Category: Christmas Time!

From noon on Thanksgiving to midnight January 6… Christmas!!!

Winter Solstice

December 21, 2010

Uh oh! Seems once again two December observances are chatting! Let’s listen in…

Winter Solstice: Here I am! Time for the sun to stop at the Tropic of Capricorn and start heading back the other way again!

Christmas: Marvelous! And that means I’m only four days away! Time for wreaths and holly and celebration!

Winter Solstice: Uh, yeah, about that, isn’t that all actually mine?

Christmas: We can share, can’t we?

Winter Solstice: Well, of course. You and I are more or less the same celebration anyway.
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Giant Inflatable Santa

December 13, 2010

I was at Home Depot a couple weeks ago to pick up some Christmas lights, which are now hanging on my living room window for the neighbors to admire. Yay! While there, I looked through all the other decorations, mostly stuff entirely too big and fancy to put in front of my house, whose front yard is like 90% driveway, 5% porch and walkway, and 5% tree and bushes. Ah, townhouses.

Most of the decorations at the store were rather sensible. Just some lights. Prelit trees. Snow globes. Obnoxious singing stuffed animals.

Then you get the huge lawn ornaments and whatnot. Huge inflatable snow globe for the front yard, six feet in diameter. Maybe some illuminated reindeer. Giant snowman. And, of course, as said right in the title of this thing, giant inflatable Santa, bigger than any of that other stuff.

PROTIP: If you find you have purchased the giant inflatable Santa, and you have placed it somewhere on your premises, you are officially overdoing it.

😉

Old Songs Are Old

December 10, 2010

You know what’s cool about some Christmas carols? Like the super old ones, like Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels Sing? They’ve been around a long ass time.

I was watching the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol this evening, and when Scrooge is with Christmas Present he’s watching his nephew and the Cratchits in church. Where everyone was singing O Come All Ye Faithful. And then I just got this feeling, that this movie from 1938, about a story written and taking place in like 1850 or so, features a church service where they are singing O Come All Ye Faithful. The very same O Come All Ye Faithful I’ll be singing at a church service on Christmas Eve here in 2010.

Times like this I understand more why people cling to their religions and/or traditions. Not so much necessarily any ideological reasons, but that belonging to some long-running chain of events, that makes one feel part of that something bigger, yet in a sense that each one of us is significant in it. Something like that.

When I went to London last year, I visited Saint Paul’s Cathedral, which has been there for like over a millennium. Or, more accurately, since it was rebuilt after that big ass London fire in like 1666 or something, but in any case, that site has been used for religious purposes for that millennium or so. While I was there, they did a quick afternoon service and some choir was singing. And I thought while sitting there that here I was, witnessing yet another service in the countless number of them that had been going on there since so very many centuries ago. Neat.

Christmas songs are perhaps my favorite thing about the season, what with embodying all the traditions have been swept into the veritable Katamari that Christmas is, as well as the general joy. And music is fun anyway!

And I wonder that a century from now, two centuries from now, they’ll still be singing Silent Night and Angels We Have Heard on High, as well as the newer but just as fun and meaningful songs, and the even more Christmas songs that have yet to be composed. Now that’s what I call seeing Christmas Past, Present, and Future!

The One About Jesus

December 9, 2010

Did I ever tell you the story about Santa Claus? He’s the guy who lives at the North Pole for some reason and has a magic sleigh and reindeer with which he zips around the world Christmas Eve night and delivers presents to everyone!

Did I ever tell you the one about Santa’s ninth reindeer, Rudolph? He was born with a glowing red nose, and the other reindeer bullied him over it, until one foggy Christmas Eve, when Santa couldn’t fly anywhere because magic sleighs and flying reindeer are no match for ordinary fog that apparently covers the entire world, they realized Rudolph’s red nose makes a fine fog light, so they were able to go out after all.
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Kids at Christmas

December 7, 2010

I almost don’t think I should write about this since I’m sort of repeating stuff I’ve said quite a bit already. But, screw it, here’s another!

Right now, I’m at work and getting ready to send the first batch of NYRA’s holiday cards (yay!) and have 97.1 streaming online, the DC version of the generic Clear Channel light rock station that carries that annoying Delilah show in evenings and in December plays 24/7 Christmas music (with a few Chanukah songs thrown in here and there so they can pretend they’re all inclusive). I love Christmas music, I’ve been over this many times, yet there are several songs, which I’ve also mentioned before here and here and here and here and here, which are awful and keep getting played for some reason. Two of the worst are “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”. While the latter thankfully doesn’t seem to be getting played quite as much this year, the former is of course getting played over and over.
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The Holidays

December 4, 2010

Oh, a chat! Let’s listen in…

Christmas: Hey, Chanukah, how’s it going? On your, what, 4th night now?

Chanukah: Yup. And you’re still three weeks away, I see.

Christmas: Why are we so far apart this year?

Chanukah: Happens.

Christmas: I don’t like it. Prefer you were closer to me, so your people and mine could celebrate at the same time!

Chanukah: I’m usually closer to you. But maybe I prefer it this way. Everyone thinks I’m just a Jewish version of you anyway, when that is so not true.

Christmas: Well, you’re similar in a way.

Chanukah: How so? My celebration is about our candle oil lasting eight days instead of just one when we were trying to rededicate our temple after we were attacked. Yours is about… God having a kid.

Christmas: I mean the lights! Yes, there was Jesus, but that involved a big star lighting up the night sky. Yours too involves lots of lights when things looked dark. Not to mention countless other Winter Solstice celebrations that have merged with me, all with the same basic idea of celebrating light and warmth when the world is otherwise cold and dark.

Chanukah: Yeah, that’s another reason I don’t want to get too close to you. You’re sort of a December holiday Wal-Mart. It seems every single Winter Solstice or other celebration this time of year has just gotten sucked into you. Well, it’s not happening to me!

Christmas: It’s not so bad. Look, your days jump around all the time. Maybe if you were more a part of me, they’d be set days for once. Less confusing.

Chanukah: *choke* What?! I do begin on a set day. I start on the 25th of Kislev. The Gregorian calendar isn’t the only calendar, you know!

Christmas: Okay, okay. I’m sorry. But, hey, we’re both the 25th of a month! That’s something!

Chanukah: No, it’s not. Just… stop. We’re not merging. Menorahs and dreidls will not be part of you. They’re ours.

Christmas: Well, that doesn’t seem fair. Everyone can join us! Trees and wreaths and candy canes and presents for all!

Chanukah: It’s just a matter of preserving our traditions. Besides, we do have presents. We give gifts on each of the eight nights.

Christmas: Ah, you do exchange gifts then?

Chanukah: Yup. Our families meet for meals, light the candles, exchange the gifts, sing songs, play games, and do all sorts of other things.

Christmas: I’ve pretty much got all that, too.

Chanukah: So it’s even less reason for a merger. Besides, plenty of my people still celebrate Christmas.

Christmas: And that’s wonderful. The more the merrier.

Chanukah: 🙂

Christmas: Ohhhh… I see what you did there…

Children’s Art

December 3, 2010

So at my job, just like everywhere else this time of year, we get holiday cards from people and businesses we’ve dealt with over time. Our first one arrived a couple days ago, with some artistic image of Texan cowboy boots or something on it (that’s Christmassy somehow, I guess?). Well, it was one of those cards where their images are made by children as some sort of charity thing. Okay, that’s cool.

Except when I glanced at the back of the card, then I got annoyed. Among the explanations that the cards help kids with cancer, good stuff like that, was that this card’s artist was from Midland, Texas… and was 18 years old.

Uhh, no. Just… no!
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I’m Only Half Arab

November 26, 2010

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, and we did one thing a little different. Rather than just stuffing our faces at our own house, we fixed some food and drove into Virginia to my aunt’s house to spend yesterday evening there. This aunt is my mother’s sister, and my mother’s side of my family are Christian Palestinians. My dad’s side are just boring WASPs. So that makes me, of course, half Arab.

What does it mean to be half Arab? Well…

I’m only half Arab. I eat my hummus… with tortilla chips!

I’m only half Arab. I make spinach fatayer… meaning I stuff a spinach filling into Pillsbury biscuits!

I’m only half Arab. I’m willing to martyr myself for what is right… by telling my relatives that my Jewish friends are awesome!

I’m only half Arab. A distant cousin tells me in Arabic that I’m wonderful… and I actually have no idea what she just said but I’m sure she’s pissed at me!

I’m only half Arab. I like to make tabbouleh… except the bulghur wheat is a pain in the ass, so it’s really just chopped tomatoes and cucumbers in a bowl. Close enough!

I’m only half Arab. Sometimes I get “randomly” selected at airport security… and sometimes I don’t!

I’m only half Arab. I’ll take my baklava… alongside a nice piece of pumpkin pie!

I’m only half Arab. I drink coffee from a teeny tiny little cup… while watching the Thanksgiving NFL game!

I’m only half Arab. I go to bed at 2am… which my family tells me is way too early!

I’m only half Arab. I yell everything I say… which makes me the quiet one!

I’m only half Arab. My relatives go on and on about how I need to find a good man and get married… which I just sort of ignore.

LOL 2009

December 31, 2009

The year that began as elusive is now known and past, with of course the expected lulz. So, just like last year, here’s some random highlights by month. Enjoy!

January: Fort Belvoir

-Me to fye: You can’t ban unaccompanied under-15s from the store.
-Cedric?! Why… why aren’t you moving? And lying on the bottom of the tank…? 🙁
-LOL my boss set the dumpster on fire with his cigarette
-Holy shit, it’s Vicky!
-The Youngest Candidate viewing at GWU = win!
-Whoa! Slumdog Millionaire is… whoa!
-Vicky, Alexandria is a big place. Where exactly do you need to go?
-Okay, it’s “Fort Belvoir” not “Fort Belvick”. And Fort Belvoir is not in Alexandria.
-Obama! Obama! Obama!
-Screw work, let’s all just watch the inauguration.
-Uh, oh, acetonitrile shortage! If we run out, we’re screwed!
-ZOMG! Case Closed on Funimation channel!!!
-Yeah, great, ski lift, try to rip my arm off!
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Four Calling Birds

December 28, 2009

On this fourth day of Christmas, I guess I’ve got these four calling birds from some secret admirer. *shrug*

They won’t shut up. Chatting away on their cell phones, even while they’re driving. I try to talk to one of them, yet they keep yakking away on the phone. So rude.

Even when I invite them to dinner, they take their places at the dining table, yet they keep talking and talking on their phones, while I’m just sitting there awkwardly, as if in another world. Lame.

Eventually, the four calling birds went away, still running their mouths to the unknown being on the other end of their calls. Oh, well. Best of luck to them.

Happy 4th Anniversary, Eight Mine Fortress!!!