‘God Bless Us, Every One’

Christmas is only a few days away, and along with this happy holiday come the holiday-related movies and television specials.

So it was that I watched “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman” on TV. I watched them because there was nothing else to watch on TV and I’m not a satellite owner nor do I wish to be one. (Kids, do not put that on your list for mom.)

While the two classic Christmas tales reeled off one after the other, I think I was either trying to complete a Christmas do-it-yourself project, trying to figure out what gift I had bought for which grandchild, or searching my recipes trying to find those only made at Christmas. So I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, at first.

Then I found myself drawn into the tales. And at their conclusion I found myself terribly sad for some reason. This worried me for several hours. How could such happy, uplifting stories make me sad?

I finally came to the conclusion that there were no children watching with me. For nearly 20 years I had sat my three children down to watch both Rudolph and Frosty to foster the Christmas spirit or so I could go on to other Christmas pursuits. But once my children turned 13 or so, they usually abandoned Rudolph and Frosty for teenage attractions.

With those thoughts in mind, I realized this year that I was sad because I missed those days of being the mom of three kids. I missed trying to figure out what they wanted for Christmas that we could afford. I missed the Christmas shopping, the buying and the hiding of gifts, the Christmas school plays and programs, the staying up all night to wrap gifts, then being woken up after only an hours sleep by three kids who could not contain their excitement. I miss cooking a huge Christmas feast. Those days are long gone, even for my three children who are grandparents themselves now. I wonder if they miss those parenting Christmas days.

With that in mind, I went looking for old Christmas-themed movies to take my blues away. First, we will dispense with the ones I cannot even force myself to like. There will be no Elf, no Grinch, and no “Gremlins,” even though my kids thought that cute little critters that turned into demons at midnight were fantastic!

I will not watch any musical Christmas movies made in the 1930s, 1940s or 1950s, even though I love the song “White Christmas.” Too many silly love interests for me.

I want a happy, laugh-out-loud, Christmas. So I will watch “Home Alone,” (fall-down pranks make me laugh every time), “Christmas Vacation,” (otherwise known as what Christmas is really like with a crazy family), “Christmas with the Kranks,”(or what Christmas is really like with a loving family), “The Santa Clause”, (because nothing beats Tim Allen falling off a roof), and “A Christmas Story” (because I can’t tell you how many times my own mother said “You’ll shoot your eye out!”)

And when I am ready for an uplifting story I will go on to that greatest Christmas movie of all time, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” And then I will go outside and ring bells, because “Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”

(That’s pretty bad when you can quote from a movie without even looking it up on Wikipedia!)

And then my heart and spirit will be back where it belongs, in the present with grand and great-grandchildren, and I will continue loving the memories and not be saddened by them.

So Merry Christmas, ring lots of bells, and as Tiny Tim might say, “And God bless us, every one.” And may your holiday have lasting, happy memories.

Merry Christmas Trees!

The magazine Good Housekeeping published a story this week on “20 Hilarious Christmas Tree Fails.” And I swear, every one of those fails has happened to me and my family.

The article begins with an illustration of Charlie Brown and his infamous Christmas tree, which is one of the best stories ever told. It’s sort of an ugly-duckling-to-swan story about a tree, but it’s really about Christmas in the heart. I love it so much, I have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, which has few needles and is tiny. 

Next is a photo of a dog chasing the house cat up the Christmas tree. Anyone who has a house cat knows that as soon as the Christmas tree goes up, the cat will be in it. The cat will knock off only the breakable ornaments, will drink all the water in the tree stand, and will pee and poo in the Christmas tree skirt and on your wrapped gifts if you have been stupid enough to put them under the tree, with a cat in the house, like I am.

Up next is a photo of crooked tree. Is there such a thing as a straight Christmas tree? I’ve never had one, and have even had to, as the article suggests, tie the tree to the wall to keep it upright. Which didn’t work either.

TIMBER! The tree fell over. Well of course it did. The cat was in it and it wasn’t straight anyway. My most famous falling Christmas tree is on film for all posterity. Son received a camera for Christmas and daughter was opening a gift when the tree fell on top of her. “Take a photo son,” I advised. And so we have a photo of daughter, under tree, with only her legs sticking out.

All the needles fell off. All believers in real Christmas trees have this problem. That real tree goes up after Thanksgiving. The cat drank all the water in the tree stand. And the needle-less tree doesn’t come down till the New Year. I have actually found Christmas tree needles in the corners of the living room when vacuuming for the Fourth of July.

The Christmas tree has bugs. Trying to save money one year, my kids and I went to the woods, found a perfect cedar tree, cut it down (crooked of course) and put it up for Christmas. The next morning, all warmed up, that little cedar tree unleashed a million ticks on us. Never again!

Tree is too short, or too tall. I err on the too tall side, year after year after year. I‘ve had to apologize to husband and sons on several occasions and years because they had to cut the tree trunk off, again. One year they even had to cut the top off. One year we didn’t cut anything off, and had to climb a ladder to put the star top on. That was a beautiful Christmas tree. Then I made a mistake and turned the ceiling fan on.

Oops. Ceiling fans make good hedge trimmers too. And they can make your Christmas tree look like a hedge.

The tree is my favorite Christmas decoration. And may all your Christmas trees be happy, or at least memorial like mine.

Tales of a Christmas Shopper

Christmas shopping is one of my favorite past-times.

Shopping is my favorite hobby, but add that I’m buying for 10 great-grandkids, four grandkids, and my wonderful three children, and I’m in heaven.

I love it so much, I start on Dec. 26 every year for next year.

Unfortunately, that may lead to problems. One year I asked Granddaughter how she liked her new talking teddy bear.

“What talking teddy bear?” she wanted to know.

Oops. After I finally found that teddy bear where I had hidden it in the spare bedroom closet, and promptly forgotten it, Granddaughter got it for her next birthday.

With that incident firmly in memory, I rummaged through the Christmas stash this past weekend to make sure everything was accounted for.

Oops. Well, I don’t remember buying all those remote-control cars, and I’m not sure what Great-grandson is going to do with all them. He’s going to have to share with the other great-grandkids. And I didn’t even make it all the way through the stash. I hope I don’t find any other surprises.

Hoping I am not the only forgetful shopper, I went shopping on the internet for more fun Christmas shopping stories. Hope they make you laugh too. It’s the only way to survive the season.

-From one foolish shopper who ventured out on Black Friday: “The holiday season officially starts on the last Friday in November, when the first shopper is trampled at Walmart.”

-“Dad gave Mom a DVD last year. DVDs are great gifts, except, (a) it was a rental, and b) we don’t have a DVD player.”

-Grandpa decided that shopping for Christmas gifts had become too difficult. So he decided to send each of his grandchildren a check for Christmas. On each card he wrote “Merry Christmas from Grandpa. P.S. Buy your own gift.” Grandpa had a good time at the family Christmas celebration, but wondered why his grandchildren seemed a little distant. It worried him into the New Year, or until he moved a stack of magazines and found a pile of checks, all made out to his grandchildren. They were the gifts he’d forgotten to put in their Christmas cards.

Twitter Tales:

-“Went online to get the kids' Christmas gifts and an hour later all I ordered was a really funny coffee mug for myself.”

-“Wife and I agree about not giving son too many Christmas gifts, but I still sneak him a few a couple of days later so he'll like me more.”

-“For Christmas I gave my kids' teachers grocery store gift cards along with a map of the quickest route to the liquor aisle.”

-“I am trusting my kids pay no attention to the 84 empty Amazon boxes stacked in plain sight in the garage that showed up right before Christmas.”

-“On the 13th day of Christmas my true love said to me, ‘I think I might be a hoarder.’”

And may you all have a happy shopping season too!