Merry Christmas!

For today, a little taste of wonderful, courtesy of Charles Dickens. This is Mr. Man’s favorite Christmas story ever.

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!"

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

"They are not torn down!" cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here -- I am here -- the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be! I know they will."

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

God bless us, every one!

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The Bed List

Dear Santa,

mimi has been very good this year. May I please have one of these in my Christmas stocking?

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Happy Hours

One of the more unfortunate clichés brought on by the chick lit wave was that of the Girls’ Night Out--a raucous group of females pounding down the cosmos or lemon drops until one, or several of them, ended up either hooking up with Mr. Right Now or, more likely, throwing up into a bush, on their expensive shoes, or onto Mr. Right. Or some combination thereof. I can’t say I miss those days or plot moments.

I think what chick lit missed was the whole point of happy hour--to be happy. That’s what Chez mimi is going to do this evening. Mr. Man and I, with Frick and Frack, are heading over to our friends’ house for a true happy hour. There will probably be liquor, but not enough to make anyone throw up, and good food and lots of laughter. And that, my friends, is what happy hour is all about.

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Deck the Halls

Alas, mimi is not one of those women who has the holiday decorating gene. You know, the ones who have color-coded boxes of everything for every season: shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, Easter egg trees and adorable bunnies and chicks, flag bunting for the Fourth, and a veritable witches’ brew of jack o’lanterns, bats, and spiderwebs for Halloween. Nope, mimi considers it a good year if she can find the Christmas tree skirt and both Frick’s and Frack’s stockings without a meltdown. So expecting a Christmas tree to sprout the day after Thanksgiving is a stretch, if not an outright impossibility.

Lucky for mimi, this is where having all that church background comes in handy. Once the tree is up--and it does make it up--Chez mimi keeps it up until Epiphany. January 6th, for those into calendars. Twelfth Night, if you’ve brushed up on your Shakespeare. What else could you imagine for the court jester’s house?

Now if I can only find that special ornament I bought last year...

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Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s lovely here in the NC mountains despite the clouds and occasional rain. A fresh breeze is blowing off my parents’ deck, and the Blue Valley below is its usual mercurial self, revealing shades of Prussian blue and smoky grey as the sun flirts with the cloud cover. Inside, the hum of voices and laughter blends with the smells of roasting turkey and favorite dishes wafting from the kitchen. Frack has created the folk art turkey from a gourd rescued from the porch display, while Frick and his father are discussing musical tastes and their mutual disdain for classical. I have a cocker spaniel at my feet (borrowed; Buc belongs to my sister) and the promise of a good meal ahead. Best of all, I have a family I love--some of whom are celebrating in Florida, like my Mama, sister, brothers, and their families--and friends who are steady and supportive in good times and bad.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Want”

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The Dinner List

I’ve been laughing with Steve Martin since I was in junior high school. That would be during the arrow-through-the-head years. Turns out there’s a lot more to the funny man than “King Tut.” He’s a writer with a wry look at the world (if you haven’t read Shopgirl, please do), a playwright, an art collector, and a Grammy-winning banjo player. Steve Martin lines about everything from Googlephonics (“the highest number of speakers next to infinity”) to McDonald’s (“sluuuurp...hamburger...sluuuurp...malt...”) to dentistry (“You’ll be a den-tist! You have a penchant for causing things pain--AAUGH!”) crop up with regularity in household conversations. Plus, he’s not ashamed to dress up in cowboy clothes and plan a stickup with water pistols (the above scene from the Ron Howard movie Parenthood, filmed practically in my back yard). Yep, just about the perfect dinner guest, I’m thinking.

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Fence Sitting

This year, baby sister has been brave enough to take the NaNoWriMo plunge, and I am happily cheering her on. From the sidelines, it seems. Although I have ideas in abundance, I have revising to do. I have no business trying to write my own headlong draft when I have other responsibilities. No reason to start playing around with the YA story ideas. No...dammit, I have plenty of reasons, but perhaps I lack the will. We’ll see. At any rate, I’m already in the hole a week with no production. Madness to start? Perhaps. Then again, I did win NaNo my first year with an orgy of words on the last day--more than 12k of them, to be exact. Never say never...

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