Tag: #Christmas

  • ODDS and ENDS: Most Annoying Thing in the World, Dogs in Sweaters, and Christmas Lights

    (City lights and business nights…)

    I have a canker sore on the bottom of my tongue. Sweet Lord in Heaven, it is the most annoying thing in my life right now. It hurts a little, sure; that little sting of pain when I eat or talk or swallow or brush my teeth, or do anything like laying in bed. But what is really annoying is how I am thinking about it all the time. Can’t eat anything too spicy, and don’t talk too much, because you might droll on yourself. I ate a cookie last night, and it hurt like hell on a stick, so now I have second thoughts about eating a cookie. And this is the time of year when you’re supposed to eat cookies freely and openly and without thought… I’ve had the canker sore for three days now, and I know me, which means that I have about four more day to go before it decides to move on its way.

    Dogs in sweaters is just funny to me. I’m not knocking dogs in sweaters, as some little guys do need them. But on the whole, when I see a dog in a sweater, it makes me think the dog is playing dress up. Like the dog has a little closet of clothes to pick from. But like I said, some dogs need a sweater. Case in point:

    I love New York City at Christmas time. People are generally in a good mood, and there is a buzz around here during the Holidays. And then there are the lights; colored lights are everywhere. But what I like most when it comes to lights are the Christmas Trees people place in front of their windows; decorated and lit up. Like silent home guards watching over the City.

  • ODDS and ENDS: The NYC Christmas Myth, Cookies, and Mass from the Vatican

    (Midnight is when the day begins…)

    One of my family’s Holiday traditions is for us to watch an episode of Hawkeye each night leading up to Christmas Day. It’s a fun miniseries, that is silly enough, and also plays the right emotional notes for the Season. But one thing that I have noticed watching it year after year is that the production designer went out of their way to make New York City look as Christmas idyllic as possible, especially in their use of snow. There is snow on the ground and falling all the time in the show, which hasn’t happened in NYC in close to twenty years. I think I had one Holiday season, maybe 2007, where there was snow on the ground, and fun snow showers that would pass through. I’m not knocking the designer’s choices with snow, as if you want to make the City look Holiday picturesque, that’s how you do it. It just makes me miss, maybe mourn a little, that the world has changed enough now, that even up in here in the Northeast, snow at Christmas is a rarity.

    Does anyone else think of a chocolate chip cookie as a Christmas cookie? Not that you’re wondering, but I do. My Ma didn’t do a ton of baking, but around the Holidays she did, and that was pretty much the only time she’d make chocolate chip cookies. Yes, she would do sugar cookies, and scotch cookies, and sometimes oatmeal as well. But the chocolate chip was the winner in our house.

    I’m not a very religious person. I was raised Catholic, but as soon as I could get away from the Church, I did. I have many, many issues with the Church, and as I have gotten older, and had a daughter, the more I am sure that I won’t be returning. Yet, every Christmas Eve, I can’t help but watch Midnight Mass from the Vatican. A deep through line of Catholicism runs in me, and for that reason, the traditions and history of the Church still are interesting to me.

  • Decorations

    As it is Christmas time, again, we are in the process of decorating the apartment for the season. Unfortunately, when I say “we” that doesn’t include me. Not that I am excluded, as the wife and kid give me plenty of opportunities to decorate. But since the kid’s birth, I have found my drive to put up a tree, and lights, wreaths and garland, declining year after year.

    Now, to clarify, I am excited about Christmas time. I love shopping, and the baking of cookies and cakes, seeing friends, going out to look at the lights in the City, and all the holiday events that are around here. I enjoy taking part in the kid’s excitement for the season, and we have a great number of traditions we take part in leading up to the big day. I like Christmas!

    I just don’t have a desire to decorate for it.

    It feels like a bit of a chore.

    In a weird way, because all my life’s a circle, I think I am coming around to a better understanding of why my father behaved the way he did during the holidays. He wasn’t a grinch or grumpy at all. No, he just got all the boxes down from the attic the weekend after Thanksgiving, and sat on the couch watching sports, sometimes drinking a beer. If he was asked to help out – put something up high as my mother was rather short, or give an opinion if a decoration was level – he would, of course, do it, but he would return back to the couch. When my mother announced that everything was hung, my dad would get up and put the empty boxes back up in the attic, without complaint.

    And my father is a big kid during Christmas. He likes getting up early to see everyone’s reaction to the “surprise” present that appeared under the tree. He always played with me and my brothers Christmas morning, and same went with the grandkids. He was, and is, a joy to be around.

    Just don’t ask him to put decorations up.

    I guess same goes for me.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Talking to the Dog, Shopping for Quirk, and Wrapping Up

    (Jump back, what’s that sound?)

    I know that I am not the only person who does this, because I have seen other people in my neighborhood do it, especially at night. And that’s talking to your dog on a walk. Now, I’m not talking about telling your dog that they are a good boy, or asking them to hurry up, or to slow down. No, I mean having a conversation with the dog. At home, I talk to the dog all the time. Like, if I have an idea, and I need to talk through it, the dog will be the recipient of my line of thinking. But out for a walk? No, I don’t want to look like the crazy guy on the block. Until, the other day, when I did it. I had several things I needed to take care of the next day, and I thought when the dog was trying to poop, that would be a good time to ask her if my agenda was in good order. She seemed to agree, or at least she had to no where else to go.

    As we are approaching Christmas, the wife and I have started looking for gifts for our family members who have a very excellent sense of humor. Last year, the winner was the fat plush cat with balls, which, for some odd reason, is no longer available on Amazon. For us, the quirk gift needs to revolve around a cat or cats. They do seem to be the funniest. Something with cat butts, or an art piece of cats watching use the bathroom are our winning ideas so far. No matter what we select, we do have to hope that it lands well, hence the good sense of humor being a requirement, but we also have to imagine and wonder what the reaction will be.

    AND as we approach Christmas, that will also mean that I need to wrap up my year on the blog. I only have two weeks left of live or daily created blogs left, and then I will start scheduling the final two weeks of the year. Lot’s of Christmas jokes, but I will again do a “Best Of…” week as well. In the past few years, I have let the “Best Of…” be the posts that received the most views, so you, the readers, have decided. This year I am going to change it up and select what I think were the five best blogs I put out. Maybe this is a good idea, maybe no one cares. Maybe it’s good to change things up from time to time.

  • Moving Stuff Around

    After Thanksgiving, like the day after, is when we put up our Christmas decorations. And to be honest, we never had a good place to put our tree. The curse of a small NYC apartment: There is a never a good place for anything.

    But this year, the wife came up with a good idea, which was to move our lounge-sofa away from our windows, and place the tree there. The tree looked nice in that location, and with all the other decoration we put up, it looked very festive, but cluttered – a Christmas explosion.

    Anyway, I mentioned before that we take everything down after New Year’s, but with the holiday on a Monday, and everyone back to life on Tuesday, we didn’t get around to cleaning up until this weekend. It took all day Saturday, but we got it done. Life had returned to normal, but we decided not to move the sofa back. We were tired, and ready to relax.

    And something amazing happened.

    The new placement of the sofa has changed the whole mood and flow of our apartment. You could logically assume that we were just reacting to something being “new” and in time it will wear off. But I have to admit, for the past two days our home has felt different, more home like, peaceful, calmer even.

    Is it possible that the placement of the sofa was holding us back? Does anyone remember Feng Shui? That was a pop-culture thing, right? Was that real or something made up to sell sofas?

    The funny thing is that I remember being a kid and my parents would do something like this very randomly, like every few years; that they would get a bug in their ear and just start rearranging the furniture in the home, and then talk about how much better everything felt.

    So, I have discovered another way that I am slowly becoming my parents. Not that I mind.

    No… Maybe the better way to think about this is that I am coming to a better understanding of who my parents were.