Ho, Ho, Ho!

Yesterday I got this call from Madd Maxx down in Louisiana who had been playing catch up on my blog and saw the last string of posts. He was all, "Giiiirl, what is YOUR problem? What's with all that dry skin, bad sinuses bah humbug waaa, waaa, waaa business? You need to put some ho, ho, ho in your mo jo and get down with Christmas." And I was all, "I KNOW I have a bad attitude, I know. I'm workin' on it. I got online and bought three presents and I put up the tree dammit." He declared his phone call a holiday intervention and cheered me up with some conversation about how he was supposed to get snow last night, and everybody in Cajun country was going nuts because they never get snow. I promised to straighten out my attitude and jingle my bells, and he promised not to hit me with a yule log. I jumped in the car for the commute home, turned on the radio and lo and behold a Christmas song was playing. It was a sign from God, I tell ya'. It was Alvin and the Chipmunks, so I'm not sure what the the Big Guy was trying to tell me, but I think it had something to do with smiles. That, or he was reminding me for the 20th time to make that dental appointment. Anyhooo, in an effort to show my holiday spirit, I'm posting a few old Christmas pictures. After all, what's funnier than old family photos taken during holidays past with those flash bulbs that burned your retinas? Exactly. Today's selection? 1972-The Year of The Dog. Make that dogs. 13 to be exact. That is me and Super Cop under the tree. He is about three in this picture. Look at those cute little cheeks. I'm eight, and we were in the process of selling our Irish Setter puppies. She had thirteen puppies that winter in a refrigerator box in our basement. Twelve survived. The smallest was crushed by the rest of them. It was my first lesson in survival of the fittest. I wanted to keep at least one of the puppies, but mama said no. We had already sold a couple of them by the time we got the grand idea to load them into a laundry basket and take a picture. It's not really the dogs that make me smile in this picture. Take note of the other things in this picture. 1. My pretzel pants. I thought these were the coolest pants ever. That and the orange paisley dress I wore in kindergarten were probably the two earliest signs of the twisted sense of fashion that would follow me into adulthood. Good thing I became an adult in the 80's. Mama made these pants and fortunately, she managed to avoid the baggy crotch issue she had at the time with the pants she made for Super Cop.

2. The Christmas tree. Is that not the sorriest tree you've ever seen? That was in the early days of artificial trees when they didn't look anything like a real tree. It appears that we asked to decorate the tree, and mama said "Ah, what the heck, knock yourself out". And we made a few homemade snowflakes, got bored with the whole mess, and quit early. Or another likely scenario is that I put myself in charge of the whole thing and bossed Super Cop around until he got mad and quit.

3. The container for the puppies. Nothing says Christmas like a worn out laundry basket. We made absolutely no effort at class with that one did we?

4. And my all time favorite Christmas decoration (next to Aunt June's aluminum tree with the rotating colored light wheel)...ta da! The cardboard fireplace. I loved that thing and thought it was the neatest thing ever. Funny thing, though. I have asked dozens of people my age over the years if they had a cardboard Christmas fireplace, and they all looked at me like I was crazy.

So to jump start my ho ho ho and in the spirit of all things merry and bright, I want you to tell me dear readers about the tackiest decoration of childhood holidays. Let's hear about your cardboard fireplaces or your pink flocked trees. Share, make me smile and help me dodge that yule log.

Oh Heck No

“Are you ready for Christmas?”

It seems like an innocent enough question, but it isn’t. Not by a long shot. It’s as loaded as a 44 these days, and the answer is “NO!”. It was all I could do not to shout , “No” to the acquaintance who asked me that today. I am not even close to being ready for Christmas. I have purchased a measly three presents. I just got the tree up, and it took me the entire weekend to do that. I have no idea what to get my husband, and my relationship with a particular family member is painfully nonexistent right now. Ah, the season is upon me, and all I can think about is when it will be over. My attitude sucks, frankly.

I don’t get depressed this time of year like some folks, but I don’t really enjoy Christmas like I used to. We used to have big noisy Christmases at our house with lots of presents and a big breakfast, but all of that changed when my nephew died eight years ago. Since his death it just hasn’t been the same. I’ve made an effort for Teen Angel’s sake, but my heart hasn’t really been in it. I enjoy spending time with family and special events at church and with friends, but I hate the commercialism and the spend, spend, spend atmosphere. I just have a hard time shopping when I see families struggling to make a holiday out of an empty wallet or senior citizens choosing between food and medicine. I will never forget as a child standing in the grocery store with my mother at Christmas and watching an elderly blind man who was dirty and shabbily dressed, standing by the country hams. He inhaled deeply and said to no one in particular, “That sho does smell good.” He savored the moment, and obviously a memory and walked away without a ham. He obviously couldn’t afford it. The stores are full of folks like that this time of year, and it breaks my heart. I realize there are so many things to appreciate and enjoy about the holidays, but I feel really torn the whole season between laughter and a lump in my throat. I would be very happy with skipping gifts, attending church and having a big meal with family and calling it a day. But the world doesn’t spin that way, so I must make a better effort to get some perspective on the season.

For about two months now, I’ve been attending Al-Anon, and it’s been a great help in learning how to deal with the alcoholic in my life because it makes me focus on my behavior. They have a saying, “Fake it until you can make it,” which is a way of saying do it until you really feel like doing it. And that’s what I shall do in the next few days, fake it until I feel the Christmas spirit. I know it will come around. It always does. I just can’t keep worrying about it. I have too much to do, mainly shopping. Besides, my band fruit is in, I have a party to go to Friday night, and Special Delivery gets to portray baby Jesus in the March to the Manger at SuperCop’s and Mrs. Scrubs’ church. There’s just something about a baby this time of year……

Time Out

You know, sometimes I look up and realize the good Lord has been tapping me on the shoulder for a while, and I haven't been paying attention. It's so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of the holidays and forget to breathe, especially when you have a week like I just had. I love my job, but I have several big projects going right now, so every day last week was a kick your butt kind of day. I was exhausted by Wednesday, and still had so much to get done. I was sliding into every stop on two wheels and rushing through one task just to get to another. It was crazy. Early in the week a school teacher called me about doing a presentation to first graders, and even though I really didn't have time for it, I said yes because I make it a policy to never say no to a school unless I absolutely have to. Two days later I arrived at the school at 8am just as I was instructed in order to set up for an 8:30am program. The secretary gave me an uh-oh look, and it took all of ten seconds to realize the school had overbooked, and a larger assembly was scheduled for 8:30am with the entire student body. Frankly, I was too tired to object so when given the choice to delay my program or reschedule I chose to wait because I just didn't have it in me to make another trip to the school the following day. I wasn't really excited about cooling my heels for a half hour because I had so much I could have been doing at work. I went to the car for some money and headed toward the cafeteria to see what was offered for breakfast just to kill time.

Along the way I saw a little girl I knew, and we had a really sweet and funny conversation about her head cold and how her granny had made her hot chocolate that morning and she felt "all better". I stood in line in the cafeteria behind a little girl who hated the smell so much she held her nose the whole time. Another laugh. We snaked our way to the head of the line, and the lunch lady smiled really big and offered me a sausage biscuit. Now, if I had not been so rushed before I left the house I would have eaten my normal dry breakfast of oatmeal and flax seed. Hmmm. Now, I had the opportunity to eat something much more decadent. I accepted it gratefully, and looked around for some gravy. When I reached the cashier, she refused to let me pay, so I ate for free. I was the only grown up eating breakfast, so I grabbed a chair that put me verrrrry low to the ground, and plopped down in the middle of some fourth graders. More smiles. We had great conversation, and when we finished we all headed to the gym for the assembly. It was interesting watching the children be so excited about visitors and seeing how well behaved they were. It made me wonder at what point in my life I had forgotten to be that excited about a new day...every day. The assembly ran long, leaving me with no set up time for my presentation, but by then it didn't matter. I simply shortened my program. The first graders were great listeners, they asked questions that made me smile and all said "thank you" as a group. I loaded up my stuff and left the school about an hour later than I had planned. And you know what? It was okay. Really. The secretary apologized profusely for the mix-up, but I said, "thank you, I needed that". She didn't understand that I got more out of that visit than the kids got from me. I was a better person when I left then when I arrived. As I started the car I smiled because God had given me a little time-out. Just when I needed it, he presented me with a situation that at first glance appeared to be another one of last week's problems but was really a blessing. I had an opportunity to stop and breathe, to eat breakfast with some little folks that made me smile and to get some much needed perspective before I started the next three busy days. I wonder how long He had been tapping me on the shoulder last week before I finally turned around?

Stop!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, holy mother of Elmo this week has been out of control crazy work has been insane and involved spearheading numerous projects including a food drive a pep rally at an elementary school presentations at another school building a float for the Christmas parade oh my the first Christmas party of the season how could I possibly eat so much no time to exercise I have to walk in the parade tonight Teen Angel's choir program is tomorrow after church there's another party Monday night and I haven't even started my Christmas shopping glad most everyone wants gift certificates crap I need to get those cards mailed and I still don't have a tree up will anyone notice if we don't have a tree oh yes Teen Angel will mount an insurgence if we don't put up a tree blog what's a blog Calgon take me away well the band fruit is here and gee whiz aren't the holidays fun somebody remind me what we're celebrating this season oh yeah the Kind of Peace. Sigh.

Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot

More proof the Hula-gen's very often don't know what they're talking about....I'm not namin' any names, but one Hula-gen was overhead saying the following this week about one of Teen Angel's favorite stores: "That Hot Pockets sure is an interesting store."

The Dangers of Crack

Cracked hands. Cracked feet. Cracked legs.Let the lotion wars begin. Sigh. Only 200 days 'til summer.

BFF's Forever

Have you met my new BFF? Her name is Netti. Not the Nettie from The Color Purple. Netti, as in Netti Pot. She's a pal, let me tell ya', and I plan to keep her around awhile. Let me introduce you.

She's essentially a teapot that you fill with salt water and use to irrigate your sinuses. She falls into that category of something old that's new again, mostly because Oprah said so. Actually, Dr. Oz said so on Oprah. I love Dr. Oz. He answers all those questions you want to ask the doctor but are embarrassed to. He talks about things like poop and gas and foot odor and makes it seem okay. Months ago, he demonstrated the Netti pot on her show, and millions of people like me who would like to yank out their sinuses and stomp on them at least once a week lined up to buy one. Except me. Because I was scared of the whole pouring salt water through my nose thing. I mean, isn't that how people drown? And then my fall sinus attack began. Facing months of the usual snotty, throat clogged, nauseating drainage, I got desperate, and rushing salt water through my sinuses didn't seem so bad. Figuring drowning would be a relief on a really snotty day, I marched into Walgreen's under a Benedryl high and bought Netti. And I haven't turned loose of her since. It's kind of difficult to pour water through your nose, breathe through your mouth AND take a picture of it at the same time, so a Google image will have to suffice as an illustration. I do want to shout "Ricola" whenever I look at this picture.Yeah, I know. It looks kind of weird, and the stuff that's left in the sink can be downright gross. HOWEVER, since I've been hanging around with Netti my sinuses have been very well behaved and have not launched their usual attack on my body, which always leads to an infection, bronchitis and if I'm really lucky, asthma by December 1st. I've used only half a box of tissues in the last month, and my upper lip has yet to chap. Sigh. That Netti sure is a swell gal. A word of warning, though. She can be a little "temper"mental. If you get the water too warm, it will knock your socks off when it hits that first nostril. Go easy with the microwave. Other than that, our friendship is tight. I love you Netti. Don't ever change. Always stay the way you are, and you'll go far. Love, your BFF Hula. PS: Don't you think that boy in study hall is cute?