The fat guy escaped up the chimney...but I was able to get his hat!
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Happy Procrastination Days to all
I love Christmas. So don’t get me wrong on what I am about to say…
This country is off its’ rocker. I guess that could be said in a broad sense, but is when it comes to Christmas and New Year’s, we really are out of control. I’m not even going to get into the fact that we generally miss the whole point of Christmas. I won’t discuss ( not in this post) my irritation with this whole “holiday tree” vs Christmas Tree debate. Let’s not talk about commercialism, or even misguided “traditions”, or competitive “holidays” that seem to have come out of nowhere…
No, I want to address the fact that from Thanksgiving until sometime around January 4 nobody wants to do anything but prepare, celebrate, and recover from “The holidays”. Like I said, I love Christmas. I enjoy decorating the house right around Thanksgiving and listening to Christmas music. I love the whole “holiday tradition thing”. What I don’t get however is the lack of ambition that the holidays bring on to the rest of the country. Suddenly Christmas has become an excuse for inactivity and non-decisiveness.
Look around you, at work no one answers their phones, everyone who can arrives late, sneaks out early, takes a little longer for lunch and generally procrastinates everything until “after the holidays”. Socially, no one can make a commitment to do anything until “after the holidays”. People who generally are willing to volunteer for tasks at churches, schools, hospitals, etc, suddenly can’t make a decision or a commitment until “after the holidays”.
What the hell are people doing that they are so shut down and unable to focus on anything else? How many cookies can you bake? How much gift buying and wrapping can you do? My God, even if you get drunk on eggnog and rum every day, there is still time between hang-over and next pour to return a few phone calls.
I will wager that Mary and Joseph didn’t do as much planning for the birth of Jesus as we do today to celebrate that birth. (Oh yeah… The birth of Jesus is the reason for the celebration, in case you forgot. ) In fact, there is biblical evidence that they waited until the last minute. Remember…they got to Bethlehem on time to answer the census, but they forgot to call ahead for hotel reservations. Consequently, the Bethlehem Ritz was sold out and they ended up sleeping and giving birth in a barn. While we like to think that Mary was ok with that, I’ll bet Joseph was in plenty of hot water over his procrastination. I would like to do some research on that whole episode, but I think I will wait until after the holidays.
This country is off its’ rocker. I guess that could be said in a broad sense, but is when it comes to Christmas and New Year’s, we really are out of control. I’m not even going to get into the fact that we generally miss the whole point of Christmas. I won’t discuss ( not in this post) my irritation with this whole “holiday tree” vs Christmas Tree debate. Let’s not talk about commercialism, or even misguided “traditions”, or competitive “holidays” that seem to have come out of nowhere…
No, I want to address the fact that from Thanksgiving until sometime around January 4 nobody wants to do anything but prepare, celebrate, and recover from “The holidays”. Like I said, I love Christmas. I enjoy decorating the house right around Thanksgiving and listening to Christmas music. I love the whole “holiday tradition thing”. What I don’t get however is the lack of ambition that the holidays bring on to the rest of the country. Suddenly Christmas has become an excuse for inactivity and non-decisiveness.
Look around you, at work no one answers their phones, everyone who can arrives late, sneaks out early, takes a little longer for lunch and generally procrastinates everything until “after the holidays”. Socially, no one can make a commitment to do anything until “after the holidays”. People who generally are willing to volunteer for tasks at churches, schools, hospitals, etc, suddenly can’t make a decision or a commitment until “after the holidays”.
What the hell are people doing that they are so shut down and unable to focus on anything else? How many cookies can you bake? How much gift buying and wrapping can you do? My God, even if you get drunk on eggnog and rum every day, there is still time between hang-over and next pour to return a few phone calls.
I will wager that Mary and Joseph didn’t do as much planning for the birth of Jesus as we do today to celebrate that birth. (Oh yeah… The birth of Jesus is the reason for the celebration, in case you forgot. ) In fact, there is biblical evidence that they waited until the last minute. Remember…they got to Bethlehem on time to answer the census, but they forgot to call ahead for hotel reservations. Consequently, the Bethlehem Ritz was sold out and they ended up sleeping and giving birth in a barn. While we like to think that Mary was ok with that, I’ll bet Joseph was in plenty of hot water over his procrastination. I would like to do some research on that whole episode, but I think I will wait until after the holidays.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Generations
Tomorrow ( Dec. 6 ) is Melissa’s 25th birthday. The same age by the way, that we were, when she was born.
I’ve said it before as has probably every other parent in the world; “where did the time go”? I guess it was gobbled up by work, and school, church commitments, family obligations, yard work, car repairs, and bill paying. But it also was consumed with holiday traditions, school plays and concerts, coloring books, re-runs of M*A*S*H and Dragnet, ( Melissa and I watched those shows together faithfully when she was 2, every night after dinner ), reading Dr. Seuss, vacations to the Smokey Mountains, raking leaves, sledding, learning to drive, and mourning fallen gold fish.
Melissa moved to her new home in Cleveland Heights recently. It didn’t take long to move her in. At 25 most people don’t own that much. The few pieces of furniture she took with her needed to be refinished first. So we took her chest of drawers and dresser to a sandblaster who removed the old varnish, stain, dust, crayon marks, finger nail polish, and make-up.
The furniture originally belonged to Robin’s Grandparents. They gave it to her parents, who then placed it in her room when she was a child. She grew up with the furniture and it came with us when we got married. When we moved to “the new house” we put it in Melissa’s room. It is now in it’s 6th assignment.
Since it was being moved to Melissa’s house, we decided to refinish it as her 25th birthday present. It is amazing how different it looks. She chose a dark cherry color stain, and I used tung oil instead of varnish to finish it. She is picking out new hardware in order to “update” these fairly old pieces of very well made furniture.
As I finished it yesterday, I wrote a birthday greeting inside one of the drawers... Then I loaded it with a bunch of memories.
I’ve said it before as has probably every other parent in the world; “where did the time go”? I guess it was gobbled up by work, and school, church commitments, family obligations, yard work, car repairs, and bill paying. But it also was consumed with holiday traditions, school plays and concerts, coloring books, re-runs of M*A*S*H and Dragnet, ( Melissa and I watched those shows together faithfully when she was 2, every night after dinner ), reading Dr. Seuss, vacations to the Smokey Mountains, raking leaves, sledding, learning to drive, and mourning fallen gold fish.
Melissa moved to her new home in Cleveland Heights recently. It didn’t take long to move her in. At 25 most people don’t own that much. The few pieces of furniture she took with her needed to be refinished first. So we took her chest of drawers and dresser to a sandblaster who removed the old varnish, stain, dust, crayon marks, finger nail polish, and make-up.
The furniture originally belonged to Robin’s Grandparents. They gave it to her parents, who then placed it in her room when she was a child. She grew up with the furniture and it came with us when we got married. When we moved to “the new house” we put it in Melissa’s room. It is now in it’s 6th assignment.
Since it was being moved to Melissa’s house, we decided to refinish it as her 25th birthday present. It is amazing how different it looks. She chose a dark cherry color stain, and I used tung oil instead of varnish to finish it. She is picking out new hardware in order to “update” these fairly old pieces of very well made furniture.
As I finished it yesterday, I wrote a birthday greeting inside one of the drawers... Then I loaded it with a bunch of memories.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Thursday, December 01, 2005
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