dual personalities

Santa came…and today the plumbers are in the basement. Oh bother.

Daughter #2 made her special blueberry coffee cake. Yum. Daughter #1 made Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. Yum. Diet Coke, coffee. Perfect. Mimosas following.

A family favorite to read on Christmas Eve was always the great scene from Geoffrey Willens, How to be Topp:

Another thing about xmas eve is that your pater always reads the xmas carol by c. dickens. You canot stop this aktualy although he pretend to ask you whether you would like it. He sa:

Would you like me to read the xmas carol as it is xmas eve, boys?

We are listening to the space serial on the wireless, daddy.

But you canot prefer that nonsense to the classick c. dickens?

Be quiet. He is out of control and heading for jupiter.

But —

He’s had it the treen space ships are ataking him ur-ur-ur-whoosh. Out of control limping in the space vacuum for evermore unless they can get the gastric fuel compressor tampons open.

I —

Why don’t they try Earth on the intercom? They will never open those tampons with only a z-ray griper. They will —

Father thwarted strike both boys heavily with loaded xmas stoking and tie their hands behind their backs. He cart them senseless into the sitting room and prop both on his knees. Then he begin:

He rub hands together and sa You will enjoy this boys it is all about ghosts and goodwill. It is tip-top stuff and there is an old man called scrooge who hates xmas and canot understand why everyone is so mery. To this you sa nothing except that scrooge is your favourite character in fiction next to tarzan of the apes. But you can sa anything chiz. Nothing in the world in space is ever going to stop those fatal words:

Marley was dead.

Personaly i do not care a d. whether Marley was dead or not it is just that there is something about the xmas Carol which makes paters and grown-ups read with grate XPRESION, and this is very embarassing for all. It is all right for the first part they just roll the r’s a lot but wate till they come to scrooge’s nephew. When he sa Mery Christmas uncle it is like an H-bomb xplosion and so it go on until you get to Tiny Tim chiz chiz chiz he is a weed. When Tiny Tim sa God bless us every one your pater is so overcome he burst out blubbing. By this time boys hav bitten through their ropes and make good their escape so 9000000000 boos to bob cratchit.

We also read aloud from Kenneth Graham’s Birdy’s Christmas, which is equally wonderful. What am I forgetting? What do you read?

The 'Yul shrine' with new additions

What Yule tide celebration would be complete without Yul? Even famous poet Marianne Moore made the connection with her immortal words,

“Yule — Yul log for the Christmas-fire tale-spinner — of fairy tales that can come true: Yul Brynner.”

Special thanks to my wonderful dual personality for finding these superb Yul-relics and for the symmetry. Great birthday presents! The picture does not do them justice. As usual, we (three of us tried) had a hard time with glare and shaky hands, but I think you get the idea. A disclaimer: the green piano came that way (it was free so we couldn’t complain), but we’ve grown fond of it.

Well, now that the grades are in all I have to do is finish shopping, wrap presents, send cards, and cook — all of which I’m going to enjoy. For starters here’s our tree. It’s very large and pretty. One of the benefits of living in the north country is that we get beautiful, fresh Christmas trees at an excellent price from Canada (I don’t want to make anyone jealous by actually mentioning numbers so I’ll be tactfully vague. Perhaps Canadian trees aren’t subject to Obama’s Christmas tree tax; hence the lower price. But does buying a foreign tree make me unpatriotic?). I couldn’t get a good photo that showed the lights to advantage, but you get the idea. Note also the lego train and attendant buildings under the tree. According to family tradition, the boys build a village of lego around the train. Some of it’s very clever and funny like this little guy holding a snowball and fleeing a mean yeti. You should see the look on the mini-figs face!

Or this house with carolers out front and people at a street light. Note that someone from the house is bringing hot cocoa to the carolers and spot Santa on the roof:

or this miniature Christmas tree complete with presents. I particularly like the Jack-in-the-box to the right.

And, yes, my boys are all grown up so I guess that makes them lego-nerds, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! Merry Christmas!