It's Beginning to Feel Alot Like Christmas

It must be getting close to Christmas. “How can I tell?” you ask. Well there are a few things that happen every Christmas season. First, I get the urge to buy a new Mercedes, wrap a big red bow around it, and park it in my driveway. Second, even though I have seldom used an electric razor, I start to feel inadequate in the shaving department with my triple-blade cheapie. The third symptom of Christmas is the yearning somewhere in the back of my consciousness for a Chia “something.” It doesn’t really matter which shape or form, I feel the need to grow green things around various troll-like shapes.

I was watching an ad for a diamond store, where they were boasting about their big 25% off everything sale. I happened to be close enough to read the small print that stated “No actual sales may have occurred at the full pre-sale prices.” Nice. They offer 25% off of something that has been marked up 1,000% in the first place, and the discount is fake to begin with. ‘tis the season, eh?

While I am rambling on about it, what is with the ads that started two weeks ago to lure us in for some last minute shopping. Last minute? I haven’t even started, and they want me to wrap it up. You hear claims about how their year will be ruined if the Christmas (holiday) season doesn’t improve. I am still trying to figure out why I should care.

I’m not bitter. In fact, I am having a great time experiencing Christmas with a three year old. It’s great. We watch many of the great Christmas movies together: The Bishop’s Wife (original only, please), Polar Express, Scrooged (“This is one Santa who is going out the front door”), and everybody’s favorite Santa Conquers the Martians (Crow and Tom Servo did this one up right!).

We put the tree up right after Thanksgiving, and Denny has the house decorated up very nicely, so the season has been very lovely this year, despite the constant attempts of Madison Avenue to mess with it. Emma is so fun and excited. I hope you all have as nice a Christmas as we are having, as Andy says, “Keeping it real.” Ok then.

Smile! (or not...)

Last year we took some really great Christmas pictures of Emma. She was giggling delightfully, with a sparkle in her eye, in each one. This year we tried to recreate the magic. Got a cute black and red velvet outfit, curled the hair, put a bow in. And here is a sample of the results.







Ah well. She's still our cutie patootie.

Go Find a Big Book....

We haven't taken many pictures lately, and I don't have much interesting to report. We've all been kind of sick the last week with various combinations of upper respiratory and lower GI ailments. But in the interest of posting something new, I'm stealing an idea from the blog Seriously, so blessed. Here's what we do:

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages. Don't pick the coolest or most impressive one, just the NEAREST one.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence and post it!


So the nearest book at hand is the authorized biography of Hugh Nibley (by Boyd J. Petersen). Page 123, 5th sentence, reads:

"As he wrote to a friend who was going through marital problems, 'Common ground does not exist' between the two worlds." (He's referring to the credo that one must live "in the world but not of the world.")

So...what's in YOUR nearby book?