2004-12-01 - 7:46 a.m.
Jingle Bells.
I hate Christmas on the radio because the "shoe" song seems to be on permanent rotation. I cannot explain how deeply I despise this song. Your mom's dead, kid! She don't need no shoes in heaven! *pause for lightning to strike me down* Hmm... no retribution from above. It's a bit of a stretch, but after years of glorious music dedicated in His name, I think Jesus probably gets a bit tired of the sentimental schmaltz that has replaced inspirational music, too. I mean - "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", or the "shoe" (I've managed to block out the title of it completely) song? Which would you prefer to have sung in your name? *sigh* Welcome to December. It's my birthday tomorrow. Oh, shoot - I need to send my brother a birthday card - his birthday is on the 8th. There are, of course, many things I like about Christmas, most of which have fuck-all to do with religion, especially since I haven't done an Advent calendar since I was ten. I do put up a creche, and I even have a new chalkware sheep to add to it this year, but that's about the extent of it. The rest of the stuff is purely secular - even the cards. I send out so many to people of different beliefs, that I tend to search a bit for a cute one that also doesn't have anything religion-specific about it. I found some pretty ones, and they'll go out on Sunday. Normally, I'm the first one to send cards out, but I've been beaten this year by Kevin and Jake, Bob's father, and the real-estate agent who sold us the farm. I want our new house to be built so I can spend Christmas there. The current house has no central heating and no insulation, so you *really* don't want to spend Christmas there - especially since we turn the water off in November. We have tried all sorts of things to stop the pipes from breaking, and nothing's worked so far. Because of the Byzantine way the house was plumbed, we can't have the pipes blown, because various capped-off bits tend to break, negating the effects of the procedure. Leaving the water on and the taps dripping doesn't help if a friend (who shall remain nameless) goes down to hunt, and turns all the taps off. And turning the water off and praying for the best merely demonstrates that we don't pray often enough to have any bonus points stored up with the Almighty. This year, we're trying the novel technique of turning the water off well before the January freezes, and leaving the taps open so the water in the pipes evaporates. We'll see how well that works. It won't matter much, anyway - the house is coming down soon. The ladybugs and wasps will have to find somewhere else to winter over, since I don't plan on moving them into the new house (which won't have as many holes in it as the old one). The groundhog can stay, but its days of burrowing in the crawlspace are over, since we're going with concrete slab construction - no stairs, no creepy basement for dangerous undead creatures to lurk in. (I worry about these things.) Actually, the one time we were down at the house and it snowed, it was glorious. Just us, the woodstove keeping everything warm, and hours to quietly wander through the woods and listen to the snow falling. I can't wait to be there full-time so I can go wandering whenever I want. *sigh* We'll be getting the Christmas tree this weekend - I like to put it up soon after my birthday (Christmas season *cannot* start until after my birthday!), and I love to spend an afternoon listening to Christmas music and putting up ornaments. I even went with the whole retro multi-coloured lights theme this year, since Target has some cute new ones. If only they'd burn all copies of that icky "shoe" song, my Christmas season will be perfect. As it is, I'll just have to settle for lunging for the radio and changing the station every time it comes on. Besides, I need the exercise.
Dorsal - Ventral
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all words copyright Laura Mellin 2000-2005
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