. . . has a beautiful Christmas post up, featuring three different clips from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

It's possible that a couple of these excerpts were edited just a little. Possible.

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I just felt overwhelmed. I even called my mother and told her to drop by later than we'd said—I wanted to see if a nap would help. It did, a little.

God bless my mother: she's not one of those moms. I don't come from a really domestic line, praise the Lord and pass the convenience foods.

Mom came over and told me she wanted to open presents soon, and then maybe we ought to go out for dinner. She even offered to take the turkey home with her, and roast it herself tomorrow! more...

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Though not quite this warm. I didn't take a picture; my hair's dirty.

Attila the Hub's close friend called from Ohio; he used to live nearby in the San Fernando Valley.
"How are you doin', Honey?" he asked me.
"Pretty good," I told him. "It feels like Christmas."
"Like Christmas? What is it there?—seventy degrees?"
"That's just about exactly right," I told him. "We have the sliders open. Why?"
"It's forty here," he explains. "And we're grateful it's that warm."

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. . . over at All Things Beautiful asks if things have changed since last year, when she wrote about "the war on Christmas."

I think it's a real phenomenon, but I believe it peaked last year and has eased up slightly since then.

Thoughts?

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"Look, I don't mean to be a cunt, but . . . . Wait . . ."

"What?"

"It's just that I've got a bad case of Christmas stress, and I do."

"Do what?"

"Do mean to be a cunt."

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But—my own feelings about Santa-storytelling to one's kids notwithstanding—this is pretty cute.

Via Snark Patrol, who points out that NORAD's Santa-tracking enterprise began with a proofreading error.

Me? I may be a cynic, but I'll be looking for those Santa-Cams on New Year's Eve.

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LaShawn makes a very reasonable case.

Her best point? Non-Christians shouldn't complain about what she has to say on the subject, since her recommendations are directed at Christians. This may sound obvious, but there is a huge tradition of strange bullying within the Black community, based solely on blackness. I mean, when reduced to its essence, isn't that the whole idea behind some of the kookier claims of "black leaders"? It amount to "I'm black as well, so I should get to tell you what to do." The response to this should be a sort of universal shrug and "say, what?" But it's been a long time in coming, and a lot of people are only now coming to realize that just because someone shares your race gives them no right to tell you what to do.

I'm just waiting for some largely European white trash with ancestors on the Mayflower, suspected black and Jewish contributions and Osage Indian "blood" to tell me What Holidays the Thinking Mongrel Celebrates These Days. Won't I give her a piece of my mind! Hah!

(Via Malkin.)

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Still—there's no sweeter news than the end of a war.

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An eccentric guide.

1) Don't set a timetable—or if you do, don't take it too seriously. If your husband were that determined to have dinner at 4:00, after all, he would have put the turkey in the oven himself. If all else fails, offer him a tuna sandwich.

2) Just because an object resides in the boxes marked "Christmas Decorations" does not mean it has to be displayed this year. Maybe it can go up next year instead. Rotate the Christmas knicknacks. Think about giving some away.

3) The house doesn't have to be any cleaner on Christmas Day than it is on any other day. If people wanted to be in a clean house, they'd be at your stepmother's place.

4) When in doubt, make a joke of it. Self flagellation isn't funny: the persistent temptation to engage in it is, however, hilarious.

5) Anything that goes wrong should be blamed on your nonexistent cook and household staff. Explain very earnestly that they've been spoken to harshly, and/or sacked.

6) Skip the nice china: it sets the wrong tone. Set out those cheerful Christmas plates your mother got you eight years ago: the ones with the bright colors and trees and reindeer that you regarded as a criminal waste at the time. China and silver that have to be washed by hand are only to be used when absolutely necessary, or when the world will end the next day via nuclear annihilation, and therefore all the dishes (every single last one of them) can be left in the sink.

7) When contemplating any aspect of holiday celebration, ask yourself, "do I feel like doing this?" This guideline will never steer you wrong.

Delegate tasks to your husband and mother. Have kids so that they can be given assignments in a decade or so, and—with any luck—take over the primary responsibility entirely in another 25 years. It's the only way to transition into the coveted "support" role your own mom enjoys.

9) There are 364 days a year to make yourself and everyone around you miserable. It doesn't have to be this day.

10) Buy most gifts at the ABC stores in Hawaii, so they'll be super-affordable and you won't go broke. Make it a point to still have money on December 26th.

Madeleine L'Engle: "We want nothing from you that you do without grace. And that you do without understanding." [From memory: A Wrinkle in Time. Feel free to fact-check my ass.]

11) If you're still subscribing to Martha Stewart Living, cut that out. She's a con, for crying out loud. Get Radar instead. Or something pornographic.

12) Make sure to get some of your Christmas decorations in the Hanukkah section at the store. That blue and silver stuff is much prettier than the garbage they foist off on the Anglo-Saxons. What are the Jews going to do to you, anyway?—kill Christ all over again? Relax.

13) The most important dose of Prozac all year is the one you take on Christmas Eve.

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Just a shout out to my readers. It blows me away that I have "readers." How cool.

Thanks for stopping by over the past year. It's nice to know that some people are following new media—even at the boutique level, where I live—and this has been great fun over the past two years and change (actually, it'll be three years this March; tempus fugit).

Now [this is beginning to sound downright polite, and I don't want to blow my image] please start saving up to buy my crime novel in a year or so. Thanks.

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I'm officially In the Holiday Mood. Cranky, obsessive, petulant. Parsimonious, unyielding, hostile. The hair-trigger lady: jealous of my time, possessive of my dough. Suspicious that all the merriment around me is some kind of trick.

Merry fucking Christmas.

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Life in the foothills near Pasadena, California. When the wind is blowing—or right after a rain—the mountains appear to be etched against the sky with a precision that almost makes them look unreal, they're so beautiful. During the transition seasons from hot to cool, the skies are blue with fluffy white clouds that give a picture-postcard effect, despite the scrubby, desert-like ecosystem in the hills.

Sure is pretty out here.

At the moment my husband is just starting the cold that I got over a week ago. So he can't smell any longer the odor that's seeping up from the basement, or perhaps elsewhere under the house. But we know something is dead down there. At first we thought it might be a mouse, but a mouse would be dessicated by now, its parts carried off by the ants. This guy is a rat.

In between fevers, Attila the Hub managed to find out where the creatures were getting in, and seal it off. But the smell is still there.

I didn't mess around with potpourri: I got concentrated perfume blocks of a piney, Christmas-like scent that's actually quite nice. As I walk around the house I notice the different "scent zones" created by my strategic placement of the little perfume blocks. And the 2-3 places where they don't cover, and something is Present that makes one think either of a severe case of mildew, or a mild case of death.

I'll keep moving the little scent blocks around, and maybe burn a few candles. And I'll hope that our guests on Christmas day also have mild colds.

Yup. Sure is nice, living in these here hills. Seclusion, privacy, dark moonlit nights, a view of the little valley below us . . . and carrion wafting through the heating vents. Very glamorous indeed.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Here's hoping your rats die outside, where the coyotes can get them.

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. . . the standoff continued at the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County. I continued to wonder how much glass got broken when the gunman fired a few shots.

And how long it will take to fix the damage.

And whether they will be able to "make up" the Christmas presentation that was supposed to happen tonight.

Please be careful, boys and girls: people get a lot less sunlight this time of year (even here in SoCal), and it messes with your mind. I also think the Santa Anas are blowing again, which never helps.

Take a deep breath, and remember our "Christmas mantra": people are much more important than things.

And put the fucking gun down.

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1 I kept thinking "Jesus loves the little children" *POW* *POW*

Posted by: Laurence Simon at December 17, 2004 07:00 AM (uBCxH)

2 But then, you're bad.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 17, 2004 11:06 AM (SuJa4)

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Check out its expose on life at the North Pole.

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Michele is having a contest: She's requesting that you document the ugliest, most over-the-top, excessive and inappropriate Christmas decorations on your local buildings and humans and send them on in. And she links some lovely and grotesque examples, so RTWT.

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