O Lord, thank You for four generations of a family who gathered to celebrate You with gifts, yummy food and a wonderfully in-tune carol singalong. OMG, there’s nothing like partying together with You!
O Lord, if we add one more gift to the tree, we won’t be able to sit in the living room. If we add more food to the fridge, it may fall through the kitchen floor. Clean sheets and sleeping bags await the four generations who soon will arrive. But OMG, please come on in! The Guest of Honor, You are so very, very welcome.
Merry Christmas from the Phillipses!
O Lord, I learned that on Boxing Day — December 26 — British aristocrats rewarded those who waited on them during Christmas, giving servants boxes of gifts and money. Only fair, right? But, Father, I’m just as glad Americans don’t celebrate it. With our definition of “boxing,” OMG, those who have tired of relatives just might don gloves for mean Monday night smackdowns.
This post first appeared on December 16, 2020.
Veteran Christmas shoppers have seen it all. We’ve fought kamikaze traffic and circled malls 250 times, seeking parking places in the same zip code. We’ve donned body armor to survive elbowing crowds and hostile, Klingon clerks.
Once, I watched two scary grandmas in line ahead, battling over who was first. Would they take out all of us?
Enter online shopping.
I don my loudest holiday sweater and drink hot chocolate in my favorite Christmas mug. I assemble credit cards and password lists.
Ready. Set. Shop!
However, my laptop’s not in the Christmas spirit — crankier than a teen awakened on Saturday. When I threaten it with a pitcher of cold water, the laptop finally cooperates. Sort of.
It sends me to the Malwart website, rather than Walmart. When I Google “Target,” it makes me one, sending my address and accompanying maps to various Middle Eastern websites. Then a pop-up offers the Garfield beach towel my grandson covets for only $471. When I switch to purchasing a storybook instead, the website informs me others who bought this book also purchased “The Preschool Guide to Overthrowing the Government.”
Weary of children’s gifts, I peruse flannel shirts for my tall, thin son. Surely, with 83,259,441,701 advertised, I’ll find one. But 83,259,441,700 are size XXXXXLarge.
Wait. I see it!
One size large, tall, in un-girly blue plaid. In stock! But the perfect shirt can be sent only to Madagascar by Christmas. If sent to Indianapolis, it’ll arrive on February 29, 2024. If I pay extra.
I return to pricing Garfield beach towels. Three cost more than $500 apiece, so I grab the bargain at $471. Using the promotion code BANKRUPT, I owe only $470.12. Surely, I get free shipping. No?! I must spend $203.77 more. So, I buy a bag of flour.
Pre-Internet nostalgia overwhelms me. I miss Christmas fairylands. Humanoids who said, “May I help you?” and did. I miss harmonizing to “What Child Is This?” in stores, celebrating the true Reason for the season.
So, I’ll again circle for parking spots — in any zip code. Though … the scary grandmas probably are still battling.
We other shoppers will watch — from a distance.
Maybe we should bring along pitchers of cold water?
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you prefer online or in-person shopping? Why?
High school graduation celebrations have changed since my husband — then boyfriend — and I graduated in 1971. Boy, we painted the town red.
We went to the Dairy Queen.
Today a 50-cent sundae no longer cuts it. Graduation celebrations now resemble a Times Square New Year’s bash or a Walmart’s grand opening.
Parents suffer from open house syndrome, in which they attempt to recreate their worlds before anyone discovers they’ve been living in squalor. Forget painting the living room. Talented home renovators add new wings, while home improvement klutzes knock out one too many walls. To offset costs, creative parents charge admission to open houses, with extra fees for use of bathrooms and chairs. Some install magnets in sofas to collect loose change.
Mothers experience acute cleaning disorder. Even the gentlest women blow away dust bunnies. Advanced cases not only clean under their own appliances, they sneak next door to scrub under neighbors’ refrigerators. While most recover, chronic sufferers cannot cope with normalcy. When they run out of children to graduate, they recruit teens off the street.
Those with severe graduation syndrome also share all 50 poses of their children’s senior pictures with waiters, flagmen and ATMs.
Other aspects of graduation have changed. Cards nowadays are honest: “Congratulations! We never thought you’d make it!” and the ever-popular “Happy Graduation. Here’s money. Please leave our state.”
Although graduation gifts have evolved from pen sets in 1971 to Porsches in 2022, books remain a staple — a mystery to students, as they have waited 13 years to escape books. Still, they open Great-aunt Clarabelle’s rectangular gift, hoping it contains gold bars rather than devotionals like God Is Watching You at College.
Hubby and I would never hurt friends’ feelings, so we attend open houses and force ourselves to eat piles of meatballs and little hot dogs. To honor graduates, we sample each and every cake, finishing with a sentimental stop at the Dairy Queen.
With full stomachs, Hubby and I return to a house full of junk. We’re afraid to open closet doors. The yard resembles a pasture.
We jump back into the car and cruise downtown. There’s gotta be a kid there who needs an open house.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How are graduations celebrated in your area?
O Lord, another spectacular sunrise! Amid glorious sherbet-colored clouds, the butter-cake sun shines through dark-chocolate trees … um, sorry, Jesus, dieting is getting to me. But viewing Your generous artistry day after day — OMG, where do we funny little people get off, thinking You aren’t Love?
“Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies.” —Unknown
In case you didn’t collide with card, candy, and teddy bear displays, I’ll inform you: Valentine’s Day was Monday. Think in terms of a major apology gift. Half-price chocolates save money, but will they impress your lady?
Perhaps I can suggest tips for future reference.
At all costs, avoid the “I-love-you-every-day-why-should-I-give-you-a-gift-now?” defense. Like the adage, “It doesn’t matter who wins or loses,” it contains elements of truth. But you’ll lose, big time. Unless you think sleeping on the couch — or driveway — is fun.
Fortunately, my husband figured this out. He’s come a long way since our first Valentine’s Day, when he gave me a history book. No, I’m not making that up.
After 47 years, though, he’s a master gift giver. Hubby should offer lessons on finding cards that make a wife’s heart sing. However, he faced a common February quandary: I adore chocolate, but I’m dieting. Should he give me only a card?
Some men bypass the obvious solution: flowers. Instead, they buy their ladies lingerie.
Seriously? When women are hating mirrors, are suffering from starvation, and are pushed around by skinny exercise gurus wearing Spandex?
Admittedly, it’s a cruel dilemma — only one of thousands women inflict on men.
Guys should blame marketing geniuses of the late 1800s and early 1900s who married chocolate and Valentine’s Day.
During the 1860s, beverage manufacturer Richard Cadbury discovered the answer to his own dilemma: how to use cocoa butter that remained after processing chocolate drinks. Before his descendants manufactured the eggs associated with his name, Cadbury marketed valentine candies in beautiful boxes he designed himself.
Milton Hershey reinforced the Valentine’s Day-chocolate connection when he began selling tear-dropped chocolate “kisses” named for smoochy sounds chocolate made during processing.
For a time, chocolate equaled milk chocolate. When I, a second grader, received my first Valentine’s Day chocolates from towheaded Paul Henry, I didn’t nitpick about milk chocolate, dark chocolate, bittersweet, or semisweet. Unlike modern connoisseurs, I didn’t debate whether white or ruby chocolate are true chocolate.
Question free candy? Stupid.
Speaking of stupidity, some gourmets have “diversified” chocolate. They’ve invented a chocolate éclair hot dog. Chocolate and black pepper goat cheese truffles. Even chocolate calamari soup.
I told my love, “While I crave both seafood and chocolate, please don’t get creative on me this Valentine’s Day, okay?”
“Since when have I been creative?”
True.
“By the way,” Hubby continued, “why should I give you chocolates, when you’ve only given me cards?”
Touché.
However, he, too, has been avoiding seconds at dinner. Toughening up with weights.
Should I give him the ultimate symbol of my love and concern for his health: broccoli dipped in dark chocolate?
Maybe just a card. …
Tune in February 14, 2023, to see if these old lovers learned anything during their chocolate chat.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What does Valentine’s Day look like at your house?
O Lord, I’m not sure what the older grandkids thought when they opened their Thanksgiving packages. But thank You the little guys loved the noisy, gobbling stuffed turkeys their weird grandma sent. And, OMG, thank You that my children and their spouses didn’t write me off forever.
O Lord, it’s a tough world right now. But OMG, thank You for a new purple hat and other silly blessings that give us grins!
O my God, thank You for my wise, cerebral husband who serves in so many ways. But OMG, thank You, too, for the boy who just couldn’t wait until Christmas!