Some reflections on Christmas

And I don’t mean lights in the window

According to a new report, the cost of all the gifts listed in ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ song is up $233 from last year. That Lord’s a Leaping Union is killing us.

Elzy was helping his four-year-old son Elmo, put out cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. He accidentally dropped one. “No problem,” he said, picking it up and dusting it off before placing it back on the plate. “You can’t do that,” argued Elmo.” “Don’t worry. Santa will never know.” Elmo put his hands on his hips, scrunched his face, shot him a look then said, “So he knows if I’ve been bad or good, but he doesn’t know if you dropped a cookie on the floor?”

Titus Canby was shopping for a fragrance for his wife for Christmas. He went into the store and asked for some examples. The sales clerk brought a bottle of ‘Knock’m Dead’ and said, “It is only $150 per ounce.” “That’s more than I planned to spend.” She brought out ‘Drive Him Wild” and said, “This is only $75 per ounce.” “Still too much,” he groused, “I want to see something really cheap.” She gave him a hand mirror.

Santa was working at the mall handling all of the little ones and answering all of the questions and listening to the requests. Suddenly a beautiful 23-year old woman marched up and sat down on his lap. He said, “I don’t take requests from adults, this is highly irregular.” She smiled at him, melted his resolve so he asked, “What would you like for Christmas?” Without blinking and with firmness and purpose she said, “I want a present for my mother.” “What a nice thought,” Santa said with a twinkle in his eyes, “Just what would you like me to give to your mother?” With no hesitation, she replied, “A son-in-law.”

As I reflect on this Christmas past there are some things NOT TO SAY when hanging Christmas lights and decorating. “You’ve got two lights the same color right next to each other. You’re supposed to go yellow, green, red, blue, not yellow, red, red, green, blue….” “Up a little higher. You can reach it. Go on, try.” “What on earth do you do to these lights when you put them away every year? Tie them in knots?” “If you are not going to do it right, don’t do it at all. Don’t just throw them on, like you do the icicles. You are worse than your father.”

“You have the whole thing on the tree upside down. The electric pluggee thingy should be down here at the bottom, not at the top.” “I don’t care if you have found another two strings of lights, I’m done!” “You have just wound them around and around – I thought we agreed it shouldn’t look like a spiral this year!” “Have you been in the egg nog?” “Okaay! Looks like we’re finally done here now. Not too shabby huh? Hey… wait a minute, where’s the cat?”

[Larry Vandeventer. Go to my website – Larryvandeventer.com – and purchase my books or Amazon.com. I grew up North of Calvertville and graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana State. Contact me at Goosecrick@aol.com or 812-796-0784]