Not The Loot Report

Another Christmas come and gone. Well, nearly gone. There's still the cleanup. I kinda like the idea I heard a few weeks ago from a certain Scrooge about 'The Man With The Really Clean Living Room..." The kidlets made out like bandits (again). It was a stroke of genius to get Boy a season pass at the local ski resort. Especially considering there has been no snow whatsoever in 3 weeks, and the temperatures have been too high for snowmaking (yes, people actually make snow. On purpose). Girl got pretty much everything she asked for, and so did I for that matter. They each got sweet digital cameras, and I expect to see unflattering pics of myself on their blogs soon. I got a guitar tuner, clothes, wallet, and a joke book. The cat got into the cheesecake and promptly yakked on the new shirt I was planning to wear today; other than that, it was smooth sailing. I got Mrs. Spiffy an exercise ball. Now, this may strike some of you as eminently unwise, but I did my research, yo. I saw how popular it was at the Office Party, and she even hinted I should steal it for her. Plus, I cleverly hid it in the back of my Jeep with my emergency winter supplies, knowing it's her nature to snoop (I once gave her a CD wrapped in a dishwasher box - the one gift she didn't guess that year). Sure enough, she found it, said she liked it and was even looking forward to receiving it. This morning, on our way to yet another Family Gathering, I mentioned my increasing interest in working out, and asked if I could borrow her exercise ball (I held my tongue and did NOT point out that only one hour ago, it was MY exercise ball). She raised her eyebrows and said, "No offense, but isn't there a weight limit on that thing?" Well, she DID call 'no offense.' Now pass me that cookie. =================================== There was some excitement in the neighborhood today. My sister was hosting the festivities. She lives on the border country, between the decent and scary parts of town: Right across the street from a very scenic psychiatric hospital, and down the block from the county jail. We looked out the front window and noticed an overflowing handful of police cars in front of the house, crawling back and forth with lights a-flashing. My brother in law went outside to see what was the matter. He noticed his neighbor's garage door had been kicked open, and waved Officer Friendly toward the scene. Apparently, a bad guy was being transported to jail and figured out a way to jump out of a moving cruiser. He passed by my unlocked car, keys dangling from the ignition, and was hiding under a car in the neighbor's garage. The fuzz converged in the driveway. Guns and 12-pound flashlights were drawn on the poor guy as he was dragged from under the car by his dreadlocks. My brother in law earned a hearty handshake and a "Thank you, fine citizen!" for his snitching good deed. How was YOUR Christmas?

It's What We Do

I warned you this might happen. You came back anyway, so you get to hear about more Christmas traditions. Maybe tomorrow will come with something compelling and funny, but this is what you get today. It's about the decorating, and this little tradition happens in 3 phases. The first is Mrs. Spiffy telling me it's time to decorate, at which I grunt, shrug, and put it off. There's always next weekend. Invariably, next weekend brings a blizzard. So, after bundling up in a ridiculous amount of layers and spending an hour finding my gloves, I haul out the buckets of lights and a ladder to festoon as much of the house as I feel like. One year every corner, edge, and ridge had lights. That was an ordeal I didn't want to repeat, so I haven't. Now, it stops at the front porch and a little candy cane, and a couple little trees get splashed with light. It looks pitifully weak next to the high-wattage neighbors, but I'm just not that gung-ho. And, I think I've convinced the kidlets that Inflatables will never grace our lawn. In fact, I think they're joining me in my fantasy of sneaking out in my blackest outfit on some dark night to wreak murder and destruction on all the Frosties, Grinches, and Sno-Globes in the land. Phase 2 involves finding, unpacking, and setting up the Pre-Lit Tree. The finding takes the longest, even though it's always in the same closet under the stairs. It's just way in the back, and it's our annual night of Finding Other Things that were stuffed in said closet over the past year. "Oh, THAT's where my favorite _____ went!" The tree gets set up and adjusted, then it's time for relaxing. Phase 3 may happen the next day or the next week, depending on how high on the feel-like-it meter we all are. Phase 3 cannot happen unless a) all of us are present b) all decoration boxes have been found c) we have time to 'do it right' and d) we are all in a Good Mood. Having all those planets align is a tall order, but amazingly, it's happened every year - even the bad years. We each grab a favorite ornament, count, "1, 2, 3, GO!" And the decorate-o-rama is on. The boxes are emptied in about 3 minutes, and the tree is filled with the same nostalgic ornaments as last year. Many are handmade, most are well worn, a few are downright tacky. Then, depending on whose turn it is, a kidlet puts the old tinsel-and-lights star atop the tree. They're far too big for me to hoist them up like the olden days, but still too short to reach. So I bend the tree sideways and they ceremoniously jam it on the wiry treetop. All the lights go out, and Dad gets to plug in the tree while we croak out the words of the nearest Christmas carol we can remember. Somewhere over the next day or so, snowscapes with lit houses, skating lovers, daredevil skiers, and maybe a train magically appear. It's out of my league for patience or ability, but it always looks nice. ================================ NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH NEWS FLASH Last night my eldest niece gave birth to a baby boy. I'm a Great Uncle. Heh.

Christmas Traditions

I've noticed that everywhere I go lately, people are talking about their Christmas traditions. Understandable, seeing how it's Christmastime. And people are basically copycats. Since it's the Thing To Do, here's one of my Holiday Traditions. Way back in March of 1990, the new Mrs. Spiffy and I moved into our first apartment. Every move since then has been right around Christmas. In a blizzard. There was the First House, a sturdy little brick number on a hill, which was a handyman special all the way. We bought it in August, but it took until December to get it livable. The folks before us bragged about how they never had trash service in the 3 years they lived there. "This carpet's still good, just needs a little steam cleaning," he told me. They maintained a path from the front door, through the living room, weaving down the hallway to the bedrooms. Everywhere else in the place was stacked to the ceiling with pizza boxes, last year's wrapping paper, eggshells, and other assorted whatnot. We had to ask how many windows were in one bedroom, because we honestly couldn't see across it. One room featured a small mountain of bunny shit. In the middle of the carpeted floor. So, we remodeled the kitchen and bath, recarpeted, scrubbed and painted every square inch before moving in. The aroma of the previous family subsided after the new furnace was installed, and we could finally spend a night there. We set up and decorated the tree before unloading the U-Haul, while the first kidlet slept in the living room. The next move was much simpler, because we were going to a bigger house. It took a few years to collect enough junk to fill it up. That Christmas was one of the easy ones. The only adventure was when the gutter filled up with ice and the entire roof edge ripped free, dropping 2 stories onto the driveway. Amazingly, no snotty neighbor kids were crushed. By far the most memorable move was the one from the Big House to the 2-bedroom apartment. Naturally, it was Christmas Week. And a blizzard was in full force. This wasn't the natural progression we had imagined - you're supposed to move Upward, right? Well, Circumstances intervened and we had to downsize. Substantially. We recruited some muscle from our church youth group, and they were eager and happy to help. We had 2 big Ryder truckloads of crap to move, and our friends were committed to Getting It Done - and fast. They emptied the first load into the driveway, and a few of us went back for the rest. As I pulled into the drive with the 2nd load, I noticed something was missing. Or rather, not missing. Every single item from the first load was still in the drive, and the kids were inside enjoying pizza and some teevee. It continued to snow in earnest while we unloaded the 2nd truck into the drive. Then they left. As has been mentioned, we had a Big Houseful of stuff, and tried to squeeze it all into the space of a phone booth. Too cheap (see: broke) to rent a storage unit, we decided to tarp the stuff in the drive and bring it in as we found room. The next day, we came out to find 2 feet of fresh snow on top of our precious Stuff. Strangely, we don't have many photos from that Christmas. And, most of that Stuff found its way to Goodwill or the dump. The next move brought us into a spacious new house in the pseudo-country, with lots of roof edges and corners to decorate with lights. If ever I felt like it. Tune in next time, I may foist more of my Traditions upon you. Or maybe not, you never know around here.