White Christmas Is A Scam

WARNING! FRAUD ALERT! If you are about to snuggle up in front of the DVD player to watch WhiteChristmas, be warned that it is not a Christmas movie. Except for the opening minutes where Bing Crosby sings the song, and then, of course, the closing minutes where the women in those beautiful red robes join in the singing, there is no mention of Christmas. None. The plot has nothing to do with Christmas. The story line is not about Christmas. Except for one brief mention of doing their show on Christmas Eve, NO ONE SAYS A WORD ABOUT CHRISTMAS in the entire movie. It’s a scam.

These movies are more about Christmas than White Christmas because they mention Christmas or have more Christmas decorations in them:

Die Hard

Lethal Weapon

Dirty Harry

Gremlins

Trading Places

Goodfellas

When Harry Met Sally

Edward Scissorhands

Brazil

Batman Returns

The Godfather for Pete’s sake.

Or even Life Of Brian.

I’m not saying White Christmas is not a good movie. I’m just asking you to not be fooled. Watch Crosby sing White Christmas on YouTube if you must, but then go watch a real Christmas movie, like Steve Martin in Mixed Nuts. You’ll thank me for it. Ho ho ho.

Another Christmas Tree For My Brother's Birthday

 

Today is my older brother’s birthday, which has many fond memories because December 17 was the day our mother finally let us put up the Christmas tree. It never crossed my mind that Gary Jo  might have thought he was cheated, having a birthday so close to, you know, the BIG holiday, and having his party overshadowed by trimming the tree. If it bothered him, I never knew it.

Nor would I have cared, because getting the tree and decorating it was a BIG deal at our house, and we waited for it for months. Four of the six of us shared one big room, half of our basement, and we used to count down the last 65 days until Christmas. And before that, we would count down the days until October 22, when we could start counting down.

As the 17th approached, one of us would get to ride along with dad to Heck’s IGA, where they had a rack of bundled trees leaning up against the building every year. Dad would carefully check each one to get the one that seemed just right, and he always did get it right. We never had a bad tree.

One year, when I was 12, dad let me pick the tree, and it was a thrilling and terrible responsibility. He never minded the mess of needles and sap. He loved the smell and the texture. Our decorations were simple: bright red and blue and green and white and yellow lights as big as his thumb, hand-glittered glass ornaments, and 20 boxes of tensel, placed carefully and evenly, one strand at a time.

Every tree we had growing up was fabulous, but no matter how fabulous, my mom had them down and out on the trash heap by noon, December 26.

 

 

Now, on the other hand, we feel bad taking any of our seven trees down before February, and I admit there was at least one year it was still up on April Fool’s Day. This year, so far, anyway, we have a white tree on the porch, the big green tree in the living room, another white tree in the dinning room, a silver tree in the baking kitchen, a pink tree in our bedroom, a mulit-colored tree in Libby's room and another silver one in Aubrey's room. The other green tree, we gave to Lydia for her new house. That's normal. Right?

 

 

Lennon? Pearl Harbor? What Does What We Remember Mean?

 

I’ve remembered for a week or so that today, December 8, is the anniversary of John Lennon’s murder in 1980.

Yesterday, it wasn’t until I saw part of a newscast that I remembered December 7, 1941, and the horrors at Pearl Harbor. December 7, of course.

 

My children, at least the two still at home, were unaware of the significance of either date. “Why should we know that?” one of them said. Right now, they are in our bedroom with Kelly discussing the most important date they have, December 21, 2012.

I wonder how much that is a sign of some generational difference in cultural literacy, or whether that’s just representative of our insensitivity and absence of gratitude. Am I the only one to either lack or have such a distorted historical consciousness?

I apologize to veterans and their families everywhere, especially those who served in WWII. And to John Lennon fans, I still feel your pain. As for December 21, I guess we’ll just have to see, but I suspect it will be an even bigger dud than Y2K. Just in case, though, I'm postponing any Christmas shopping or trips to the mall until the 22nd....

 

___

 

Images of front pages from here and here.

You Gotta Love A Good Movie, Which Is Why I Don’t Love The Breaking Dawn Saga

 

Last year, the girls dragged me out in the middle of the night for the opening of the new people turning into dogs movie, Breaking Wind. No, wait, that’s not right. Breaking Dawn. Sorry.

This year, Grace saw it with college friends, and Libby was out of town with her dad, so Aubrey and I went to see Dogs Into People, Part 2, just the two of us. This one was a better movie than the Part 1, but that’s like saying shooting yourself in the foot is better than shooting yourself in both feet.

 

When Libby came back, it turned out that she hadn’t seen the movie, like I thought she said she would, so she and Aubrey and I went back to the theater. Only Aubrey was excited about a second viewing. It was fun being with the girls, especially going out for doughnuts after, but I’m glad this is the last of the Twilight movies.

 

 

 

In the past two years, I’ve seen Breaking Dawn 1, Breaking Dawn 2 twice, and The Lorax (read about it here). So I’m not a big movie goer. Perhaps the reason is that the movies just don’t move me like they used to.

 

 

Years ago, I went with a buddy to see one of the Rocky movies, where Stalone fought the Russian. We were the last two people seated, back row, middle. The movie progressed like all the other Rocky movies, and everyone was caught up in the excitement when Rocky began his inevitable comeback. But no one more so than my friend, who, when Rocky finally delivered the telling blow, leaped to his feet, shook his fist at the screen and screamed, “Take that, you Commie fag.”

 

You gotta love a good movie.

In Honor Of Zig Ziglar’s Passing

 

Zig Ziglar passed away last week, at age 86. He was one of the best.

My first exposure to motivational books on tape was Zig Ziglar. At age 18, I applied to a want ad that said “Christians Wanted,” and ended up selling cookware across the state with a bunch of boys from one of the local Baptist colleges. While I sometimes doubted the level of their Christian devotion on the road, there was no questioning the quality of their listening material. I enjoyed Ziglar’s humor and humility, and what he said sounded good to me.

I have lots of favorites among Ziglar’s many stories, but there’s only one I shared with my students every semester. During the lesson on language and word choice, I’d run through this exercise, swiped from Ziglar. You take this simple sentence:

I did not say your wife was ugly.

Then you change the meaning of the sentence just by which word you emphasize. Try it yourself.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

For speech students, it’s an effective illustration. What makes it memorable for me, though, is that as I would work through the list, changing the emphasis on each repeat of the sentence, I couldn’t help but assume a distinct southern accent, like Ziglar’s.

So Zig, now I guess we’ll see you at the top….

Somehow My Plan Is Askew - What Would Bill Murray Do?

 

It’s so easy to take everyday things for granted: family and friends, cars, refrigeration, grocery stores, indoor plumbing.

Remember Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? He has this remarkable experience where he awakes to the same day, day after day. It makes him miserable and he goes through a seemingly endless repetition of gloomy days, a one-day season of doom. Eventually, he comes up with a plan to improve himself – he learns piano, for example – and to help people in the small town. And, of course, to woo Andie MacDowell (lucky boy).

It isn't until he realizes that he is only happy serving others, living for others, that he is able to break through the mundane routine of his day-to-day existence. The value of his life becomes obvious to him only after he recognizes the value in life around him.

 

 

While John Lennon may have been right singing that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” life is too valuable and too short to not have a plan.

As Bill Murray eventually discovered, a good plan includes goals for making money and for giving it away. A good plan includes time for family and for fun. A good plan includes good health habits, diet and exercise, and mental stimulation. A good plan includes other people.

As Andie MacDowell says to Murray, “You couldn’t have planned a day like this,” remember his response, “Well, you can. But it takes an awful lot of work.”

 

I need to work on my plan.

 

I Have No Accordion, Thanks To My Dad

 

You would think that one way to have peace in your home is to not have an accordion, but it didn’t work out that way for us. My grandmother, my dad’s mom, loved her accordion, and like most things she did, she played with gusto. This was a woman who, following a divorce, could not find work, so she dressed herself as a man and worked for more than a year as a lumberjack before her gender was discovered.

Before she died, my grandmother gave her beautiful, old accordion to my dad. Her desire was that one of his sons would learn to play.

 

A few years later, my dad, to raise money for church, donated a number of things from our house, including his mother’s accordion. It was one of his only mementoes of her life, and it sold for a small portion of its value. I remember my mom being angry about it, but I was impressed by his choice.

I don’t suppose there is a way to measure the loss in anyone’s life from not being able to play the accordion. Neither do I suppose there is a way to measure the blessing of having a good father, a man who keeps his word, and shows that doing what is right takes more than words.

Thanks, dad.

 

_____

 

Check out the accordion photo here.