Hello, Friend!
If I did everything right you should be receiving this a few days before Christmas. As I sit here in the past writing typing, my mind is racing with gift ideas just for you. “What is it you, the readers of my blog, would like this Christmas season?” I spent many an hour pondering this, and other queries. For instance:
1. Do people who don’t draft business contracts or instructions for microwave manuals even use the word query in real-life talk these days?
Hard to say. Most of my friends went to school to draft business contracts and write instructions for microwave manuals. So from my experience, yes, yes they most certainly do.
2. Is cold, hard cash the best gift I could give?
Sure, cash would acceptable, but it is so cliché. It just screams of something your uncle would do when he’s at your house and, forgetting it’s your birthday, excuses himself, races to the nearest WinCo, buys a Secretaries Day card by mistake, races back to your house, slips a $5 bill with as many coins as he can scrounge from the change holder in his car into the card, and hands it to you like he planned it the whole time. But deep down you know what really happened. You both do.
3. Or I could make a cheesy list of the top 10 ways to spend the days leading up to Christmas.
Bingo! We have a winner!!!
So, in the spirit of 1,997th Christmas (the year Seinfeld aired the now classic episode about Festivus, which has more holiday cheer per capita than Frosty the Snowman, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Rudolph combined) here is my gift to you: “10 Ways to Spend the Days Leading Up to Christmas”
1. Buy a partridge in a pair tree, wrap it up, and give it to that special someone on Christmas Day. We’ve all thought about it, but you’d be the first one to actually do it. This single act will forever reserve you a place in the annals of Christmas Awesomeness. You’ll be a legend! Just keep it on the DL so PETA doesn’t get wind.
2. Ring a bell till 100 angels get their wings. Lots of work now, but it’s one of those big picture, living for eternity things you’ll be glad you did later.
3. Build a time machine, travel back in time, and unmake the Jim Carey version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
4. Don’t shoot your eye out. If you do, the Bumpuses’ dogs will eat that delicious dinner you spent all day slaving over and you’ll be the only family in town eating Duck at Panda Express. They’ll try to cheer you up by singing Deck the Halls but it just won’t be the same.
5. Make Santa something healthy to eat, like vegan gingerbread cookies and soymilk. He may not like it at first but if it keeps the old guy around breaking into our houses and stalking children longer then…well, when you put it that way, maybe we DON’T want him hanging around anymore. Never-mind.
6. Buy a little kid two front teeth. It’s really all they want for Christmas.
7. Read A Christmas Carol in a British accent, have someone video you while you do it, and post it on Facebook so we can all share in the holiday cheer, Charles Dickens style.
8. Have your picture taken with the Easter Bunny. Everyone’s having their picture taken with Santa. Those lines are long and annoying. The Easter Bunny lines are much shorter. I promise (Canadian Scout’s Honor).
9. Call your local Zoo and ask what their Holiday Hippo Lease policy is like.
10. Enjoy this time. I know it’s busy. I know it’s crazy. I also know it can be a fun and miraculous time, if you let it. Thank you for being your amazingly awesome self.
I hope in my own weird little way this helped you laugh, even a little bit. If not, feel free to print up this post and recycle it as a napkin, Kleenex, or litter box lining for the neighborhood cat.
—
Jeff McClung 