RE: (Holiday Humor) Oh, Christmas Tree of Controversy

Oh, Christmas Tree of Controversy

Trees. Oh, converter of carbon dioxide, emitter of oxygen; rife with all manner of positive symbolism such as growth, life, and knowledge. They are genuinely nature's good guy.

Until Christmastime, that is, when regular ol' evergreens transform into seasonal symbols eliciting spirited debates. That's when the Douglas fir really starts to fly and away we go in a manger.

Like so many insidious instruments of divisiveness it goes by many ambiguous names. However, no matter which way you cut it down — whether you call it a Yule tree, a Christmas tree, or a Holiday tree — it is, most assuredly, a Tree of Controversy.

I don't know if my personal “Wonder Years” represented a simpler time, or if it's merely that I was simpler, but when I was growing up a Christmas tree was just a Christmas tree. The majority of the people I knew who had a pine of some sort seemed to have the identical version — slightly spindly and decorated with tinsel — but some of the “rich folks” had flocked trees.

The truly daring (usually estrogen-heavy households) opted for a pink, flocked tree. Certainly where there was not a tree, there might have been a Menorah or some other cultural talisman for the season. In fact, there wasn't much ado being made about the having of a Christmas tree or the not having.

Nevertheless, the times, they are a changing. This means the wind they're blowing in may not be pine-scented in the future since one man's decorative highlight is another man's perceived nose thumbing.

To summarize the political hullabaloo: It seems several people are ticked off that other citizens are making them gaze upon a Christmas tree when it's so not their thing.

While separation of church and state may be at the crux of the public controversy, I would venture to say there's a fair amount of separation of husband and wife in the private sector as well, due to this non-deciduous symbol of incitement.

The disagreements may not be exactly alike, but there is a shared premise: Two parties do not view the same thing the same way and no one is coming out of this thing unscathed. This argument pits them against one another and they need to hash it out and come to a mutually acceptable decision.

To summarize the domestic hullabaloo: It seems several family members get ticked off when they are forced to stare at a type of Christmas tree that is so not their thing.

Let me elaborate based upon my own experience. The real lightning rod of controversy centers on scoring the perfect evergreen. During this process our family uses technical terms like “bushy” and “branchy” when communicating our desires and expectations which apply to our prospective tree.

(We are quite devoted to the little known art of adding “y” to most any word in order to tone down the overwhelming connotative load of the aforementioned word in its original form-y.)

Which type of tree we adopt — the aforementioned bushy or branchy one — is dependent upon who won the rock-paper-scissors contest for that year. The branchy one is more like the tree
of our youth and it makes my husband very happy when we stare gape-mouthed at that vision of wonder.

Historically, I have been a fan of the branchy. In any case one thing is for certain. We will acquire a tree that is much too tall for our non-cathedral ceilings.In point of fact, it will barely fit through the door and will not be able to assume the vertical position until Edward
Scissorhands gets to it. Now, my husband is a musician and, as such, you would think a man who relies upon his hands to create dulcet, sweet, thrashing rock ‘n' roll chords would be careful. Nope, nope, nope.

You would be wrong because he is darned confident in his slashing abilities, perhaps due to his admirable musical chops.It's like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy has taken on a part-time job as a tree trimmer, there are so many plant parts flying.

I am always petrified I will have to fashion a tourniquet out of evergreen boughs as
I wait and watch to see if Rudolph will be emerging in topiary form.

When we're all done, there's more tree on the floor than in the stand, but it is now
lofty, poised, and looks as though it was meant for that corner.

It's a lot like childbirth in that way; you remember only the joy, not the pain … until the next
time.

RE: (Humor) Carol Wright is All Right By Me...'tis the season for crazy catalogs...

Carol Wright is All Right By Me

Start your retail engines and warm up those credit cards. 'Tis catalog season!

On more than one occasion I've written about the odd array of catalogs seeming to find their way into my cobweb-encrusted mailbox, my recent acquisition being Carol Wright Gifts.

I must tell you, this offering is quite a boon for a humorist in addition to the discerning consumer who long ago might otherwise have given up on finding “must have” items, such as bottle tops that turn drink cans into drink bottles. (Everyone knows a can is gauche. Now a bottle? You can really pour on the class with this receptacle.)

What caught my eye instantly was the “the world's first bake, slice, and serve brownie maker.” Come to Mama! Where have you been all my life? If only my metabolism would allow for it, I would purchase this necessity pronto, enabling me to fulfill my lifelong dream of baking and consuming the perfect brownie. (You so get me. I don't care so much about the baking. I'm all about the consuming.)

Then there's a particular favorite product of mine — Liftight life serum — if only just for the “before” and “after” pictures provided rather than the outcome. However, speaking of results; the handsome gray-haired model illustrating the aftereffects looks surprised such a procedure would work, let alone that anyone would buy it in order to “look years younger in just 90 seconds.”

If you're math-oriented, and I know you're out there, a 60-year-old who wants to look, say, 30, would need 450 seconds for each set of five rolled-back years, so the total seconds tallied for the full 30-year regression lands somewhere around 2,700. What is, no doubt, the outrageous price for such a miracle product you ask? Only 14 bills. It's a steal at double that price!

There is one issue with this time machine in a bottle, though, and it resides in the fact there is a warning about the elixir lasting a maximum of 10 hours. Consequently, you must be ready for a future whereby your life will play out as the NeverEnding Cinderella story only you'll turn into a wrinkly pumpkin.

Next we have the perfect-posture back support, which is to posture what the chastity belt is to virginity. If you can slip into this rather daunting apparatus, you will likely achieve the desired result.

I will admit to giving more than a cursory glance to the sonic molechaser, but in my defense that was on a day when I was acutely irritated at our front yard wildlife known as Odocoileus virginianus. (The white-tailed deer.)

As a result of the voracious appetite of deer for deer-resistant foliage, I was forced into a first, second, and third planting of my vegetation, so I was a wee bit miffed.However, once I viewed the illustration featuring — I kid you not — a cartoon mole running away from a pencil-sized stake with its little mole paws up in a stick-'em-up-and-give-me-your-money gesture mouthing, “Eek!” I lost my thirst for the ruination of deer hearing.

I just consider anything we manage to grow my contribution to the propagation of a healthy food chain and utter a sacrificial, “Damn!”

Carol Wright is similar to other bygone catalogs that were ever-present in my grandparents' household, a relic of the popular pastime that was shopping by mail.

In business since 1952 and founded by a housewife out of her Mount Vernon, New York, apartment, Lillian Vernon is one of these. I remember my grandfather spending hours looking through catalogs, ordering items he didn't really need simply because it tickled him to get stuff in the mail.

He's been gone for over two decades now, but I am reminded of love not loss whenever I look at the Geisha doll he ordered for my grandmother so long ago.

I don't order from the catalogs I receive very often, which may explain why the delivery of them is so sporadic. I guess that's why I also don't need to order the featured pamphlet, How to Solve the Little Mysteries of Your Life.

One mystery down; just another couple hundred to go.

A-Tisket, A-Tasket, (Humor) Easter Detritus Lingering Longer Than the Chocolate Afterglow...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

A-Tisket, A-Tasket

It doesn’t matter that I’m the mom of young adults, or that it’s May, or that I’ve vacuumed the floor and cleaned the house at least 150 times since Easter, I am STILL finding Easter basket remnants, including that plasticky grass stuff floating around the floor.

We have a plethora of family traditions one of which is Easter baskets, which I’ve been bestowing upon my offspring their entire lives, evoking the sing-songy melody accompanying the nursery rhyme, “A-tisket a-tasket, A green-and-yellow basket.”

As an aside, did you know that Ella Fitzgerald recorded “A-tisket, A Tasket,” in 1938 and it was an extremely successful signature song for her? Can you believe it? (See lyrics and link below for fun. And it’s ALL fun, isn’t it?)

Okay, I’m not sure which of the aforementioned items are unbelievable: That I’m still finding Easter detritus around the ‘ole homestead, that Ella Fitzgerald recorded this nursery rhyme as a successful song or the fact that I knew Ella Fitzgerald recorded “A-tisket, A-tasket.” (I went on to discover that Ella's song, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1986.)

Now, how to transition smoothly from famous nursery rhymes turned into even more famous songs back to finding decorative Easter items around the house on the “off” season.”

Hum…sooooo…these items just keep turning up.

TRANSITION.

At our house we have a junk drawer, a junk closet and what is rapidly shaping up to be a junk room. Darned if every time I try to get into any of those, the plastic Easter eggs don’t come popping out as though some steroid-hopped up hen is pelting me with them.

Over the years I have accumulated so many Easter baskets, it looks as though I could open one of those specialty stores where you always wonder what possessed the owner to wake up one morning and say, “THIS is the day that I make my dream happen by opening up a store that sells only Christmas decorations.”

I’ll tell you how that happens. What you don’t see is the day before and all that preceded the realization. The Christmas decoration enthusiast had a family that grew up, left home and all she got were the stinking Christmas decorations. One day she was standing in front of her junk drawer, closet, room, looking at ALL of those leftover decorations, knowing she needed to get rid of them, realizing she couldn’t just bag them all up, so what’s the alternative? Open a store and sell the stuff!

One of my jokes with my kids is that we’ll probably all be in the rest home together and every March/April I’ll have my aide deliver their baskets to them at “the home.” Only, even as I say that, this year feels different.

I know that my basket giving days may be at an end because my excitement level with the basket-giving has eclipsed the excitement level of my little darlings. Rather than hope for early grandparenthood or the opening of a retail store selling all things Easter, I’ll probably just do what any red-blooded, soon-to-be-empty-nester, mom yearning for days of yore, write-what-you-know scribe would do:

I’m writing a column as I eat old Easter candy I found at the bottom of one of the bunny baskets as I hum, A-tisket, A-tasket, A green-and-yellow basket, wiping my eyes periodically because I have “allergies.”


Lyrics:

A-tisket a-tasket

A green-and-yellow basket

I bought a basket for my mommie

On the way I dropped it

I dropped it, I dropped it

Yes, on the way

I dropped it

A little girlie picked it up

And took it to the market

She was truckin' on down the avenue

Without a single thing to do

She was peck, peck, peckin' all around

When she spied it on the ground

A-tisket a-tasket

She took my yellow basket

And if she doesn't bring it back

I think that I shall die

(Was it red?)

No, no, no, no

(Was it brown?)

No, no, no, no

(Was it blue?)

No, no, no, no

Just a little yellow basket