...Or Maybe Phineas

I went to buy a battery for my camera last night, but I forgot and bought Uncle Ben’s white rice for Johnny instead. He’d been whinging for it, and I’d been trying to convince him to finish that last measly cup of generic white rice in the canister before refilling it with something else – but once I crossed the threshold of the grocery store I couldn’t remember why I’d stepped inside, so I just bought the first thing I remembered. I grabbed the big box, too. Three pounds. Cost six dollars, and does fuck-all for my camera. So you’re just going to have to take my word on this…

I don’t know if you could tell, but I wasn’t really much in the mood for Christmas this year. Not to get all Scroogerific or anything, because I am usually The Quintessential Christmas Elf, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Half the ornaments never made it to the tree, the cookie cutters stayed in their Ziploc bags, the angel orchestra is still sitting on its bandstand in its box, and I wrapped my gifts with leftover wedding paper (hey, it’s white; stick a red or green bow on it and it looks festive enough).

But this weekend we had a couple people over, so I had to knock off the half-assery. I didn’t unpack the angels or re-wrap the gifts or anything, but I did take out my Christmas linens. The red & green tablecloth with matching dishtowel and oven mitt, and the (not quite matching, but who cares) red, white & green placemats. Not that I was setting the table for a sit-down meal or anything – we were only doing finger foods and a light buffet – but the placemats went on the coffee table under the chips & dip, and made it look a little more as if I cared.

I didn’t dress the part, though. Not for any humbug reason, but because the occasion was a football game, and I had to wear my football shirt or else they’d lose (sometimes they lose anyway, but that’s because somebody, somewhere, is wearing the wrong socks). I put my Good White Turtleneck on underneath it – the Good White Turtleneck that I’d gotten from my mom for Christmas and worn (and washed, and dried) every day since – and I felt clean and warm.

But it was like 60 degrees on Sunday, which made it something like 70 in the house. Pretty soon I was feeling a little too warm in my Good White Turtleneck, and not so very clean.

See, a Good White Turtleneck is a rare thing – you really don’t know you’ve got one until you’ve worn it and washed it and worn it again – but all the things that make it Good make it not at all suitable for warmer weather. For instance:

1. The collar must reach your ears when you turn it up, and it musn’t sag (I went to prep school in the ‘80s: if I fold down the collar on my turtlenecks even now, they will come and rescind my diploma).
2. The cuffs must hug your wrists in such a snug, soft manner that no air sneaks in – which, in turn, means you can never push them up, or else they’ll stretch.
And, finally:
3. The fabric must be soft, thick enough to stand alone on an autumn afternoon, yet thin enough not to bunch and bind as one of many February layers.

The Turtleneck in question passed all three -- even after two washings in as many days -- so naturally I ran screaming to the laundry room at halftime to strip it off. Well, hell, I was sweating like a whore, and I couldn’t very well take off my football jersey, could I? We had to win, so we could make the playoffs!

Sigh.

Anyway, I took it off and threw it in the washing machine (which, in this house, doubles as a laundry hamper), put the football shirt back on and resumed post-Christmas munching. Oh my god, I went on to eat so many chips & dips. But at least (which is so unlike me) I didn’t spill a drop of it on my New White Shirt! Didn’t spill a drop of anything on the placemats, either. Nobody did. Which also, around here, qualifies as some kind of post-Christmas miracle.

The next day – yesterday – Johnny got sent home from work early because, as he put it, “there were too many goddamn kids running around.” I had told him I’d do the cleaning-up from the football game festivities when I got home at 3:00 or so, but instead I walked into a house that was all fresh-scrubbed and smelled like chicken soup. It wasn’t soup, not yet – it was still in the stocky stages – but it was a hell of a lot better than dirty dip-dishes and crusty old pot-pie.

“I even,” he announced all proudly, “washed the linens.”

You… the…

Oh no.

See, there are certain Things that Johnny thinks are True, and they just Aren’t. Cuchulain, for example (sorry, love), never existed. It is okay to wash a travel mug with soap (we have strictly labeled his-n-hers, because he claims Palmolive leaves a tell-tale taste behind, and I don’t want to drink nine years of nasty sludge – though, in his defense, he does soak his in Clorox once in a while, which he insists leaves no lingering note). And, no matter what your mother did, you really don’t have to wash every laundry load in hot. As a matter of fact, you really can’t. Especially if you tossed the Christmas linens in there with my Good White Turtleneck.

Sorry: my Good Pink Turtleneck.

Yes, indeedy, David: our Christmas placemats are now green & pink & red, and my Good New Turtleneck looks like something out of Tahoe Barbie. Or Tahoe Ken, I suppose. I wouldn’t put a soft shade of carnation-pink past Ken.

I checked the tag and found the brand and ordered myself a replacement. Ordered two, in fact, figuring I’d make Johnny pay me back for them both, somehow. But then I took the wash out of the dryer and that saw he already had...

Because all three new Christmas pairs of Good White Jockey Shorts were in there, too.

I think, from here on out, I’ll call him Ken.

Nollaig Shona!*

So we're riding around, running errands and things, at just-after-dark o'clock on Christmas Eve. We pass St. Joseph's -- an oddly Spanish-looking Catholic church about a mile from our house -- and traffic grinds to a halt as people double-park and cross against the light on their way in to Mass.

"Look at all these Irish fuckers," Johnny says. "Trying to get out of going to church tomorrow by squeezing it in on Christmas Eve. Burn in hell, yiz bastards!"

Johnny is Catholic. But, mind, he hasn't been to church -- save for weddings and funerals -- since at least before we met (which was either 1995 or '96, depending on which one of us you ask).

He sighed.

"Back in Ireland, we used to go to Midnight Mass..."

"Every Catholic church has Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve," I said (because it was important to be all correcty at this clearly nostalgia-drenched moment). "That's not just in Ireland."

"Really?" Johnny said, perking up. "You think they have it at St. Joseph's?"

"I'm sure they do."

"You want to go?"

"No."

It was an instinctive response. The truth is, although I don't subscribe to the doctrine or anything, I actually would like to go to Midnight Mass. I never went when I was little, and my cousins always did, and I was always so freaking jealous. Plus, if there's one thing I do still love about the Catholic church (though the truth is that there are several) it is their sense of pomp and circumstance. SRO at the witching hour on Christmas Eve? That is, seriously, about as drama-queen as you can get outside the Tenderloin. But, alas, Johnny and I have pre-existing plans.

Not real plans. We don't have to be anywhere. But we've known for months how we plan to spend our evening.

"I mean," I said, trying to lessen the harshness of my knee-jerk refusal, "by the time midnight rolls around, we'll both be drunk."

"Ah, hell," says Johnny. "You're supposed to be drunk when you go to Midnight Mass!"

And then he laughed. Big, honking, donkey laughs. Hyeaw! Hyeaw! When he finally managed to pull himself together, he explained:

"The only difference [hyeaw!] is that, here, you'd have to leave the pub to get to church. Back home, they close the pub and boot you in the arse!"



Merry happy to all and to all a good midnight! May yiz not burn in everlasting Irish hell!





*(It means Happy Christmas. And it's pronounced null-ac shun-ə. Which is, I have to say, the closest to normal pronunciation I've ever found of an Irish spelling.)

A Not-Very-Christmasy Random Collection of Thoughts that I Promise Will Pay Off, Somehow

I made pizza for dinner last night. I wanted to do it on Friday while it snowed -- stopped on the way home Thursday night and bought mozzarella cheese and everything -- but then when I went to make it I found we had no yeast. And it was snowing. And so we had macaroni & cheese that night instead (warm, soft, bad for you comfort food is warm, soft, bad for you comfort food, no matter how you slice it). Then I stopped and bought yeast on my way home yesterday and we had pizza last night. I'm having it again for breakfast now. And you know what? I don't care what you think? As soon as I finish this first cup of coffee I'm making me a big old Kahlua Sombrero to go with it!

Oh, hell, it's Christmas Eve. And besides, it's not like I'll be drunk at 8:00 a.m. You can't get drunk off Kahlua sombrero. And besides plus also, I make mine with coffee: equal parts Kahlua, cold coffee, and milk. One ice cube. So maybe it's not technically a sombrero. Maybe it's just a hat.

Speaking of hats: I dreamt this morning that I bought a bunch of hats and had a fashion show for My Lady. I've been thinking of hats a lot lately because I got a stupid haircut that I'd really like to hide, and these were fabulous. One was like a steel-grey fedora with a sparkly rhinestone buckle. One was giant -- I mean giant -- and black, and shaped like the big scalloped seat-compartments on the tilt-a-whirl. One I don't remember much about except I thought it made me look like a nun, so I pursed my lips and mimed rapping knuckles with a ruler. And one was black and big and soft and floppy and made me feel like a French (and white, and feminine) Sly Stone. I adored them all, though I allowed I'd probably return the tilt-a-whirl, seeing as how it took up half the room.

My Lady's on my mind today, too, because her kitty died last night. The poor old thing. Her heart just grew three sizes and gave out. The vet wanted her to go to Angell Memorial for ultrasound and surgery, but My Lady did the decent thing and put her down.

I should probably explain here that I technically have a pair of Ladies. I composite them here and refer to them as She, because I don't write enough about their personal lives for it to matter, and it seems more respectful mostly to fiction them up a bit. But for now, I want to tell a little truth.

Although my Ladies coincidentally attended the same boarding school (Westover, in Connecticut), they didn't actually meet until forty or so years later, when they both had apartments in the Dakota in New York. If you don't know what the Dakota is, it's the famous big old apartment building where both Rosemary's Baby and John Lennon were shot. This is my favorite picture of it:

It's called The Dakota because when it was first built, it was so far beyond the limits of the city (as you can see) that people joked it was like living out in the Dakota Territory. Needless to say, the city has since managed to find its way around:

I love this building for the story behind it, and also for the Miss Manners tradition that says if one lives (or lived) there, one never says so. You say you live at 72nd and Central Park West. If people know what that means, then they'll know, and if they don't then you aren't bragging. (Just like one never says one went to Harvard; you just say you went to college "in the east.") But when one has framed, signed pictures in one's bathroom, hand-signed "Merry Christmas, Lady! Love, Yoko and Sean," well, certain nosy Ones do tend to ask.

So there are stories I could tell you -- about Yoko, about Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards, about all kinds of other famous people (My Lady was on the board; she knew the what-what) -- but I won't. They aren't mine, they're only hearsay, and I wouldn't want to wind up getting sued. I do, however want to tell you about Jing.

Ages ago -- in the '70s and '80s -- My Lady had a pair of Siamese cats. They used to get out of her apartment all the time and go visiting. If someone in the Dakota was having a party, the pair of Siamese would inevitably show up, acting like they'd been invited. No one objected, but they did tend to overstay their welcome, so My Lady would get calls all the time when the party ended, telling her to come collect her cats. And then one day, two years after the second Siamese died, she got a call informing her her cat was on the roof.

At first she thought it was a cruel joke, or a spectre of some sort (the Dakota's full of both), but sure enough, there was a Siamese kitten on the roof, wet and sad and sitting in the gutter. You'd have to be a non-cat-person to confuse this poor wee thing with either of the other social bruisers, but you'd have to be a non-person altogether to say "she isn't mine" and leave her there.

So my Lady hung out the window and dandled a bit of something until the kitten inched forward far enough for her to grab a hold. And nobody ever claimed her. And that's how she got Jing. That was in like 1990 or something like that, so it's not as though the poor dead thing didn't lead a charmed existence while she led it.


Now, okay, let's see: how the hell am I going to bring this mess around and make it pay off in a Christmasy sort of way? Dead cats and big hats, murder and demonic possession, cold pizza and coffee drinks (oh, yeah, you bet your ass I've commenced with the Kahlua by this point)? Think, Erin. Think, think, think.

My thinker's sore.

Oh! I know!

Ta da...?

Crap.

I took a picture of my festive drink, and it's in a festive glass and everything. It has a festive swizzle stick (which I stuck in it just for the festive photograph) and I set it up with a festive Christmas card behind it for the sake of the festive scene. I took the festive picture, but before I could transfer it over, the battery in my festive camera died. And I know I have another one, but I can't festive find it.

So instead, I give you this:

I got bored drawing the card. But that's a pretty accurate rendition of my drink. Not quite so to-the-brim full anymore, though, naturally...


Merry Christmas!

Rudolph the Red-Hot Reindeer

Sorry for the cat-pudding interlude. We're back to Christmas Ornaments now. And just in figgy time, too!

Oh, okay. This drunken-looking dude. Let's see now...

For a little bit when I was in high school, and almost all through college, I worked at McDonald's. I don't care what you think of that, it's true, and they were good to me. Even if the polyester uniforms did give me ass-zits like you would not believe. In high school I worked on weekends -- 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays -- and in college during every school vacation. They'd work around my schedule and put me on full-time rotation when I called, even if it was for just a week.

(Full disclosure: it wasn't only me who worked there. It was me and my sister and brother. And it's a little bit possible we were given special treatment. I, for example, never worked anywhere but behind the grill. This is expressly against the rules, but I never wanted to come out front and let people see me in my ass-zit-giving uniform, and they never made me. My brother, on the other hand, was supposed to have been flat-out fired once, when the regional manager saw him walk in to the store without his forehead-zit-giving baseball cap and took a hating to his hair. Regional Manager insisted that McDonald's employees don't sport mohawks, and demanded that he be canned on the spot. But Store Manager (who might have been a little smarter than Regional -- I'm just saying) put her tiny Italian body in the line of fire, and Brother kept his job. Which he hated. But that's beside the point. My sister, I don't think, ever did anything wrong. At McDonald's, that is.)

Anyway, we used to steal the toys. This was in the days before everything was a movie tie-in, and the toys were all generic things like plastic pumpkin-bucket Happy Meals, and reindeer Christmas decorations, and, um... I forget what else. But whatever they were, they were definitely meaningful enough that we had to have them. We didn't take 'em by the bucketload or anything, but we all made sure to pocket at least one of each. Everybody had complete collections of, um... whatever. Which we of course immediately threw away.

This dude was one of those. The only robbed thing I have left, and therefore one of the two that I remember. The other -- the plastic pumpkin-bucket -- is in the possession of my sister.

Aha! You see? I knew if I thought about it long enough I would remember something bad she'd done!

Faithful Friends

When I was 21 years old, I worked at a store called The Christmas Dove. There were a few of them; the one I worked at was in Faneuil Hall.

On my very first day there (I remember, because it was August and the air conditioning was broken, so I spent my first day in Christmas Town mopping my brow like Louis Armstrong at the DEA) I fell head over heels in love with my new boss. All that came of it, though, was that we got to be bosom friends. Because -- as I was well aware on that first clammy afternoon -- my boss was, um, a gymnast. He did the window displays. He quoted Mommie Dearest randomly. And he flat-out worshipped Whitney Houston.

He had a boyfriend, is what I'm trying to say.

In fact, you would recognize this boyfriend-person if I told you who he was. He's famous now, and also famously gay. But back then he wasn't publicly known or publicly homosexual. The minor celebrity status that he did have, pretty much within the tri-state area, came from his role on a basic-cable children's tv show. So for public purposes, for the sake of his career, he wasn't gay. And even though they were together for six years, my Boss was always introduced as Boyfriend's cousin from out of town.

Long story short: When Boss gave up his North End apartment to finally move in with Boyfriend in Manhattan, he learned that this publicly-straight Boy-so-called-friend had been privately shtupping his way through Central Park for years. And he didn't really see any reason why he ought to stop. Boss still wound up moving to Manhattan, but into the apartment of a different (and genuine) friend.

A few years later, My Boss tested positive for HIV.

Now, just for the record, in case any of you have figured out who The Boyfriend is and want to get me sued for slander: Boyfriend is clean. Allegedly. From what My Boss told me, Boyfriend had been getting himself tested all along, and even when Boss called to sound the warning, Boyfriend rolled himself snake eyes again. But I've always blamed him anyway. Because it wasn't any of the other folks Boss had to talk to, either (and there weren't that many; certainly fewer than I'd've had to call if it were me). I don't know how he did it, but I just know he was the one. Maybe he's one of those magicly-immune people or something. Bitch.

Anyway...

My Boss (who was, of course, no longer My Boss at that point, but who still worked for the Dove in their Manhattan store) gave me this ornament that year for Christmas (this is a post about an ornament, remember? A Christmas decoration? Right?). It's a Christopher Radko AIDS memorial collectible panda bear. I'm not sure what panda bears have to do with AIDS or anything, but there you go.

And then, a few years later, My Boss dropped off the face of the earth.

I called his phone number one day, and a Spanish-speaking woman answered, and after that I never heard from him again. It wasn't unusual for us to go whole years without speaking, so I didn't think twice about it for a while. But when a year went by and I still hadn't heard from him, and I tried the phone number again only to find it disconnected, and I called information and couldn't get a listing in New York anywhere, well, then I began to be worried. But what could I do? I did know where his mother lived, but I couldn't bring myself to call her. Because what if something awful happened? How could I call and ask after her son if, god forbid, the virus had caught up with him and he was gone?

More years went by. I know I tried calling the Christmas Dove store that he worked at, but I don't remember why that didn't work. I even went down to the one in Boston that we used to work at, specifically to ask if anyone there knew him, but I chickened out because I wasn't ready, yet, to know for sure. And because I didn't want to hear bad news and wind up crying in the store.

Then 9/11 happened. The Manhattan store he worked at was in the South Street Seaport, which is right next to the World Trade Center, and he would have been just coming up from the subway at the worst possible time. I scanned the websites for survivor lists, but when I didn't find his name on them anywhere, I just stopped imagining My Boss alive. If the virus hadn't got him by now, I thought, then the falling towers probably did.

So every year, at Christmas time, when I pulled out my Panda Bear, I'd sigh a bit and shed a couple tears.

Then, one day last spring, I'd had a couple of beers while cleaning the attic, and started flipping through an old notebook full of poetry from when I was twenty-one (bad idea! don't do it! why did you even save the notebook in the first place?). There, on the top of one of the pages, was a phone number for a girl I'll call Babbette. Babbette was Boyfriend's cousin, and one of My Boss's best friends in the whole wide world -- even after the breakup and everything. The phone number was more than ten years old by the time I found it, but I went ahead and dialed it on a whim.

I got an answering machine. It was still using the mechanical voice it came with, so I couldn't tell if the number was still hers, but I left a message. Long,  rambling, and apologetic, and hanging up before remembering to leave my number for her to call back -- so I had to call again and leave another message like a nutjob.

A week or three went by, and I'd forgotten that I called her by the time she called me back. She remembered me, if only barely, and after making sure I wasn't the nutjob I made myself out to be on her machine, she gave me My Boss's number. And I called him.

He's alive!

He met a nice Brazilian boy -- who also, incidentally, has HIV -- and moved up to New Hampshire where they bought a house and sold antiques. "Like," as My Boss put it, "a couple of cliches." We met for lunch the very next day, because he still works for The Christmas Dove up in New Hampshire, and he was coming down to help them close the Boston store for good. He still looks as cute as ever. Hasn't aged a day. If anything, he seems healthier than he did the last time I saw him, probably because of all the clean-ass living the drug cocktail forces him to do.

That was in May or so. I haven't talked to him since, but it's nice to know for sure he's out there. It's nice to know he's happily okay. And it was very nice to unpack my Bear this year and, instead of crying when I thought of My Boss, smile...

Crappers of Crumlin

 

This one is also Johnny's. Also given to him by my mom. It is Belleek -- as in the Irish porcelain -- from their "Doors of Dublin" series. Johnny likes it, because it reminds him of the big old Georgian houses that he used to paint back home.

Notice I said "used to paint," not "used to live in." His own front door doesn't look like this. Not at all. His house isn't so much Georgian as it is Corporation. Which -- if I'm understanding it correctly -- is sort of like a government-sponsored, low-income, rent-to-own program. Even if I've got that slightly wrong, I think it's safe to say they weren't building Corporation houses in the Georgian mold.

They weren't building them quite this slummy back then, either, though. So at least that's something.

Anyway, here's what Johnny's front door really looks like:

Or used to. This isn't his house really -- and his isn't on the end like this one, either; his in the middle of the row -- but otherwise, it's the exact same house. Same door, same windows, same front gate, same layout, everything. Or, like I say, used to be. I'm told the door and windows have both been replaced, a notion that makes Johnny really sad. Which is why he so vehemently preserves the loo in the back garden with the genuine and original chain-pull cistern.

Oooh, what are the chances of Belleek making a series out of that?

I Was A Moon Baby

There are certain events that bind a generation. Where-were-you-when moments that are seared into our minds. 9/11, for example. The night the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the ALCS (well, maybe you have to live in Boston to love that one). Any number of assassinations. And the night Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

Me, I don't so much remember the moon landing, but I do know exactly where I was: Burbank Hospital. In Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Being born. It's safe to say my mom doesn't remember much about the landing, either.

Now, to be honest, I wasn't actually born during the moon landing. Mom was in labor with me when it happened, but then I changed my mind. There is debate over whether I was planting my feet at the exit and stubbornly insisting on being a Leo, or whether the flyboys brought my soul with them from outer space. But whatever the reason, I didn't technically see the light of day till splashdown.

Still, I get moon presents a lot. Commemorative books, patches, posters, all that jazz. I have quite a collection by now, and it's all pretty cool. I even have a book signed by Walter Cronkite. But my favorite of the menagerie is my first one.

This:

They gave him to me in the hospital. That scabby bit on his helmet (or whatever you might call it) is from the time mini-Destructo managed to break off his smiley head, and it just rattled around inside the helmet until Destructo's Daddy figured out a way to cut a hole in Moon Baby's helmet and stick his Kewpie loaf back on.

(He's not really Kewpie. He's actually Plakie. Whatever that is. I don't care. I love him.)

Anyway, so ornament #4 is a reproduction of the commemorative Moon Landing stamp that came out in 1999. It weighs a million pounds, so I have to hang it on a very sturdy branch, somewhere in the middle of the tree. By the time I find a stable place for it, it's always so obscured by other branches you can't see it anymore. But that's okay. Contrary to all conspiratorial so-called evidence, I know ornament #4 is truly there.

Unless...

Is it just a coincidence that the name of the hospital where I was born is Burbank?

Under-feted

You want to know what's really sad about unpacking Christmas ornaments? Finding them wrapped up in the likes of this:

And yes, that is my bra on the desk next to the newspaper. I'd had enough of it for one day. So?

Anyway, considering that my silence on the matter all season long didn't stop Tedy Bruschi and Vince Wilfork and Adalius Thomas and all the thousand rest of them from getting whacked all season long -- including Matt Cassell's poor father, RIP -- then I think it's okay that I posted this. Right? Go Pats?

Oh, and while we're at it, what the heck: Go Bills! And 'Niners! Tiebreaker! Tiebreaker! Whoohooo!!!

Yes, this is still a Christmas post. You see?

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Wrong Way.

My sister and I have formed ourselves a think tank -- only we don't "think" so much as make sweeping declarations of what other people should and shouldn't do. If you're going to push the walk button, for example, you must wait for the walk sign. Otherwise drivers, after sitting at the light forever waiting for it to cycle, have every right to drive up on the sidewalk and attempt to mow you down. That sort of thing. We call ourselves the WutEge Foundation -- after both our nicknames -- and we're pretty exclusive. You can't join, for example. Not unless your name is Wut. And not even if your name is Ege. Which it ain't.

Anyway, yesterday we embarked on a series of Christmas Decoration Declarations. Wut started it, with this: "Those christmas lights that are strung like nets, meant to easily drape over your shrubbery? If you're going to use them, you have to purchase enough lights to adequately cover the entire bush. Having a small square of prefectly spaced lights on a bush is as unappealling as a speedo on a fat man. A hairy fat man."

She's funny, my Wut is. In fact, I think she might have stolen my funny these days, because all I could come up with in reply is this: "If you are going to hang lights or decorations on a tree or bush, get a ladder! Hanging them only as high as you can reach is dumb."

We both agreed that there should be a blog of stupid Christmas decorations -- and I'd be happy to be that snarky elf if anybody wants to send me pictures -- but in the meantime, I thought I might as well begin with a series on The Proper Way To Trim a Christmas Tree.

I should probably start by saying that there are all kinds of different people in the world -- some of them (gasp!) don't even put up a Christmas tree -- and therefore there are all kinds of different ways to trim a tree. They all are wrong. After all, they are not in the WutEge Foundation, and I am.

So, herewith:

THE PROPER WAY TO TRIM A CHRISTMAS TREE, PART I:
(This is going to take several parts to demonstrate, because it takes several days to do. Perfection has a price, my friends, and it is patience.)

Well, obviously you have to buy the tree before you can trim it. Unless you live in a place where you can sneak into the woods and cut one down, which is a perfectly acceptable variation on the theme. Just make sure you get a good one. It has to be as close to perfectly cone-shaped as you can get it -- without actually reminding you of something with which Jean-Paul Gaultier would sheath Madonna's breasts. It has to have as little space between the branches as you can find, while saving lots of space under the bottom one for presents. Oh, and it ought to be as big as it can possibly be and still fit in the room, even if you have to climb over the sofa. I don't want to see more than a few inches of space between the top branch and the ceiling and, just to be safe, try to see if you can't get one equally as big around.

The first step towards actually trimming -- although you won't be doing that for days -- is to bring it in the house and put it up (for more on the proper stand, please see this post from yesteryear*). It won't look big enough at first, but that's why you're going to give it a while to let the branches settle, and to let the cats get used to the piece of aromatic furniture that they've seen come and go for fourteen Christmases running and yet are stunned to tiptoes at the sight of every time.

If your husband rustles up the little red heart ornament that the cats have been kicking around the house ever since it fell off the tree last Christmas and sticks it on there, that's all right. You can always move the red heart later.

Oh, and don't forget to treat your tree stand like you would a party guest's drinking glass: fill it up before you see it empty! Otherwise your tree -- just like a party guest -- will go all limp and saggedy (and be that much more inclined towards burning down your house) long before time comes to throw it out. 

Next: Lights!

*If you read that post, you will see that I did this trim-a-tree thing last year, too. I had forgotten. So here's the deal: I won't read last year's posts when I write these, and you-all can feel free to compare the two. If you catch me changing the rules without acknowledging it and giving a reason, I will send you a Christmas present. And it might even not be a lump of coal.


Oh, and don't forget: If you have -- or want to take -- pictures of bad Christmas decorations, feel free to send 'em my way (my email's in my profile).

We Will Eat No Pud Before It's Good...

We've been waiting for a month to make our Christmas pudding, because for some reason NOPLACE carries candy peel anymore. You know, the multi-colored, vaguely chemical-looking citrus rind that comes in little tubs and that goes in fruitcakes, Christmas puddings, and basically nothing else? Well, for some reason every store in America stopped selling it. Poof.

At first they told us it was because it wasn't Christmas season -- as if THAT matters, when they've had Santa Claus in the center aisle since September. But then there started to be no denying that it was, and still they didn't have it. Anywhere. Not with the baking goods, the holiday stuff, or dried fruit. And nobody we asked had any better ideas. Nobody actually bothered to look for it for us, either. But then, that's what they pay us for, right? To find our own stuff, make sure it's priced properly, then ring it up and bag it all ourselves? Before you know it they're going to let us use the deli slicers. Then we'll learn...

Anyway, we finally asked Billy to send us fruit from Ireland. On Monday it arrived, and we're making it today. That means our puddings won't be correctly aged by Christmastime, but there's really nothing we can do.

Thankfully, we still have that one we found in the attic last year.


Later, if I can figure out how, I'll re-post the recipe I posted last year.

The Christmas Tree, Part 4: The Garland

The garland is actually Part 3, in terms of The Proper Order In Which To Put Things On Your Tree, but I got all out of order because of the digital-camera debacle. I’ve killed everyone responsible, and now it’s back to work.

But I should clarify: I’ve never actually thought of this as a “garland” before. I had to call it something to post about it here, and I realized that, technically, I supposed that’s what it was. I kind of choked on using the word a little, because in general I agree with Charlie: garland is gauche. Silver tinsel, strings of beads, stars of many sizes… tacky-o. Unless you are or have a child under the age of ten, in which case you’re allowed construction-paper rings.

But this…

…this is not really a garland. This is tradition. This is necessary. And to do without it would be unacceptable.

So, herewith, The Rules:

1. Oh my god do I even have to tell you that it’s real? The fake plastic kind should not be allowed to exist, let alone go on anybody’s tree. Period.

2. Do it yourself. If you have kids, then they can do it, in which case the rest of these rules are hereby officially relaxed. But if you buy it anywhere or pay someone to do it because you think that it’s too hard – well then, Jed, I don’t even want to know you.

3. Air-popped corn, made a day ahead and left out on the counter to get stale. Johnny does this for me. Makes it a lot easier to get the needle through. If you use oil, you will regret it in a week when your house smells like the bottom of an unwashed frying pan. And if I have to explain why you can’t use the microwaved kind, well, then happy Hanukah!

4. Black thread.

5. Fresh cranberries. Der.

6. Bigger needles are easier to thread. Smaller needles are less likely to smash popcorn kernels. You figure it out. (Hint: which of these things will you be doing more of? Right.)

7. Seams are bad. Ideally, one strand will go all the way around the tree. This isn’t always possible because you don’t have abominable snowman arms. So tie the ends together to avoid them drooping down.

8. Every strand begins and ends with a cranberry. This is not nutty, it’s actually practical advice gleaned from years of experience: popcorn can somehow work its way past the end-knot and fall off. Cranberries don’t. If you have to tie two strands together, you’ll wind up with two cranberries next to each other. This, in this one instance, is okay.

9. Otherwise: five popcorn kernels, one cranberry. Five corns, one berry. Five, one. No exceptions.

10. Cranberries go on the long way. Der.

Ta da!

Baby Jebo! I’m going to have to straighten out a couple of those strands. How did I not notice how funked-up they were before?

Oh, and:

11. At the end of the season, the tree goes in the yard with the garland and some other assorted goodies to be named later still left on. Birds and squirrels and assorted woodland creatures will be grateful for the popcorn and assorted goods. But…

12. Nobody eats the cranberries.


Next: actual, real-live ornaments! But probably not until tomorrow night. Prudence has dinner plans.

Spring Has Sprung

Two weeks ago we ushered in daylight-saving time a little earlier than usual...

Last week the vernal equinox came right on time...

Seven days from now is April Fools...

And a Holy Week after that the Easter Bunny comes...

You know what all of this means, don't you?

It's time to take your Christmas wreaths down, people!