I saw A Christmas Carol last night. A friend had free tickets. I've seen the Alliance's production before. It's very broad. They add a drunken housekeeper for Even More Wacky Fun. I understand why; it's one of their main moneymakers. It made me want to go read A Christmas Carol again. One of Atlanta's better actors has played Scrooge for years and he's excellent, and the little boy who played Tiny Tim was good. There's a lot of caroling going on, much of it carols that postdate Dickens. For example, there was "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," which has words written 20 years after A Christmas Carol, using a tune written a century later. I know my obsessive nitpicking is not attractive, but I had to think of something other than the Wacky Drunken Housekeeper.

I thought of the sound people here sitting through infinite repetitions of this and shuddered. I also thought of Fay, since the same actor was Mr. Fezziwig and the Ghost of Christmas Present.

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I just applied for a part time job.

I haven't filled out a job application in over 17 years. Accckkkkk.

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Also, so not fair for that book which was an extrusion of parental duty to tell me the facts of life to replace some actual fun presents.

That is so worse than underwear.

When my nephew was pretty young, my sister teased him for weeks that he was only getting socks and underwear for Christmas. There was even a song. He was so worried about it, it was almost cruel. What he didn't realize is that she was getting everyone socks and underwear as a joke (and "regular" presents too).

The song continues to this day, and every year my sister gets everyone socks and/or underwear. The guys get boxers. Thankfully, I always get just socks since she says it would be weird to buy me underwear.

We opened one present Christmas Eve, then Christmas morning we were not allowed downstairs until my mother woke up. And we were not allowed to wake her up. When we went downstairs, we could peek in our stockings and check things out, but did not open things until after breakfast.

This is how we did it.

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we could peek in our stockings and check things out, but did not open things until after breakfast.

That would have killed me as a child. I would wake Mom up early every Christmas morning and we would go right into the living room to open presents.

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tea:

I just went out to my car to get something, and it is so.damn.cold. Going out to dinner tonight no longer sounds like a fun idea.

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My nephew, Kyle, once wrote a story for school about a boy named Lyle who only got socks and underwear for Christmas because Santa had a terrible accident on the way to his house and all the computer games and new TVs were broken in the crash. The boy obviously had some anxieties about what his haul would be that year.

I never really remember believing in Santa, but I am the youngest child so my sisters probably clued me in early. When I told my parents I didn't believe we stopped getting presents from Santa. We still got them from Mrs. Claus and the elves, etc., but no Santa. Also, we get presents from celebrities and people in the news. We also get presents from people whose names hint to what's inside -- I think I've used this example before here, but when my Mother gave her sons-in-law silk boxer shorts those presents were from Muhammed Ali, Joe Fraiser, etc. My father makes up the best clues, but the most expensive presents are usually from the dog.

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it's been pouring rain here...I'm thrilled. I was thinking I'd have Christmas in shorts. Yucch. This poor planet tries so hard to put things right.

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Man, is the entire Southwest getting rain right now? I know San Diego and the desert had seemingly the same rain all of yesterday...

Well, and it's raining and threatening SNOWPOCALYPSE here, but that's a little more expected in the PNW.

Also, due to custody issues, she's only been with our family until noon, then her dad picks her up and gets her for the rest of the day. I have no idea how that will play out now that she's over 18.

I *still* play out the old custody agreement and I've been over 18 for a long time.

Of course it helps that it was all of us in agreement about how holidays would work and not a court decision. Although somewhere I have my actual custody paperwork, I should find out what the court said just to see.

Mostly it just means a lot of driving. Now flying and then a lot driving.

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I had custody stuff as well. Mom's family lives in OK so the only times we saw them was when we went up there, which wasn't that often after my parents split up.

Usually what happened was we spent Christmas Eve/Christmas morning with alternating parents and then go to Dad's extended family in the afternoon.

Then after we graduated from high school my brother was in the Marines, married, etc so a lot of times it was just me. So I'd run back in forth.

And on those occasions, as adults, when my brother and I are both in town we and my parents spend Xmas morning together, with Dad going over to Mom's or the other way. Of course my parents have never really stopped buying presents for each other, or rather it's that Dad never stopped and so mom gets him something because he got her something.

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Also, we get presents from celebrities and people in the news. We also get presents from people whose names hint to what's inside -- I think I've used this example before here, but when my Mother gave her sons-in-law silk boxer shorts those presents were from Muhammed Ali, Joe Fraiser, etc.

I'm totally doing that this year! How fun. We exchange lots of practical gifts, always underwear, and this should add some whimsy.

Today I bought paint to do the outdoor shutters, garage door, and front door. Then tonight I did my nails. Well, perhaps the nail polish will be a bit of a shield against the paint. The color is blue, and the paint guy put about 1/4 the amount of color in the primer to help a bit. The primer is now a lovely robin's egg blue.

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