded, though.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?

One that’s been in my family for ages. The paint’s worn off the figures, but I like it. OK, truth to tell it's put up so that it won't have cats rampaging through it like Godzilla through Tokyo.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?

I’m going to go with e-mail this year, though a Christmas letter was planned.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?

Let’s see which ticked me off more, the McDonald’s ornament I got as a gift at the office once, or the 59 cent compass I got in fifth grade.

12. Favorite Christmas Movies?

It's probably passé now, but it's "A Christmas Story.” I was flipping channels the first year that was on cable, encountered the “triple-dog-dare” scene and have been hooked on Jean Shepherd ever since.

I love "It's A Wonderful Life" too. Come on, what are you heartless? It's great.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?

I had better get started, hadn't I?

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?

Not that anyone can prove without investigation and affidavits.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

Either the duck or cornbread dressing. Tough to say.

16. Color of Lights on the tree?

Multi-colored enamel-coated C-7s. We’ve learned through experimentation this Christmas that four strands is what a single outlet can support.

17. Favorite Christmas song? This year, “Elf’s Lament” by BNL.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?

We work our way back from relatives’ homes to celebrate at our house.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?

Let’s see there’s Donner, Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Siegfried? ah, I know how to look it up if I need to.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?

It’s an angel, kind of stylized glass with wings.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?

Well, some things have to be charged up or assembled on Christmas Eve so they’re ready for Christmas Day but generally it’s Christmas morning, a deviation from my childhood tradition. We opened family gifts on Christmas Eve. Santa's gifts were available upon waking Christmas Day unless they required assembly by my cousin who arrived around 11.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?

I'm sure there's something about traffic and crowded stores, but I'm OK at the moment.

23. Favorite ornament, theme, or color?

My parachuting teddy bear ornament. It’s a parachuting teddy bear, need I say more?

24. Favorite for Christmas Eve Dinner?

I don't have an official position on this.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?

An iPhone 3Gs

26. What is your wish for Christmas?

I’ll defer to the Goo Goo Dolls: “Better Days.”

Ding Dong Merrily

I usually wait until after Thanksgiving to kick off my personal holiday traditions, but I began a little early this year. Thanksgiving was a little late after all.

I started playing my iPod holiday playlist in my office late last week, and for my morning cup of tea I've turned to my seasonal tea of choice, Red Zinger.

I suppose it's because I've been ready for a break for a while. I've had time for nothing but required reading since August. I've had great books to read, but there's something to be said for reading what you want.

There's something to be said as well for things like going to the movies. Christine and I went to see A Christmas Carol, not a bad flick for a holiday mood.

I also picked up Garrison Keillor's A Christmas Blizzard at the library as well. It's a slightly zany account of a Chicago millionare who finds himself by going back to his snowbound home in Looseleaf, North Dakota.

Sometime in the '90s, I guess, I realized the old Emerson, Lake and Palmer lyrics from "I Believe in Father Christmas" are true: "...the Christmas you get you deserve."

So as December creeps on, I always endeavor to make it feel like the holidays.

We started assembling our tree over the weekend, though a decision for more lights delayed the completion. Soon we'll have it in the window, and snow men and Santas are already dappling mantles and bookshelves.

It's my own personal celebration, but it works. Here's hoping it's a great season for everyone.

Happy Holidays

This photo is called "Santa Lives." I believe it's from the Library of Congress, though I found it some time ago for a PowerPoint project at Christmas-Clipart.net. 

I've always loved it because it captures the spirit of Christmas so well. It's about hope, anticipation, optimism, all things we need this year if not more than ever, certainly as much as ever.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. In the words from one of my new favorite Christmas songs, "Better Days," by the Goo Goo Dolls, "this is the night the world begins again."

What Was I Doing Then?

I was glancing at CNN the other night, and they had a clip from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The parenthetical date after the title made my head swim--1989.

Holy Moses. That was that long ago?

Not only does that put the original Vacation's release in ancient times, but that means it's nearly 20 years since I went with my buddy and his dad to see the holiday sequel.

Holiday movies are, of course, part of the season, and wedged in after shopping or holiday activities, when it's time to see a movie to avoid fist fights with the relatives.

Movies in general are often reference points, auld lang sine's in their own right, and holiday movies or holiday releases often make me think of absent friends.

Kiss Me Goodbye, I know from imdb.com, was a 1982 release. From memory, I know it was December. My college buddy Lee and I dropped in to see it at the mall cinema. Lee picked that one. Don't know why he was gung ho to see it, but it was pretty good.

It was my buddy David that I went to see the Christmas Vacation film with. He and I went to see Star Trek IV the Thanksgiving it opened also and Starman around Christmas of '84.

Rain Man was a date movie on New Year's Eve the year it opened, part of a holiday romance that lasted a while but not forever. Saw Scrooged with the same girl around Christmas the same year. Seem to remember Steve Martin's Pennies from Heaven as another holiday date movie earlier in the '80s.

I remember Jackie Brown as an outing with my then boss, Wes. Christine and I, he and his wife plus Pam Grier and Robert Forester, now wowing as an uber-villain in Heroes. Time flies.

Yep, time flies.

To absent friends.

What's on the iPod? - A Colbert Christmas

Addendum

As of a few minutes ago, the album was No. 3 on iTunes' charts, one notch above Kanye West's album. - 9:30 p.m. CST 12/3

Stephen Colbert is calling on everyone to help drive his Christmas album to the top of the iTunes charts today at 5 p.m. Eastern in "Operation Humble Kanye."

 I'd play along, but I already bought it.

I'd planned to simply watch the special, but I found myself wanting to hum along and put the Colbertnation.com Fahrenheit 451-burning Yule log on my desktop to make things feel cozy. 

The collection features some authentic tunes such as Toby Keith's right-leaning- but- easy-to-hum-to "Have I Got A Present for You" and Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding?" but much of it's composed of surprisingly good song parodies. 

They sound so authentic and familiar they could almost be modern standards or at least secondary tracks on any of a host of celebrity seasonal albums, if they, you know, weren't mildly blasphemous or seemingly suggestive as in John Legend's ode to "Nutmeg."

 

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: John Legend

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

It's not for all tastes of course, but it is a bit of a holiday blast. The culminating performance of "Peace, Love and Understanding" works well,  Feist's voice is lovely and Jon Stewart's ode to Hanukkah backed up by brush stick drumming  is, well, maybe not pitch-perfect but perfect nonethless. When Colbert decides to stick to his Catholic roots rather than convert, Stewart urges him to wish "the pontiff a Gut Yontif."

The only more ingenious lyric is Willie Nelson's Drummer Boy-esque ode to ganja that admonishes "let mankind not Bogart love."

Like I said, not for all tastes, but if you can take holiday flavor with a little tongue in cheek, it's parody as inspired as Colbert's take on pompous pundits.

As Willie's extra Wise Man might put it: "Yah, the bud was kind."

Tree Trimming

Another video diary entry. Here's how Christine and I spent part of our day. (Music is from You Tube's audio swap.) View The Directors Cut with extra scenes!

Happy Holidays!

The last of the holiday errands are run.

I just poured some Peet's holiday blend from the French press. We picked it up up in Portland for the season.

I've got the fabulous British "Idol" discovery Paul Potts' "O Holy Night" at the top of my iPod playlist, along with a cool Jill Sobule song Cliff gifted me last year, and I'm kicking back for the holiday, so a happy one to all my friends.

The goofiest holiday movie I could find was "Snowglobe" from ABC family so that's what I'll be enjoying this afternoon while Christine and I make this gelatin salad that has to set before tomorrow and somewhere in there I'll be dozing off. Good times.


Feliz Navidad Joyeux Noel Gezur Krislinjden Vesele Vanoce Shub Naya Baras Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou! Sung Tan Chuk Ha Maligayamg Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah

The Season of the Green

I got a Christmas card from an old friend who told me she's been keeping up with me by the blog. Again, you just can't measure the benefits.

"I read your post on shopping bags," she added. "It made you sound greener than Kermit."

Made me smile.

Not so green
I'm not of course. Christine--who's giving away two boxes of foam peanuts this morning in some recycling cult she's become involved in--noted that we have two cars, partly out of convenience, which means we lose any green bragging rights, right there. (Sentence amended for clarification 12/23 .)

But it was also Christine who observed a bit of a remedy to the sadness about commercialism lamented endlessly as this holiday season seeps slowly away.

Bill's journal again
We were watching Bill Moyers Journal again, y'see, the same guy who prompted me to post observations about reusablebags.com.

He had on Dr. Benjamin Barber, author of Consumed, who had a lot to say about the dangers of a debtor culture driven to 4 a.m. pre-Christmas sales at Wal-Mart.

Maybe it was the Third World
Among other interesting things about the free market and the Third World, he said capitalists must get back to being capitalists of old - taking risks and meeting human needs to earn their profits.

He cited Life Straw®, as a company that's done just that, earning a fortune selling $2 drinking filters that save Third World people from river blindness.

And consumers must be smart consumers, Dr. Barber added, spending dollars wisely:

"We are the gatekeepers for our kids and our families. We have to be tougher."

Oh no, it's the soap box
Spend a dollar on a practical product--Christine noted as we watched--with, say, a company that sells something made by a Guatemalan family business that practices fair trade.

And think twice about dropping a dime at a megastore that lures you out at 2 a.m., pays low wages, provides no health insurance for employees and drives quaint local shops out of business as it fuels a culture of greed and desires that leads to a goodwill gesture making an old lady fear for her life.

I'm not as perfect as I wannabe nor as green. I don't claim to be.

That's just the kind of green I want to be.

The Season of Joy

I've tried to imagine it from her side of the story. The cell conversation must have been something like this:

"I'm telling you, Edith, in broad daylight. I was at this intersection, I'd been over to Macy's to pick up some stocking stuffers, and I was trying to turn left and it was impossible. I kept waiting and waiting for traffic to clear but it was noon and there was a lot of traffic.

"Then I look out my window and this CARJACKER is walking up from behind me. From out of nowhere. He was the best dressed carjacker I've ever seen, too. He had on a suit and a tie and cufflinks. Can you believe it? CUFFLINKS! I don't know what he wanted with my car, but before he could get close, I gave up and made a right turn and got out of there."

Here's what really happened as I heard it.

My boss was driving our seventy-something secretary to a battery warehouse to pick up some batteries for I don't know, an erector set for her grandson or something.

They came upon this intersection where an older driver was trying to turn left. Oncoming traffic was horrendous. It is the week before Christmas, and it was the noon hour.

After a few light changes with no progress, he realized she didn't understand that she needed to inch into the intersection and take advantage of a yellow, you know get out there and make 'em wait on you.

After the number of light changes they waited through crept into double digits, and the traffic behind him started to stretch back across the horizon, my boss realized he probably needed to do something.

Since everything was at a standstill, he got of his car to walk up to the woman's driver's side window and politely tell her the tactics she needed to employ.

Taking one look at this guy who was obviously up for membership in a gang of accountants and needing to complete an initiation ritual, she decided obliviously waiting to turn left wasn't so important after all.

I guess it's really kind of sad that in the season of good will, everyone's fear is heightened. That's more dismaying than the ongoing whines about commercialism, though it's the desire for stuff created by the commercialism that drives the negative acts that fuels the mistrust.

Joy to the world.

Ahead of the Christmas Game

We've had years where we didn't get the decorations up until a few days before Christmas. This year I'm a few sleigh-lengths ahead of St. Nick.

I'm not sure why things are going better. Must just be my 'tude and the fact that The Goo Goo Dolls' "Better Days" is coming up on my play list with more frequency than Emmerson, Lake and Palmer's "I Believe in Father Christmas."

Whatever the cause, I had the tree built the weekend after Thanksgiving and we decorated it over a few early December weeknights. A few ornaments here, a few ornaments there until we were finished.

For the first time this year we've also included strings of traditional, opaque C-9s--acquired in an after Christmas clearance to replace last year's transparent C-9s. They didn't feel like the old fashioned Christmas lights that Christine remembered. From the , uh, '70s.

Shine On
We didn't have Christmas lights so much at my house. In 1959, my mom purchased one of those aluminum Christmas trees with a half-life of about 500,000 years that they're talking about in "A Charlie Brown Christmas". It was still in great shape when I came along, and she didn't give it up until about 1975. I think it still looked fine when it was snapped up in the estate sale.

You couldn't put C-9s on an aluminum tree without turning it into an electrical turbine.

But I digress. It's kind of nice to have a tree that looks like the one I used to see on The Waltons Christmas special.

I think, for this year at least, I've finally put into practice a piece of advice that I picked up a few years ago while moderating a Christmas-themed web chat with one of the psychiatrists from my company's mental health hospital. (And by moderating I mean, typing his answers.)

Make your own kind of Christmas
Create your own Christmas traditions, he said. Remember those from your life who have passed on, honor them and enjoy Christmas in your own way.

To that, I added, slow down everything else. Get the tree up early. Watch Charlie Brown the first time it airs and kick back for the ride.

Oh, and shop online to avoid the crowds. I got Christine's presents ordered early enough to sweat out backorder status, and they've almost all arrived.

Izzat You Santy Claus?

This musta been when I was in college or right after, when it sounded like a good idea.

I dated a girl who was a student teacher around then, and she might even have been to blame, though I'm not certain of her guilt in getting me roped into the gig.

Anyway, somehow or other I got tapped to play Santa Claus for an elementary class. Pay was about 20 bucks in 1983 dollars.

Sure, I'd play Santa. Ho, ho, ho and what would you like for Christmas? Spread joy and merriment to the hearts of children. "Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus."

First graders are a bunch cynical little cusses.

I go in dressed in the Santa suit provided and about after oh, 15 seconds, there was a kid saying: "Those aren't real boots."

Then: "That's not a real beard."

I've only encountered one crowd more vicious. That was a local civic club when I was a reporter. I was invited to speak about news writing. I know people hate the news media, but every member had a complaint about either a.) the newspaper's advertising department b.) the circulation department or c.) the editorial page. None of which I had anything to do with.

"Doesn't anyone want to hear about how I interviewed Sesame Street's Grover?"

Nope.

Being Santa Claus was not unlike being in that lion's den. "You're a fake aren't you?"

"Ho, ho, ho. Santa is real, little boy."

On the flip side of the kids who weren't spotting vulnerabilities in my Santa disguise were the ones with total buy-in. "Do you know Janie Anderson who lives in Denver?"

"The elves help me keep track of those things."

"Do you know Robbie Jones?"

"Sure, why not?"

I heard all the Christmas wish lists and went for the door, made it all the way to the front exit before one of the teachers tracked me down.

Inches away from a clean getaway.

"The kids are enjoying the party so much we'd like you to stay a while longer."

I should have signed up for a gig as Scrooge. It probably would have gone equally as well.

What Christine is Getting for Christmas - Wodehouse

Christine has become a fan of P.G. Wodehouse and so she'll be getting several nice editions of his works this Christmas. Those are mixed in with other gifts, marginally disguised to thwart her ability to guess each gift item.

That means she'll know they're books, that they're Wodehouse books, but not which titles. I don't even know that without checking the order form now that they're wrapped.

I bought enough to keep her in Wodehouse reading much of the year since they're hard to come by at bookstore or library, despite their popularity.

Getting around to Wodehouse
They're filled with clever language, humor and plots that are complex enough to satisfy mystery readers though they're concerned more with manners than mayhem. If you haven't heard, they feature, mostly, the misadventures of British playboy Bertie Wooster, the narrator, and his manservant Jeeves, prototype for the American popular conception of butlers and footmen, though no longer the servant on Ask.com. :-(

We'd always meant to get around to Wodehouse. Years ago, probably when they were new, we used to see listings for the British series video in the Signals catalog, long a source of sweatshirts and tees in our house.

Hugh Laurie played Bertie on British TV and since Christine is a House, M.D. fan that prompted us to locate the titles on Netflix.

And the books followed, prompting her to not only read some but to read them out loud to me. (A favorite line invovles Bertie musing that a grouchy Scottish pooch wandered off "muttering something in Gaelic under his breath.")

I never have to read anything Christine is interested in. She either reads it to me or summarizes so completely I can save the time of sitting down with the actual prose. She summed up a recent New York Times profile of Kristin Chenoweth so completely I didn't have to read it or watch any more episodes of Studio 60, thinly-veiled Kristin Chenoweth biography.

This time next year
This time next year I'll be able to act versed in the works of Wodehouse. I'll be able to rattle off oneliners.

I predict the Wodehouse investment is a good choice of stocking stuffer.

Why am I bothering to tell everyone all this? Well maybe it will help with last-minute giving for some who can find Wodehouse in stores.

And I have to stay off my left foot. Monty--aka the king, the senior household tomcat, butler of our cats you might say-- got into the back yard yesterday and regular readers of this blog will know that usually means I get hurt. (He sniffed in a flowerbed then headed for the woods which connect to a busy roadway. I hopped off a retaining wall to head him off and, well I have to stay off my left foot.)

I could use a Jeeves.