Category: happy holidays

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a partridge in a pear tree

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays, writing

Actually, if that happened they (the partridge in a pear tree) would probably end up in the garage where they would never be seen again. That’s fine. I detest pears. The cats would probably eat the partridge or vice versa.

My wife and I got books, candy, calendars, and plush throws for those chilly Georgia nights. These we can use, along with new lamps for the master and guest bedrooms. When we had multiple cats, they played in the pile of used wrapping paper. Last night when we opened gifts, our indoor/outdoor cat was asleep in the bedroom and our 25-year-old calico no longer cares about it (the paper).

Our decorations usually go up late and stay up through Twelfth Night when my wife is supposed to give me twelve drummers drumming. Well, more for the garage. Of course, it’s bad luck to leave the decorations up after Twelfth Night. Personally, I think it shows a lack of taste to throw the Christmas tree out for the trash truck late on December 25th.

I’m fairly traditional about this, following the Christmastide schedule as noted in Wikipedia: “In 567 the Council of Tours proclaimed that the entire period between Christmas and Epiphany should be considered part of the celebration, creating what became known as the twelve days of Christmas, or what the English called Christmastide. On the last of the twelve days, called Twelfth Night, various cultures developed a wide range of additional special festivities. The variation extends even to the issue of how to count the days. If Christmas Day is the first of the twelve days, then Twelfth Night would be on January 5, the eve of Epiphany. If December 26, the day after Christmas, is the first day, then Twelfth Night falls on January 6, the evening of Epiphany itself.”

One of the deathly hallows

This year, I added a new element to the Christmastide festivities called falling off the step ladder while putting up with lighted garland around the front door. That resulted in a headache and now a sore place where my head it the deck. I do not intend for this to become a new tradition.

My wife and I have sinus conditions that make us dizzy at times, so I told my wife not to put up the garland alone because she might fall off the deathly hallow. I guess it figures that I’d be the one calling off the ladder.

For your own safety, do not introduce any step ladders into your Christmas celebrations.

I hope your Christmas is happy, merry, and bright–and safe!

–Malcolm

Celebrating Thanksgiving but not Black Friday

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays

“Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eating it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you Lord just the same for the food we’re about to eat, amen.” – Jimmy Stewart as Charlie Anderson in “Shenandoah.”

Everyone was dressed in the wrong clothes and the table wasn’t there.

Sad to say, a lot of people think like Charlie Anderson in the 1965 film and don’t know who or what to thank on this day.  Thanksgiving is a harvest festival that might have been first celebrated in 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation.  The idea still seems fine even though most of us have little to do with the production of crops and see the day as a time spent with family.

Black Friday casts a pall over the holiday because it traditionally marks the Christman shopping season where we all rush out and buy what nobody really wants other than to brag we got it cheap. Every major holiday is sulled up by turning into a commercial farce.

This is a sad Thanksgiving for my wife and me because we normally visit my daughter, her husband, and my two granddaughters on Thanksgiving, but illness is keeping us away.

In many ways, Thanksgiving bothers me because–assuming the first celebration happened as history and legend tell us, the hope and thanks of those days turned into a nightmare for the country’s indigenous people that is still going on today. So, the first Thanksgiving is rather like going over to some new friends’ house and then killing them after dinner and stealing the house.

But never mind that since most of us have spent many memorable days with family and friends eating a wonderful meal (not counting family members we normally try to avoid), and eating until the football games begin and we fall asleep on first and goal.

Mother often noted when my two brothers and I were growing up, that the meal took hours to make, fifteen minutes to eat, and another hour for cleaning up the kitchen. I still like the turkey drumstick best in spite of the bones in it. And as far as I know, I’ve never touched Stove Top Stuffing. My wife and I make our own and it’s do much better than the mysterious stuff that comes out of a box.

But, I digress. I hope we remember what this holiday celebrates.

–Malcolm

Every Christmas There’s At Least One Just-For-Fun Gift

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays

My wife wins the prize with this year’s best just-for-fun gift. This one’s practical, so I can’t call it a gag gift. And though I rarely eat hot seat hot cereal other than the occasional bowl of oatmeal I’ll probably try this even though I like it mainly for the box. She found it in the online store of the Montana Historical Society.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying reading The Guardians by John Grisham, a gift from my brother Barry and his wife Mary. It’s about an organization that works to get wrongly convicted people out of jail. So far, so good.

–Malcolm

Happy Boxing Day

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays2 Comments

As I understand it, Boxing Day is one of those strange English Holidays that makes no sense at all since its purpose changed over time from giving gifts to the poor to watching old boxing matches.

Whenever my grandfather was visiting, we listened to every boxing match in the country on the radio–or later watched them on TV compliments of the Gillette Calvacade of Sports. So, because grandpa is probably keeping tabs on me, I’m watching the fight between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay (as he was known at the time of the fight 1964 fight). I know how it turns out because, well, I was there when it happened–so to speak.

I hated boxing then and still hate it now, but I’m doing my duty watching Liston lose even though Clay was an underdog, some guy who spoke in poetry like: “If you want to lose your money, then bet on Sonny!”  I didn’t bet on anybody because grandpa said betting money on fights was wrong.

Some people in the States think Boxing Day is the day when people put stuff into boxes so they can re-gift it to the black sheep in the family a few years down the road. Now that, I could get behind more than watching Liston chasing Clay around the ring in the opening rounds of the fight.

While I supported Mohammad Ali’s (as Clay was later known) resistance to the draft, I thought that a little bit of his constant sing-song poetry went a long way. E.g.: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see. Now you see me, now you don’t. George thinks he will, but I know he won’t.”

I didn’t want to see any of it and I’m sure that it warped my life. Goodness knows why I watched the Rocky movies. Duty, as I said.

–Malcolm

 

 

 

Typical e-mail exchange with a shipper

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays2 Comments

This is the season when UPS, FedEx, and USPS litter the front porch with packages and my e-mail inbox with notes that say “your shipment has arrived.” But sometimes the shipper is wrong and there’s no package there:

SHIPPER: (Not FedEx) Your package from WALMART arrived today.

ME: No it didn’t.

SHIPPER: Really? Did you check the outhouse?

ME: We don’t have an outhouse.

SHIPPER: Where do you do your business?

ME: The bathroom.

SHIPPER: Wow, we didn’t figure a redneck county like yours had indoor plumbing.,

ME: So where’s my package?

SHIPPER: Frankly, we rather hoped you’d forgotten about it by now. We think varmints ran off with it.

ME: Varmints?

SHIPPER: Yes, lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.

ME: I live in Georgia, not the jungle.

SHIPPER: So that “Georgia of the Jungle” song isn’t about you?

ME: Nope.

SHIPPER: Well, bugger.

Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell sometimes put his satire in a novel.

 

 

 

Erin go bragh, or else

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays, writing

If you know what’s good for you, you’re celebrating St. Patrick’s day and saying Erin go bragh  (yes that’s the correct saying) which means “Ireland to the end of time.”

According to the all-knowing and quasi divine Internet, that phrase was first heard during the “Irish Rebellion of 1798 when a group of Irish rebels staged an uprising to protest British rule.” It didn’t work out. Nonetheless, as you know, I’ll always side with anyone trying to break free of British rule, so I can be counted on to raise a glass or two of Knappogue Castle 12 Year Single Malt to celebrate the man who converted the Irish to Christrianity. Seriously, why did he do that? Their old-time Celtic beliefs were just fine.

Okay, we won’t worry about the details except to say that today we support the Irish with or without the saint or the U.K.

—Malcolm

P.S. Sorry, Ireland,  but I wore my green shirt yesterday. Oops.

Happy Holidays

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn happy holidays

‘Happy Holidays” is about as generic as the old Christmas card standby “Season’s Greetings.” Years ago, I might have said “Merry Christmas,” but now the powers that be suggest we should be more inclusive of the many othe holidays celebrated during December, and I’m okay with

We’re usually the last people in the neighborhood to put up our tree and our outside decorations. Two other families in the area do what we do, considering the holiday to be the Twelve Days of Christmas starting on the 25th and running until 12th Night. We decorated our tree yesterday (mostly) and due to a long habit, will open gifts on Christmas Eve.

However we celebrate, we’re hoping for a gift of a better 2022 than the last two years. We want to step into a springtime without masks, mandates, and morbid debates. Along with that, it would be nice if the supply chain sorted itself out and that businesses had enough workers to get through the next 52 weeks at full steam.

Whether one delebrates the holidays this way or that way, we acknowledge that there are powers higher than ourselves that just might offer us some words of wisdom if we are listening, and I hope we are.

–Malcolm