Humor – Page 90 – I'll Call It Like I See It

who knew the 17th. Christmas was the charm?

The image I’ve used as the header for my blog during December this year is a picture that Number One Son took of his mother and me in our very first home at our very first Christmas together in December, 2001.

What I remember about that picture, besides how easy it was to get up after it was taken, was the giddy feeling of happiness I felt in sharing that holiday season with Pretty who clearly had a quintessential Christmas spirit that bubbled through every gift bought, wrapped carefully and placed under the tree she had picked out and decorated.

It was the first year we blended our families, of course, and I remember being nervous about having my mother visiting from Texas to meet Pretty’s family who would be driving down from the upstate. My mom, Granny Selma, was always a wild card under the best of circumstances so the only question mark was whether she would be on her I’m a lady with a lot of dignity so I must be on my best behavior or whether she would deliver one of her Jesus is the reason for the season monologues. Luckily, we had three dogs (Sassy, Annie and Red) that distracted her so she was limited to a long prayer at the dinner table.

Sixteen Christmases have come and gone since that first Christmas together in 2001, and Pretty has plowed her way through them like an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic. Full steam ahead – refusing to be deterred by lesser Bah Humbug mortals like me who whine about why we can’t cut a corner or two one year…or the heartbreaking absence of family members at her Christmas dinner table during a few of those years. Pretty kept on believing in the miracles of the season.

Pretty and her tree this year

Christmas night – Santa’s elves

The Grinch

now where did I put Papa’s gift?

everyone, please listen to me…our order of opening gifts

will be to go from the youngest to the oldest

Pretty Too, Number One Son and Papa

Pretty with her helper Charly – Jim and Sis paying attention

Gifts that made us smile…

I just love it when a plan comes together

more gifts

mallow cups – Pretty’s favorite candy – hooray!

the miracle of laughter

“practical” gifts from Pretty for Papa who doesn’t believe in “luxury” gifts

Papa always made sure we had a box of “practical” gifts every Christmas

I just love my red apron

even the Grinch is getting in the spirit

love – the greatest miracle of all

more laughter… which is right up there behind love

presents, presents, everywhere – and not a cookie to be found

and more gifts, more laughter

how many more gifts can there be?

Papa’s shutterfly book: The Barns of Madison County

(the cover photo is the home in Appalachia where he was born)

and still more laughter

Lawdy, Lawdy – the Grinch actually bought me a present this year!

Merry Christmas to me

Yes, Merry Christmas to you, Pretty – I do believe this 17th. family Christmas of ours has been the best ever, and I thank you for keeping faith in the miracles of love, laughter and family not only during the holiday seasons but in every season of the year. We love you…

December 27, 2017

missing baby Jesus update – the Red Man’s Christmas traditions

On Christmas Eve my thoughts return to the thrilling days of yesteryear when The Red Man ranted and raved his way through cyberspace for seven years from 2010 – 2016. Red was a rescued Welsh terrier that became my alter ego who introduced me to the blogosphere. No subject was too sacred for that little dog to discuss – politics, religion, sports, the dearly beloved, the dearly departed, his favorite TV shows, his crushes on Hottie Docs – really he had an exaggerated opinion of himself and his literary abilities. How I miss him and his mischief.

But what Red really loved was a healthy dose of gossip about someone or something he could make fun of, and there was a particular story about a missing baby Jesus in an outdoor church nativity scene in Navasota, Texas that entertained him every Christmas.

Apparently the old woman Slow, Red’a name for me, had a cousin who was the Church Organist at a little church in Navasota that had a decoration committee which was responsible for erecting and maintaining an outdoor nativity scene every year with the requisite Wise Men, little shepherd boy, sheep, Mary, Joseph, the whole manger “scene.” The focal point of the presentation was a tiny cradle holding the baby Jesus. Just your regular old run-of-the-mill outdoor church nativity scene.

The only distinguishing difference with this particular pastoral scene was discovered by the Church Organist’s older brother one evening in December, 2010 when he was strolling the grounds rolling his cigarettes while waiting for the Church Organist to finish choir practice. When he walked past the nativity scene, he saw that the cradle was empty, as in no baby Jesus at all…anywhere… which kind of ruined the whole effect of the scene. So this Bearded Brother informed the Church Organist who told the Pastor.

High drama ensued at the little church during the business meeting the following Wednesday night in which the church Pastor admitted there had been a cover-up by the decoration committee which was aware the baby Jesus had actually been stolen the previous year but the committee members were hoping no one would get close enough to the nativity scene to notice since no one had noticed last year. None of the members had considered the possibility that the Church Organist’s brother would be rolling cigarettes next to the nativity scene.

Through the years the mystery of the baby Jesus theft was never solved for any number of reasons including but not limited to the year one of the members of the church decoration committee ran off with another member’s husband which completely halted the search that year. Another year one of the Wise Men’s legs broke off, and still another year found the little shepherd boy had grown a mustache of snow…who had time to think about an empty cradle during more obvious emergencies.

Gradually through the years the manger itself began to slowly disintegrate in the harsh Texas winters until this year according to the same Church Organist cousin, the outdoor nativity scene was abandoned and the cradle in the manger moved inside the church to a place of reverence under the Christmas tree in the sanctuary.

The Bearded One had this to say:

Who could dare put the empty Jesus crib by the tree,

still empty! Maybe the decoration committee is trying

to make the thief come forward, and reveal his shame,

just horrible, anyone who would steal the Baby Jesus

will surely burn in Hell.

I know for sure The Red Man would have laughed to himself once again over the true meaning of the Christmas spirit revealed in the never-ending saga of the missing baby Jesus.

From Pretty, Charly, Spike and the old woman Slow, (none of whom can believe it’s really Christmas of 2017)

Merry Christmas to all, and keep a close watch over your mangers.

December 24, 2017

maybe if we don’t talk about them, they’ll just disappear

In March of this year, two months after the inauguration of the 45th. president of the Unites States, the Department of Health and Human Services dropped questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in two surveys of elderly people (which must surely explain why I wasn’t included in either one of the surveys).

Shortly after the new administration took over the West Wing of the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services removed all information about LGBT Americans from its website. That’s right…deleted…gone…erased.

And now the words transgender and diversity are two of seven words no longer allowed at the Center for Disease Control according to a recent administration rule. The other prohibited words include vulnerable, fetus, evidence-based, science-based and entitlement.

Seriously.

In the spirit of bipartisanship, I decided to create my own list of seven forbidden actions for the West Wing inhabitants in 2018:

prejudice

discrimination

knee-jerk reactions

selfishness

alternative facts

early a.m. tweeting

maniacal nuclear threats

I lost my holiday spirit with this one, but I promise to retrieve it. Until then…

Stay tuned.

December 17, 2017

the surprise Christmas visit: you raised me up

If I could travel through time today, I would have no interest in traveling forward. No, I would opt for backward time travel to make a surprise Christmas Eve visit with my family in my hometown of Richards, Texas in 1956 because, you see, the people gathered in that small living room belonging to my grandparents on my daddy’s side “raised me up.”

My mom Selma and my dad Glenn are sitting on a traditional beige three person sofa with my other grandmother who I called Dude. My mom and dad are in deep discussions about the Christmas cantata they are having at the Baptist Church where my dad leads the singing because he has the loudest male voice that can carry a tune and my mother plays the piano because she has had this job since she was a teenager.

My mother’s oldest brother, Marion, who is currently unemployed and living at home with us in Dude’s house, sits in one of the dining room chairs brought to the living room for our family party to open gifts that night. My mother’s other brother Toby also sits in one of the dining room chairs with his cane leaning against it. Toby is also unemployed and living with his mother which means that I live with him, too.

My grandmother Ma sits in a living room chair that goes with her sofa in a prominent spot next to the Christmas tree my grandfather cut from our woods three miles outside of town. The assorted colors of bubble lights on the tree are bubbly…the tree has several ornaments I remember from other Christmas trees in this same living room. A few icicles were thrown in a haphazard manner to give the tree a kind of beginner tree look, although Ma has decorated her trees in this fashion for years. I know this for a fact because I helped her throw the icicles.

Selma’s tree, on the other hand, at Dude’s house was definitely the more polished decorating effort. My mother loved precision and a plan – her Christmas tree was a perfect example of both. The tree was always beautiful.

To the left of Ma sits my grandfather Pa. He sits in a special chair that also belongs in the living room but looks to be the most uncomfortable seat in the entire setting which seems to me to be unfair since he has been on his feet all day at the barber shop cutting hair and giving shaves to the farmers who want to look good for their families at Christmas.

My grandmother Dude has also been standing on her feel all day helping people find last-minute gifts at the general store where she works six days a week all year except for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I am sitting on the floor next to the gifts under the tree when Ma motions for me to begin playing Santa Claus and passing out the gifts. Ma insists that I wait for each person to unwrap their gift before I hand out the next one. I am impatient with the process and have the temerity to tell Ma. She laughs and says I can pass out gifts however I want when I have my own house and Christmas Eve party but in her home, the gifts will be opened to suit her.

Today is a rainy cold December day in 2017, and I am now more than 60 years past that Christmas Eve in Texas but I still can see those people, all of whom are now gone, as if they were here with me in this moment.

I have been listening this week to Celtic Woman: Homecoming in Ireland which I recorded earlier this week. I love their Irish voices and the concert which ends with one of their most popular songs: You Raise Me Up.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains,

you raise me up to walk on stormy seas.

I am strong when I am on your shoulders,

you raise me up to more than I can be.

If I could speak to my family again in that little living room on Christmas Eve, I would tell them that I am grateful for how they individually, and as a group, “raised me up” to be more than I can be. I stand on the shoulders of people who raised me in love and kindness and with the belief that decency and respect for others are the values that matter most in life.

At a time when we are looking for standards for how we should treat each other, I think love and kindness are a good place to start.

Stay safe during the holiday season, and stay tuned.