Category Archives: Holiday

X’s Realistic Thanksgiving List

11/22/2018 X Teri 1 Comment

On this day, I’m thankful for the statute of limitations, for those things on the ends of liquor bottles which inhibit pouring with greater volume, hair chalk, cats who take the time to learn sign language, exploding birthday candles, sauerkraut, prank obituaries, going to sleep in my own bed and waking up in the middle of the lake, indoor toilets, fiberglass-stuffed pillows, maniacal laughter in the middle of the night, police who limit themselves to shooting me just once, large and flightless birds who get cooked, cranberry sauce (aka “the devil’s snot”), that “Twilight” has no more sequels (though I loved them all), another year without me being embroiled in another sex scandal, fungus removal creams that also serve as sour cream, elastic waistbands, that intestinal gas isn’t colorful or visible, the relief I feel when they take the handcuffs off, when people think I’m George Clooney after a year of really bad luck, wool underwear, , black licorice, Tab soda, fruitcakes, Weird Al song lyrics, a good book rendered even better by a good cup of coffee, the ability to write the word ‘Grammer’ incorrectly on purpose and not care, that my sister-in-law cuts her hair at least once per full moon, burned popcorn, chewing 17 pieces of gum simultaneously, feeding the squirrels until they can barely climb the trees in the backyard, living room campfires that don’t burn the house down, stories from people who take the time to share them, memories of hard rains against cotton fields on a wood plank porch, and finally, an irreverence toward every thing on the face of this Earth, the one which has tolerated me for half a century.
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P.S. I would never wait for a ‘day’ to be reminded.

Christmas, Decorative, Holiday, Humor, Thanksgiving, Xmas

Pitchforkkreeper Lives On: A Note of Thanks

11/22/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

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Since my friend Casey surprised me with a pitchforkkreeper-themed pair of socks, this will inevitably require me to wear shoes with greater frequency. She signed the attached note: “Merry Thanksgiving Christmas etc etc etc Love Casey.” I now have proof that not only does she know me, but that she shares a deep affection for me. Much like our ancestor’s decision to create credit cards, this might ultimately become one of the great missteps in her life.

Additionally, she used one of the tricks from my repertoire: she adorned the packing envelope with lovely pictures of me, ones which reflect the solemnity with which I live my life. I’m certain that the mail carrier enjoyed the spectacle of someone so handsome being ridiculed via the postal system. The picture on the front is noted as “Drunken Hula Dancer,” while the one on the obverse side endearingly indicates “The Pink Dreamer.” The former picture was taken after Tracy, Casey, and Dawn attempted to out-drink me at the Hot Springs Invitational Prune Juice Festival in 2014, while the latter was snapped by a photographer as I sat opposite of Casey at Karaoke night, enamored by her choice of hairstyles. (For those of you wondering, my wife didn’t get jealous.) Note: once you start putting people’s pictures on stamps or the mail, it becomes a frivolous and fun addiction.

As for the Pitchforkkreeper picture, if you’re unfamiliar with the lore and mythology of this picture, suffice it to say it is one which has forged a deep and unsettling bond for many of us. The original picture is one taken by someone’s trail camera in the middle of nowhere – and the person was never identified. Pitchforkkreeper abides in us, always, a symbol and beacon of untethered hilarity. I have a 16 X 20 plaque of him in my living room (which is true) to remind me that it’s more important to be weird than to be understood.

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Casey, thanks for much for the socks. I would have never guessed. (I’m surprised your husband permitted you to buy socks for another man. Socks are ‘the lingerie for middle-aged men.’)

May Pitchforkkreeper keep your Christmas safe and filled with laughter; the kind associated with shared times, not the kind you usually share with me when you note my fashion choices.

P.S. I included a picture of my cat Güino, in honor of Casey’s unfathomable love for all things feline. If you’re a friend of Casey’s, it’s important that you make an effort to adorn her life and house with as many feline knick-knacks as humanly possible. She’ll thank you, just as I thank her. The gift took some thought and effort.

Christmas, Dexter, Holiday, Humor, Xmas

Our Elf On The Shelf Is a Dexter Fan

11/20/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

Our Elf on the Shelf wants to be just like us. Knowing how much we have enjoyed watching “Dexter” again (America’s favorite fictional serial killer), Mistertoe created a crime scene tableau for us last night. (He’s learned the police lingo too, it seems.)

Weirdly enough, we don’t own a Barbie doll, so I’m not sure how he got to the store to procure one.

I hope my wife doesn’t have a stroke when she discovers the mischief Mistertoe got into last night!

Christmas, Holiday, Humor, Religion, Satire Parody, Xmas

A Christmas Parable

11/16/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

“Your cheese done slid off your cracker, hasn’t it?” The recruiter stared across the table at me with a mix of contempt and bewilderment. “Say that again,” he yelled at me, his fists clenched.

“I was just wanting to know where I could enlist in the War On Christmas. I love elves and ornaments, not to mention Santa. And it’s only a day long, so that’s good.” I smiled, adjusting the new winter coat I had recently purchased in case I was drafted for the upcoming winter war, the one I’d heard so much about.

“First, we don’t fight it just on Christmas Day. It’s fought against Christmas, for a couple of months per year.” The recruiter seemed as if that explained everything.

“So, YOU are fighting Christmas, or someone else is? I’m not getting it.”

“No, we are NOT fighting Christmas. THEY are. Are you stupid?”

“Yes, I’m beginning to suspect that I am,” I said. “But what are they fighting against, exactly? Do they hate trees? Elves? Presents? Jesus?”

“They want to stop us from celebrating Christmas,” he added.

“So why do you call it a ‘War on Christmas’ then? Shouldn’t you call it a ‘War Against Christmas?'” I think I perfectly explained it. “I expected a one-day war, judging by the name of it.”

“No, they want to take away Christmas!” He was shouting again.

“I don’t think that’s what is going on here, sir, but I guess I’ll take your word for it. So, where do I enlist, for either side?” I was ready to strike a blow for yuletide merrymaking.

“You don’t enlist. You either celebrate or you don’t,” the recruiter sneered at me.

“So, we all just do our own thing? Isn’t that what we are doing already?”

I had never been thrown through a window before. Luckily, the snow was deep on that side of the building – and the window was only on the second floor. While I lay on the ground, I made a snow angel, because each of us is supposed to always find a way to relish all our moments, even the ones following being thrown from a high window.

I guess I was already fighting FOR Christmas, in whatever manner I wanted to celebrate it. It turns out the war was entirely imaginary and that each of us, in our own way, gets to celebrate, or not, exactly as we choose. Good people don’t tell other people how to express their joy and happiness, no matter how it is motivated.

If Christmas is indeed a celebration of spirit, then each of us should be open and free, with love in our hearts and a soft tongue for those who don’t agree with however we express our holiday.

Wherever you are, make a snow angel with me. Whatever we call it, it lies within each of us.
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Allegory, Brinkley, Death, Holiday, Monroe County, Mother's Day

Charlotte’s Hope

05/15/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

a mothers remembrance.jpg

Charlotte once resided in a modest house on the corner of Lilly Street and Shumer Way, nestled inside one of the many decaying towns in the delta area of Arkansas. While she hadn’t stepped foot inside the family home in decades, it was still an infrequent and lingering beacon, a place that once defined her. Her mom had departed this world unexpectedly just as Charlotte hit her stride as an adult. Though her own life was full, a little air exited her soul with her mother’s passing. She not only had buried her mother but a sliver of her own life as well. It remained in her hometown, cloistered and protected from the world.

The promise of life blossomed before her, of course, but the loss of the person closest to her heart would always be one characterized by that uneasy and painful feeling one experiences after swallowing too big of a bite. In Charlotte’s case, the bubble of discomfort failed to fade completely. Each new experience, every shared story, and all moments of clarity occurred with an invisible and almost indiscernible hand on her shoulder. As time marched forward, the hand would feel lighter even as the bruise on her soul deepened. If a kind soul such as her mother could find herself so ingloriously subjected to the injustice of unearned disease, it could writhe toward anyone, despite nobility, intention, or merit. It was a hard lesson to accept but her mother taught it with unimaginable and sublime beauty.

She’d find herself in her hometown, often without remembering the interstate or the quaint highways that brought her there, the same byways once traveled by her mother. The engine of her car would be thunderously ticking, even as the beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. After untold minutes, she’d lower the driver window. Her eyes would devour the familiar details of the small covered rear porch and door, the one almost everyone used. The front door was almost ornamental; someone announcing himself there invariably identified as strangers. She knew without looking that there were 18 rows of white clapboard ascending the side of the house, culminating in exposed painted soffits. Some nights she would slowly emerge from a dream and could still feel the rough sensation of those painted boards as she leaned against the house of her youth. In the summer, one could feel the heat from several feet away.

The cacophony of the summer insects would reach her ears, the hum of mosquitoes would play its summertime melody, and she would cry. In her hometown, most memories anchored in the perennial summertime of her youth. Her mother was so close and the echo of her voice was a lingering presence in the humid air. Whispers, languid syllables of laughter and love, all these intertwined and coalesced in the way that only occurs in Southern towns infected by the paradoxical need to move away.

The peeling paint of the place she once called home still called her name. The four side windows once adorned with light and familiar faces now blankly stared outward without regard. The lawn now screamed for someone to show it the attention it once took for granted. No children would dance in its hidden garden again and it was likely that no family would claim it as an anchor before the structure yielded to the inevitable neglect and gravity. This town and all other places like it are the observable results of entropy; all slide toward darkness and disorder without a guiding force to sustain them. She felt sometimes that her mother was the same dynamic demonstration of physics and that her growing absence was slowly accumulating in her own body as a void with a widening precipice.

The apparition of her mom walked the streets next to the house, idly chiding an unseen canine companion as it wandered in exploration. That her mother might indeed be slightly beyond the unseen membrane between this place of the here and now and the unknown seemed plausible. It was a spell without resolution, though. Hours of fondly wishing it to be so proved the fruitlessness of the endeavor.
“Claire,” Charlotte would cautiously whisper, her mother’s name a secret she dared not say aloud, all these years later. The name, once fallen from her lips, would unleash something primal inside her.

The expectation of her mother’s return was the closest thing to an afterlife that Charlotte could anticipate. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a decade, she would also yield to this world’s demands and sleep one last time, to awaken in the place wherein her mother now resided. It was promise enough for her, beyond even the lofty covenants given to her in church.

Mother and daughter would join one another in raucous laughter, undoubtedly in the unassuming kitchen of her youth. Love would be on the menu, forever, accompanied by the foods with which her mother had so gracefully adorned the family dinner table.

For now, though, Charlotte experienced the heat, the buzz of insects, and the observance of the disintegration of the cradle and crucible of her innermost heart. She could feel the fingers of time furtively clawing their way up her spine, just as they were doing to the integrity of the house she once called home. Both she and the house would inevitably succumb.

As a bead of sweat coalesced against her neck, those same fateful fingers chilled her and she smiled the most secret and indecipherable of smiles that puzzled everyone who knew her.

Not everyone holds onto life with desperation. For some, hope lies beyond, away, and in lingering embraces.

Meanwhile, some of us, like her, sit in the gathering dark in our versions of curious little hometowns and wait. All of this, each detail, is temporary on a sufficiently long enough timeline.

Memories abide and love resists the void.

Holiday, Humor, Personal

You Don’t Bring Me Flours Anymore

04/02/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

Several days ago, I brought my wife Dawn a nice vase of flowers.

It was, therefore, a surprise when she said, “X, you don’t bring me flowers anymore,” a couple of days ago. (Much like the old Barbara Streisand standard…)

Later that day, as I was reading, it struck me that she was, in fact, using one of her favorite communication tricks: the homophone. I won’t bore you with a redundant reminder of what constitutes a homophone because I’m sure that you all, much like myself, spent a good portion of the weekend reading your “Obscure English Quarterly” magazine.

So, today, I granted her wish. Now, she can no longer say, “X, you don’t bring me flours anymore.”

Quizzical initial looks of consternation aside, I think she enjoyed the surprise.

When I bought this gift today at Richard’s Flourist Shop, he told me to not add water to these flours. Even if I was going to make bread.

Eureka Springs, Holiday, Personal

A Non-Birthday Celebration at The Cabin

03/04/2018 X Teri Leave a comment

Under the pretense of an early birthday celebration for me, Dawn and I went and stayed a couple of nights at our favorite cabin: Wisteria Lane Lodging. Dawn insisted on that elusive ‘something’ for me, despite my general lack of enthusiasm. Without hesitation, I voted for a getaway weekend for us both to enjoy. As we always do, we stopped at the grocery store at Holiday Island and marched up and down the aisles several times. We’ve always found something interesting to try. Stores which exist near retirees tend to have a few things that are difficult to find elsewhere. I picked up a couple of extras, as I was certain that my unblemished cooking record would be irrevocably tarnished this time.

We arrived at the cabin, embued with a certainty that it was going to be a great weekend.

The creek below the cabin was still flowing with cold, clear water, but both days were warmer and dry. It started raining a little as we were packing up to leave. We prefer the rainy days while at the cabin, but our request for a deluge went unheeded.

Despite being forced to endure the sunlight, we somehow managed to enjoy ourselves anyway. 🙂

While we ate like royalty, we took the time to plan healthier choices. I grilled several times and despite my vegetarian proclivities, we had steak, chicken, steakburgers, corn on the cob and even grilled bell peppers. Just to expand my limited abilities, I brought a grill glove and basket, both of which were very useful. I still managed to burn a finger nicely, though, in a moment of inattention. Given my general disregard for protocol, I’m always relieved that I once again avoided burning either the cabin or the forest around me. It’s hard to believe other adults once trusted me with charcoal. I still suspect gas grills were popularized in anticipation of some future mishap on my part.

The picture below reveals how long and wide the covered porch is. The swing is on the opposite end. The difference with Wisteria is that it’s easy to grill regardless of the weather. The porch is the best feature of the cabin, one which is overlooked by most vacation cabins.

On Sunday morning, as I was grilling, a thunderous clomping of feet came from the right. I thought an antelope had entered the planked walkway alongside the cabin. Before I could react, a large labrador poked her head around the corner, very hesitant and nervous. I’m not sure who the dog belongs to or how far it had traveled, but after a minute of cooing at her, I went inside and retrieved a couple of large grilled chicken breasts from the day before. As I fed her, the dog’s reluctance evaporated. Within minutes, I had a new best friend who wanted belly rubs. It was difficult to stop petting this adorable dog, especially as she looked at me eyes filled with appreciation.

Dawn came outside to see what all the dancing and laughing was about.

We also finally got to watch “Three Billboards,” a copy I had ordered from Amazon to coincide with its release. We never watch movies on DVD. Despite the violence, we laughed several times. Even when the son jumped up with a butcher knife and casually placed it under his dad’s chin, I laughed in recognition of the casual truth of the way it unfolded. The story resonated with me as I sat in the middle of a place where no people were anywhere around. My memories provided the nonsensical backdrop. Since I was at one of my favorite places in the world, I will always remember seeing this movie.

It was a rare treat to enjoy the movie in the middle of nothing, without access to phones or internet. I also took my laptop and connected it to the large TV, to watch a couple of our favorite shows, along with my huge digital music collection. In combination with Dawn’s nice bluetooth speaker, we had an excessive amount of portable entertainment. We tend to have a laugh at being in the middle of nowhere while maximizing our technology reach. It requires us to plan a little better, as there are fewer and fewer places without access to cellphones or internet. One day, we’ll look back in fascination at how quaint such a thing will seem to us.

Dawn had never tried a pickle-ice ice freeze pop. She wishes she had never tried one, now. The look of horrified amusement when she tried her first while we were at the cabin is now etched in my mind. Given her desire to spit in every direction upon tasting it, I’d rate her impression as “Unfavorable.” She also claims to have never tried pickle juice over crushed ice, a delight once available when we were younger. By the way, Dawn loves pickles, so I’m not sure how to attribute her distaste for ice pops. I’d like to point out that she loathes tomatoes, but two of her favorite foods are marinara and salsa. She also doesn’t suffer fools lightly – which doesn’t make sense, either, because all evidence points to her having married me voluntarily.

At night, I played my13-hour thunderstorm-creek-waves sound file I made. Much of the component sounds are ones I’ve recorded on previous visits to Wisteria, standing in the overflowing creek or under the edge of the porch. It crashed and ebbed all through both nights. Though the skies were clear above us, if you had stood outside our cabin at midnight, you would have heard and felt the slight reverberation of the virtual thunderstorms inside. Friday night, the moon shone through the gaps in the skylight like a beacon pointed down on us.

We also painted rocks again. I spent a little time cleaning them and applying a horrid bright green primer coat, possibly in an attempt to frighten any passing squirrels. We avidly grabbed our paints and started gossiping on the porch, in the sunlight, attempting to paint the rocks instead of our own fingers and faces.

For mine, I decided to use the excuse of my birthday as a macabre prognostication of my departure date. For those who despise Roman numerals: 1967-2037.

I’m inevitably reluctant to leave the cabin. It’s a privilege to be able to enjoy it and I never fail to ask myself why I don’t adopt more elements of living simply.

We live in suburbs, aligned in symmetrical houses that seem to give our lives order.

For a couple of days, as Dawn and I lived a short while in the forest, our lives were in order.

Christmas, Festivus, Holiday, Xmas

Another Day For You

12/23/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

For some, it’s a white almost-Christmas morning. For others, Festivus.

Some are waking up with an ache in their hearts for absent furry friends or family, whose bark, meow or voice still resonates in their ears.

May the echoes diminish and laughter knock on your door.

Christmas, Gift, Holiday, Whimsical, Xmas

Earwax Candle Kit For Christmas

12/15/2017 X Teri 3 Comments

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These fun PrankPack boxes are awesome. I bought a few this year to wow friends and family. This “Create Your Own Earwax Candle Kit” is going to be a surprise for my mother-in-law.

She loves being pranked and nothing says “I cherish you” like a horrified smirk followed by a laugh. (She can’t see this post…)

This kit allegedly comes with an earwax collection hat and a collection reservoir for your ounces of nightly earwax.

I wonder if such a candle, were it possible to produce one, might waft a lightly-scented aroma of yuletide inner ear around the house for Christmas?

The company offers several styles. At least one of them will make you laugh. I promise.

P.S. If you want to order your own for a future bit of fun, here is the website:

PrankPack Website

Christmas, Gift, Holiday, Personal, Whimsical, Xmas

A Christmas Villa In The Living Room MMXVII

12/10/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

My wife Dawn greenlit my enthusiastic wish to build a Christmas villa in the living room this year. Using several hundred pictures, 100+ boxes, innumerable lights, a couple hundred ornaments and bits of crazy, a universal remote to control it all, a Festivus pole (for the rest of us, of course), hidden gift compartments, a house cat who daily prays for a gift to fall from above, and a huge dose of yuletide spirit… we present the most unusually-decorated living room you can possibly see all year.

I shot this video with Dawn performing the role of director. I drank 17 cups of coffee prior to shooting and I now regret telling Dawn her version was too jittery.

P.S. I wrote this version of “Carol of The Bells” myself so that social media sites couldn’t claim copyright. I hope you like that part, too. Writing music is another one of my hobbies, one which requires a commitment of time.

My living room has a vaulted ceiling, so the drunken rectangle I created piece by piece is approximately 8′ high, 15′ wide, and 20′ long. It’s difficult to grasp the scale unless you walk through the front door.

A gallon of my patented Elf Juice, one which grants the imbiber the ability to decorate one’s domicile in the manner of Buddy The Elf.

A necessary part of the structure is a cat bed constructed into the base of one of the 8 9-foot vertical columns. (Our cat’s name is Güino, given that he was a shelter cat, one rescued from the Feline Witness Protection Program.)

The green-and-yellow picture is a wanted poster for my stepson Ty. A list of mostly imaginary crimes is listed at the bottom. To the right, you’ll note our infamous family portrait, just us two monkeys posing for the camera. (Dawn is on the left in the portrait, by the way.)

Anyone who thinks I don’t like pictures, please take a note at this point. Despite ordering several hundred before I started, I found myself needing more as I neared what I thought would be the final push to completion.

The columns are all tall and each one is connected in a drunken rectangle around the entirety of the living room. Looking back, it was a lot of work but if Dawn didn’t lose her mind watching me meticulously create each box, each column, and apply every picture and detail, I will look back on this in years to come and ask, “Why didn’t anybody stop me?”

🙂

There are both visible and concealed Christmas-themed quotes from some of my favorite books and movies for the season, too.

Don’t be distracted by the backward clock. It comes in handy when visitors foolishly try to determine what time it is. Note the handsome couple in the background of the clock. Anyone with a spider phobia needs to walk around carefully, as the million streamers often touch you unexpectedly in the neck as you pass.

What’s not visible in this barrage of pictures and Christmas insanity is my appreciation for life, one given to me in daily wonder and amused amazement.

To have the time, energy and ability to creatively express myself is a luxury which I don’t take for granted.

I have to admit, though, that this is a spectacle.

Almost everyone I know has at least one picture of honor in the celebration. Some of the pictures are irreverent, but none fail to make us think or laugh. Or think then laugh.

You’d never know it, but there are several presents hidden in plain sight around the room. Several might require demolition to access them but as we all know, that is what Christmas is all about.

Taken from the kitchen, looking over the counter, perhaps waiting for Santa Claus to come inside and demand a pint of eggnog and a slice of pepperoni pizza.

The Festivus pole certainly adds a dazzle to the room, doesn’t it? In keeping with the original intent of Festivus, I don’t adorn the pole with anything to distract us from its beauty. I’m convinced Dawn wants to accidentally recycle it sometimes – or give it to someone building a fence. If this were to happen, however, I would have no choice but to replace it from Wagner Steel and add her transgression to the following year’s “Airing of the Grievances.”

Note that my genuine Daisy BB gun sits next to our wiretap device, ready at a moment’s notice if some crazed Christmas-hating Grinch attempts to enter the house and steal Christmas from us. Hint: such a person is going to need a truck, a saw and a mean disposition.

Also, the Grinch will have to depart with it all, as I took great care to conceal hidden compartments for gifts. I kept a treasure map, but I’m not certain even I was diligent enough to note them all.

If anyone looks at this and wonders, “Is that ME?” – the answer is probably “yes.” And, you are welcome. Several hundred pictures used in this project makes it likely that if I know you and have shared any levity in our lives that you are part of this.

Christmas quotes, ornaments, pictures from my life, pictures of iconic Christmas scenes, vintage Christmas ads, crayons, bows, ribbons – if it is interesting or unusual, I tried to find a way to include it in this.

The above picture is of the column containing the cat bed on the bottom. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one hidden gift in this column I forgot to take note of during the initial stages of building this.

Here’s a link to a previous post I did, one describing the last time I did this on a really large scale: 2011 Christmas Craziness 2011 Christmas Craziness

The above was taken from the reverse side of the decorations. Note the dollar bills. Here’s a link to explain what the dollars mean: Christmas Dollars Each Year

I didn’t take as many closeup pictures of the tree this year, even though we added several fantastic ornaments. Some of them I ordered and had custom-made, some were whimsy from different stores and events from our lives this year. I’ve met many people who’ve adopted a motley approach to their Christmas tree ornaments but I’ll be ornament-to-ornament that none shares a breadth of diversity like the collection my wife and me have. People tend to look closely at our tree and shout, “THIS can be used an ornament?!” and laugh, filing away the idea for later use.

Another link…

Now that it’s done, I can look at the pictures and lights, and wonder about my year and the future which follows. Another Christmas, another year.