1. I've reached a point in life where if I try to be a Christmas marathoner, I get exhausted. Being tired drains the pleasure out of our family's festivities. So, this year, Debbie and I opted not to participate in the morning get togethers at Carol and Paul's on the 25th and 26th, but to fully participate in our dinners on those two evenings.
Everyone generously accepted our decision -- thank goodness.
So Debbie and I rested and relaxed at home all day until we hot-footed it next door to Christy's for a Christmas dinner. The others had exchanged gifts in the morning and then we had a gift exchange at Christy's so that Debbie and I could give and receive presents.
It all worked out splendidly.
2. So, you might be wondering, what did Debbie and I do at home by ourselves?
We listened to a rebroadcast of the This American Life episode entitled "Lights, Cameras, Christmas" and listened to stories about a little girl who is allergic to the guinea pig her parents gave her for Christmas, a family who created their own stories about Santa, elves, and other magical things to live by (and some of the painful fallout of what they did), a small town Utah woman who recalls her family adopting a deer and how the deer appeared in the town's school Christmas pageant (warning! this story ends very sadly), and a bizarre story Jonathan Goldberg made up about Santa Claus that I can't even begin to summarize.
Jonathan Goldberg's bizarre story led me to look up his podcast, Heavyweight. I scanned the synopses of his many episodes over the last few years. He tells stories about moments in people's lives that changed everything and works with the people in these stories to go back and interview those who were involved in these incidents.
Some of these stories sounded too troubling to listen to today, but one didn't: it's the story of a sound engineer in Chicago whose voice can be heard in the worst McDonald's ad ever made.
Well, I suppose some pretty good arguments could be made that the "Random Red Couch" ad isn't the absolute worst McDonald's ad ever, but it was so bad that it blew up both Reddit and Twitter with people asking the eternal question, "What the hell was that?"
It's a great episode.
Jonathan Goldberg climbs what the calls the "blame ladder" and interviews one person after another who worked at the ad agency that created "Random Red Couch", each higher up the company's hierarchy. These interviews are awesome.
There's more to the story than I've encapsulated here. If you'd like to take some time and listen to any of these podcasts we enjoyed today, here are some links:
You will find the Lights, Camera, Christmas episode of This American Life, here.
The episode of Heavyweight is entitled, "Bobby". You can listen to it, here.
I really don't know how you can resist watching the "Random Red Couch" McDonald's ad -- who knows? you might even remember it. It aired about seven years ago.
For your viewing pleasure, you can watch that ad right here.
3. Unrushed, rested, enjoying the fruits of a day of stillness and podcasts, I marched behind Debbie over to Christy's for a Christmas gathering focused on remembering our mother.
Mom loved sweet cocktails and we opened with a candy cane martini. For our main entree, Christy made a kind of casserole that Mom used to cook called Hot Crab Sandwich. Carol brought a green salad and made a batch of Sunshine Inn bleu cheese dressing (I know -- at the Sunshine Inn it was Roquefort cheese dressing, but we do the best we can!). Tonight's appetizer definitely paid homage to Mary Idell West Woolum. We all ate handfuls of Nuts and Bolts.
Before diving into the casserole, we all told stories and shared memories of Mom. Christy went all out and wrote a poem in the style of "The Night Before Christmas" focused on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day mishaps that seemed to happen all too regularly and, understandably, stressed Mom out to the max.
It's funny now, though!
We exchanged gifts, drank Stingers to further honor Mom, and Christy brought out a couple more Mary Idell West Woolum favorites, Almond Roca and spritz cookies.
I might have missed writing about something, but, even if incomplete, I think this synopsis of our Christmas get together at Christy's does, at the very least, give you a sense of the spirit of the occasion.
Our blow out Christmas dinner will be on December 26th, delayed so that Cosette, Taylor, and Saphire can join in our feast that will be centered on French Canadian Christmas cuisine.
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