Twas The Night Before Christmas

It is 45 minutes before Christmas!! YAY! I meant to post this earlier in the day, but mom and son are here and it just didn't happen. This poem was in a Mad Magazine when I was a teenager and at one point I had it memorized. I am almost 60 now so I can't remember every verse (I still remember most of it though), it is still think it one of my favorite poems ever, even though it has not yet come to fruition, so hat's off to Al Jaffee and Mad Magazine years after they stopped production:

"Twas the night before Christmas, 
And all through the gloom 
Not a creature was stirring; 
There just wasn't room; 
The stockings were hanging 
In numbers so great, 
We feared that the walls 
Would collapse from the weight! 

The children like cattle 
Were packed off to bed; 
We took a quick count; 
There were three-hundred head; 
Not to mention the grown-ups-- 
Those hundreds of dozens 
Of uncles and inlaws 
And twice-removed cousins! 

When outside the house 
There arose such a din! 
I wanted to look 
But the mob held me in; 
With pushing and shoving 
And cursing out loud, 
In forty-five minutes 
I squeezed through the crowd! 

Outside on the lawn 
I could see a fresh snow 
Had covered the people 
Asleep down below; 
And up in the sky 
What should strangely appear 
But an overweight sleigh 
Pulled by countless reindeer! 

They pulled and they tugged 
And they wheezed as they came, 
And the red-suited driver 
Called each one by name: 
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! 
Now, Prancer and Vixen! 
On, comet! On, Cupid! 
On Donder and Blitzen!" 

"Now, Melvin! Now, Marvin! 
Now, Albert and Jasper! 
On, Sidney! On, Seymour! 
On Harvey and Casper! 
Now, Clifford! Now, Max"-- 
But he stopped, far from through; 
Our welcoming house-top 
Was coming in view! 

Direct to our house-top 
The reindeer then sped 
With the sleigh full of toys 
And St. Nick at the head; 
And then like an earthquake 
I heard on the roof 
The clomping and pounding 
Of each noisy hoof! 

Before I could holler 
A warning of doom, 
The whole aggregation 
Fell into the room; 
And under a mountain 
Of plaster and brick 
Mingled inlaws and reindeer 
And me and St. Nick; 

He panted and sighed 
Like a man who was weary; 
His shoulders were stooped 
And his outlook was dreary: 
"I'm way behind schedule," 
He said with a sigh, 
"And I've been on the road 
Since the first of July!" 

'Twas then that I noticed 
The great, monstrous sack, 
Which he barely could hold 
On his poor, creaking back; 
"Confound it!" he moaned, 
"Though my bag's full of toys, 
I'm engulfed by the birthrate 
Of new girls and boys!" 

Then, filling the stockings, 
He shook his sad face, 
"This job is a killer! 
I can't take the pace! 
This cluttered old world 
Is beyond my control! 
There are even millions 
Up at the North Pole!" 

"Now I'm late!" he exclaimed, "And I really must hurry! 
By now I should be over Joplin, Missouri!" 
But he managed to sigh as he drove out of sight, 
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Happy Christmas Everyone! I hope your Christmas is absolutely wonderful!

Read Another Blog

I follow the Graceful Grandma blog and it is generally fan-damn-tastic, but the other day she out did herself. You have to read it. It is called the Christmas Shopper. You will love it. I swear!

http://gracefulgrandma.blogspot.com/


You...are...welcome.

Banana Jesus

So, I can't remember if I have mentioned my families affinity for bananas. Not eating them. Having one in your car. I was telling a co-worker about this and thought - Hey, that would be a good blog. So I tried to check my blog to see if I had mentioned it before and if I have, for the life of me I can't find it. So, I am risking repetition. If you know about bananas in my families cars, feel free to skip this. I completely understand. I will be brief in the event you just HAVE to read but know about our bananas.

Every time anything is mentioned about banana, my mind goes to my Mom and Stephen Colbert (a recent addition to the memory banks).

 

Many years ago my family, my sister’s family and my mom were getting together for something and we were going out to dinner when Amy (my sister’s daughter and mostly an adult) said something about already being hungry. My mom pipes up and says, “Well, I have a banana in my car.” (Which means, it was probably ½ a banana - because she NEVER finishes anything - and it also means it had been in the car at least several days because we were in Dahlonega and she had travelled from FL). Who would want to eat that??!! But she was absolutely sure that an old 1/2 banana was exactly what Amy needed at that exact moment. I think what Amy  - well all of us - really needed at that exact moment was TO GET IN THE CAR AND GO TO THE RESTAURANT!

 

I was in Walmart a short time after that and saw plastic fruit - including bananas. It was too perfect! If I bought ALL the plastic bananas at our Walmart, then we could all have a plastic banana in our car in the event that another banana emergency arose!

Fast forward a few years. We had another family get together for my Mom’s 80th birthday party this year, we were all sitting around and laughing about the banana (because we bring it up every time we see her) and making other ridiculous banana jokes and someone wondered what would be the weirdest thing a banana could be and someone said, “A banana Jesus.” We all laughed because I mean come on - what the heck is a banana Jesus. BUT, my mom did not laugh. She has no sense of humor about religion and she was so offended about the joke that just to mess with her, (yes, age is given no pass, we would mess with a 100 year old given the chance and the right joke!) we continued to insert the banana Jesus line in almost every conversation all weekend long. She eventually got over herself (not really). A few days after I got home from all the fun, frivolity and banana Jesus jokes, my sister told me I had to watch Stephen Colbert at Comic Con. It was unbelievable. Stephen actually was ‘fake’ plugging a movie about Jesus and Banana Man. I nearly lost my mind!! 

How coincidental is that?? He stole our idea!! Well, actually he ran in a direction my family would have never been able to come up with. But he came really close to thievery - real close...

 

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/zryrry/undercover-at-comic-con---prince-hawkcat

 

Make sure you watch both parts.Thank you Mr. Colbert for proving to my family that God does indeed have a sense of humor.

Walmart Drive-By - Of Our Wallets

Do you ever feel like you have been in a drive-by – of sorts – after you have made your weekly run to Walmart? I guess I should include the ‘daily run’ humanoids if you are obsessive about grocery or personal item needs OR my husband. I also should not single out Walmart because they are not the only offender of this deplorable drain on my – I mean my husband’s – wallet. I also am going to add that I believe one my husband’s quests in life is to hit every Walmart in every town in the world; twice if he had the time. But no one has that kind of time.

Back to my story: Each time the cash register total for that day’s foray into consumerism is revealed, it has gotten so bad that it feels to me like I have been hit by a cash register bullet as the gunman cashier casually tells you the cost of the 3 bags of nothingness you have in your cart. A nameless shooter, I mean cashier (Stop prejudging me! Yes, I know they have name tags on, so technically I do know their name but I am trying to be dramatic here so go with it) who casually shoots my wallet with their outrageous total and then forgets their crime the minute I walk away with my bags and my (I mean my husband’s) empty dead wallet. I am not a person. I am a debit card.

This happens every Sunday when I accompany my main squeeze (aka husband, aka victim), list in hand, to Walmart to stock up for the week. Of course we never just buy what is on the list, but we don’t go crazy either. The most expensive thing we buy is Zantac. Thank you age and timeworn esophageal tissue. We don’t even buy that each time, but every week the cost of the aforementioned supplies ALWAYS exceeds our expectations, our budget and probably outdoes the total Gross National Product for the nation for any given quarter.

The problem? We don’t make that much money!! I have not gotten a raise in 2 years at my job. Heck this year, my employer is so tight on the budget we aren’t even getting the usual $20 Publix gift card. But then again the corporate wheels on the machine of supply and demand do not care if I got a raise or a $20 turkey. So, bottom line, my paycheck stays the same – but the cost of groceries goes up! Thank God – as I mentioned before – I don’t have to pay for them because my husband HAS gotten raises – so it is his job.

But me not paying for the groceries is not the point. I mean no one should have to focus on a problem that really isn’t their problem to begin with! But, don’t stop reading just because I am complaining about something that has absolutely no effect on my personal budget at all – or does it??

If my husband didn’t have to sacrifice obscene amounts of his ‘disposable’ income on necessities think of what I could have!! A tummy tuck, a quilt from The Country Store (so out of middle America’s income range) Dinosaur DNA, Glade Plug-In FANS (they don’t make them anymore – WTH), EVERYTHING from Pottery Barn, the diamond ring I found at the jewelers this weekend, a Tesla, retirement, RETIREMENT.

The list is endless. Well, actually it could all end at just retirement, but that again isn’t my real point.

I thought it was just my husband and I complaining about the cost of things. But yesterday as we were walking into Walmart, another couple was walking out. Guess what they were doing – guess. Nevermind, you are taking too long. They were looking over their receipt asking each other, ‘How did we spend so much money? We hardly have anything!” It was like watching ourselves. We stopped, we stared, we laughed, we danced, we sang, we asked the whole world to sing along with us…not really. We just laughed.

So, we are not alone in our sentiments. Not that I thought we were, but it never hurts to hear the exact words you have uttered repeatedly, come out of someone else’s mouth. It was another successful Walmart drive-by, but for a different innocent victim. I wonder how many there are. Why doesn’t it make the news? Wallets dead, all over the ground, shot, stripped of their cash and credit cards, slowly dying and no one fights for them! No one calls 911! What is wrong with the world? It is time to end the suffering. OOOOKKKK, definitely medication time. Sorry, got off track there.

All that does not support my goal of retirement, but it does help brighten today just a little bit by knowing someone else has to put off retirement too. I know you are judging me again for saying that, but I don’t care right now and doesn’t the old saying go, ‘Misery loves company?’ I want company!

In any case, give me a few hours (until it is quitting time) and misery and I are going back to Walmart to get something we forgot – need anything??? Never mind, I probably can't afford it anyway.