A Christmas Miracle

It's the holiday season and I'm in a giving mood. Instead of using this post to discuss the awkward six month blogging sabbatical that we have taken, I'll write about some Christmas traditions. Well, they aren't really traditions, but some stuff that I've always wanted to do, but just haven't gotten around to. I know, it's pretty lame that my first post in six months is just a list, but give me some time and hopefully I'll get back in the swing of things. So here goes...stuff that I've wanted to do around the holidays. Feel free to steal any of these ideas, I'm sure I didn't come up with them myself:

1. The Christmas letter. We've all received those cards from the perfect family that talks about their perfect life and their perfect kids. I've always wanted to create my own Christmas letter. Usually the idea goes one of two ways. The first idea on this topic is to just write about the most embarrassing/mundane/depressing things that happened to me in the past year. Most people only focus on the highlights. If you fill it with the bad stuff that happens, I think it'll make it more believable.

The other way to go is to make up a fake family and just talk about all of the awesome things that they are doing. Something like "Timmy and Tommy are doing great in Kindergarten. Timmy loves soccer and led his team in goals, while Tommy is reading at a 5th grade level." Oh, and to make it extra good, I could give each member of my fake family their own paragraph where they write in the first person (especially awful with pets and babies). Something like "Mommy says I'm a good sleeper."

So this has been on my list of things to do for a few years. It lives in the 'that's inappropriate' file. At least that's what Kate says.

2. Away in a manger. Two ideas around this theme. The first is to have a live nativity scene in my front yard. Like with Donkeys and stuff. Now that I think about it, Donkeys might be expensive. I'm not sure if I can even rent a donkey or if I'd have to buy it. Instead, maybe I'd just dress our dog up and put him in the nativity scene. Yeah, that would probably work better.

The other idea here is for Kate and I to dress up as Mary and Joseph for our Christmas Picture/Card and then to dress Gilbert (our dog) up in swaddling clothes. As you can imagine, this one is also in the 'that's inappropriate' file. 

3. Incompatible Inflatables. So I hate inflatable Christmas decorations that people put in their yards. The one way that I think this could get fun is if we put some of the traditional decorations in the yard with some of the um, trashy decorations. I was thinking maybe the three wise men along with Pooh and Tigger. Or maybe Mary, Joseph, and Garfield.

4. Guerrilla Mall Santa. I haven't really thought this one through a whole lot. I was at the mall last week buying RJ's 30th birthday gift (an airbrushed t-shirt with dolphins on it and his name, but that's for another post). Anyway, there was a line of about 100 kids waiting to sit on Santa's lap. It wasn't even that good of a Santa. So my thought is I could just sit on a random bench at the mall in a Santa suit. I'd charge half of what the 'official' mall Santa charges for pictures, and would give way better candy canes. This idea sort of falls apart when I think about the fallout. I'm guessing the mall brass probably wouldn't like this (since I'm undercutting their prices and offering a better product) so they'd probably find some way to press charges. I'm okay with that. What worries me is what the story would look like on the news. At the end of the day, I'd be a grown man at the mall dressed up in a costume trying to get kids to sit on his lap. There's really no way to sugarcoat this one. If nothing else, it would be an embarrassing moment to include in next year's Christmas card.

Happy Holidays. I promise it won't be six months before the next post.