Category Archives: Life & Other Distractions

As I’ve stated in my previous entry in this series, I am a hardcore fan of Christmas. I have no dog in the “Christmas Wars” fight between the multicultural-Happy-Holidays-secular-humanists and the Merry-Christmas-baby-Jesus-Christians. Of course, in essence I am on the side of the former, but I am also a traditionalist in certain ways. “Christmas vacation” instead of “winter break”? Why not? “Merry Christmas” instead of “happy holidays”? Sure! Very, very few agnostics/atheists are truly offended by these expressions, and those that are are probably assholes year-round. (The good thing about being agnostic/atheist is you have very little to get offended about.)

OK, with that out of the way, let’s examine the ritualistic glee of a Christmas-loving atheist.

First of all, let it be known to all and sundry that I am a compulsive watcher of Christmas specials and Christmas-themed episodes of TV shows. But I’m discerning. Not just any old special will do. Many will cry “heresy” when I say that I am not a fan of Rankin-Bass and their stop-motion tomfoolery. The animation is bad, and the voices are shrill and grating (except for Jimmy Durante as the Narrator on Frosty the Snowman). So each year I give those shoddy puppets a miss, unless my kids want to check them out, in which case I’ll tolerate them. That’s what being a good parent is all about. The animation on A Charlie Brown Christmas is also a little sub-par, but you can’t deny its charm, and some traditions are written in stone. So the Peanuts gang and my DVR have a date for Monday, Dec. 8 at 8:00. Conversely, if you want to talk good animation, go no further than the Chuck Jones-directed How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Dec. 17, 8:00, Cartoon Network), featuring the voice of horror icon Boris Karloff. (I avoid the loud, stupid live-action Jim Carrey movie. It’s like someone figured how how to deliver a migraine in cinematic form.) Olive the Other Reindeer (Dec. 9, 7:00, KQCA 4) is a relatively recent classic, and I keep hoping to see childhood favorite Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas turn up, but the Disney people can be pretty inconsistent with what they decide to yank out of their vaults each year, and it looks like ’08 won’t be seeing Emmet and his boys nor the River Bottom Nightmare Band blow the roof off the Waterville Talent Contest.

Our local public television channel has stopped showing The Andy Williams Christmas Special, a compilation of his variety-show Christmas specials from 1962 to ’71. Numbingly cheesy, folksy, and reeking of the scent of grandparents, The Andy Williams Christmas Special makes Lawrence Welk seem like Swedish death metal. It’s idea of cutting edge musical guests was the Osmond Brothers. It was absolutely irresistable. I furtively tuned in each year, and if someone else came in the room when it was on, I quickly turned red and switched channels as if caught watching porn. I suppose I could easily acquire the specials that aren’t running anymore on DVD, but that cancels out the “special” aspect. If you don’t catch them on TV, it’s cheating. (DVR-ing them is NOT cheating. These are my rules.)

My no-DVD rule does not apply to Christmas episodes of regular TV shows. Thanks to my DVD library, I never miss Christmas episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, The Office, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Newsradio, Cheers, and 30 Rock.

On to Christmas movies. I have no stomach for the treacly, fluffy made-for-TV movies that the Hallmark Channel and Family Channel have made a cottage industry in recent years (and allowed washed-up shmoes like John Schnieder and Patrick Duffy to continue making their alimony payments). Nor am I inclined to sit through sentimental dramas of the theatrical variety. Miracle On 34th Street, The Bells of St. Mary’s, Meet Me In St. Louis, and others of their ilk are not on my must-see list. I remain an It’s A Wonderful Life virgin. Never seen it, probably never will. For me, Christmas movies are all about comedies. (See my article “Top 5 Holiday Comedies” in Issue #2 of Idle Times for more info.) At some point between then Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I will have watched Bad Santa, The Ref, Elf, Scrooged, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and of course, A Christmas Story (at least once on DVD, and again during TNT’s traditional 24-hour marathon.) For some reason, ABC decided to show the original Muppet Movie on Christmas Eve from about 1981 to 1985 or so. I was at prime Christmas age during those years (7 to 11) so recently I’ve been tossing that one in the ol’ Netflix queue for nostalgic holiday viewing.

And of course, A Christmas Carol. I read the original story by Charles Dickens each year (and so should you – it’s short!), and watch every variation I can get my hands on. The 1938 Reginald Owen version, the 1951 Alastair Sim version, the 1970 musical with Albert Finney, the 1984 TV version with George C. Scott, the 1999 TV version with Patrick Stewart. I try to catch them all. I have Blackadder’s Christmas Carol on DVD. I remember as a little kid liking Rich Little’s Christmas Carol on HBO, where all the characters were piss-poor celebrity impersonations by Rich Little. (How did that guy luck into a career? All of his “impressions” are variations on Johnny Carson or John Wayne. He makes Frank Caliendo seem touched with the subtle hand of genius.) Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, A Looney Tunes Christmas Carol, The Flintstones Chistmas Carol etc. are all part of a beloved extended family. I recently discovered that a holiday tradition of the 1930s and 1940s was a radio play of A Christmas Carol featuring the voice of Lionel Barrymore, broadcast live each Christmas Eve. I snagged some audio files (I love the internet!) last year and have added that experience to my growing list of traditions.

I’ll be missing out on putting up a Christmas tree in my apartment this year. Because of visiting relatives from far out-of-town, my kids will be spending the two weeks before Christmas with their mother. Usually I take my oldest son out on a wild goose chase from lot to lot looking for the perfect tree. (For the last couple of years, it was found at Home Depot.) Then getting it home, hoisting it straight (with the help of several magazines stuffed under the teetering stand), draping it with lights (the more the better), and then getting on the ornaments. It’s a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating process, so however much I enjoy having a Christmas tree, it’s just not worth the hassle, mess, and expense when it’s just me looking at it. I thought about putting one up extra early this year, but even when I put one up around the usual time (Dec. 10-12), it’s dry, brittle, and ugly before New Year’s no matter how much water I dump into its stand. I’ve even toyed with idea of a (shudder) artificial tree, but I can’t yet bite that particular bullet. The only decent-looking ones are out of my price range anyway.

I live a pretty climate-controlled life. I enjoy a good thunderstorm or cold snap because I so rarely have to be out in it. Walking from my car to whatever building I’m going into (and back again) is about the extent of my exposure to the elements. Sometime in December, though, I do like to get out in the cold for an extended period. A couple of times I’ve headed up into the foothills for Nevada City’s Victorian Christmas Stroll, sometimes its Yuba City’s Christmas Stroll, and this year it was the Marysville Christmas Parade. A warmer but no less festive tradition is one I know I share with a lot of other people, and that’s taking a Christmas light drive. Throw some Christmas music on the car stereo, throw the kids in the backseat with a mug of hot chocolate, and drive around town checking out the houses of those that have much more energy and money than I do. The houses off of El Margarita Rd. in Yuba City, Sacramento’s Elmhurst neighborhood (around T & 53rd), and the “Fabulous Forties” have some of my favorite exterior light displays.

Finally, there’s no place like home for the holidays as Perry Como reminds us, and it’s absolutely correct. I still remember the Nightmare Christmas Tour of 2000. Six different family members’ houses spread across three different towns. In one day. We celebrated most of Christmas that year in the goddamn car.

Well, no more of that. I generally spend the night before Christmas at my parents’ house with my kids (who are usually loaned out for a couple of hours that evening for a visit with their mother’s extended family.) Mom has made sure bowls of nuts and candies are within easy reach no matter where you sit. Dad cooks beef stew, the Duraflame napalm log burns merrily in their undersized fireplace, and the TV tells of a kid who wanted nothing but a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Once the kids are tucked away in the sofa-bed in the back den, I sit reading and sipping until it’s time for Santa to visit. At which point, Santa hauls his half-drunk ass out of his reading chair into the garage where the loot is hidden. After filling the stockings, eating the cookies that were left out (and dumping the milk), I sleepily head for my old bedroom (now the guest room) and the requisite visions of sugar plums. Christmas morning is its usual kid-oriented chaos. Presents are opened, messes are made, some assembly required. Mom has hot Pillsbury Orange Rolls at the ready (no one remembers when this tradition started), Dad takes orders at the breakfast griddle. By noon we are fed, groomed, and ready to meet any “extended family” obligations in the afternoon. These vary from year to year, but I have long ago decreed that from December 24 at 5:00pm to December 25 at 12:00pm, I, for one, am at my childhood home. No exceptions.

Happy Holidays…

2024 Edit — It’s been 16 years since these three entries have been posted. Time moves on for everyone — “no exceptions” — and a lot of the traditions written about have been retired. The kids are all grown up and out on their own. That alone changes a lot of holiday traditions. I am no longer a single dad, and have re-married, so now the traditions of my wife’s big, boisterous family have become my traditions. Dad passed away a few years back, and Mom has downsized everything. (Since then, my in-laws have always included my mother in their big year-end holidays.)

I still watch a lot of holiday specials, though.

The week leading up to Thanksgiving is the time when the sunlight takes on its pre-solstice quality, where it’s never quite direct, and becomes a kind of twilight by 2 or 3 in the afternoon. The weather really takes a turn for the cooler side, and it becomes hot chocolate time. My ideal cup of hot chocolate consists of a generous portion of peppermint schnapps. This is also the time when egg nog appears on store shelves. I’m always astounded at the number of people who despise this heaven in a cup, or those who cut it with milk. I even know someone who mixes it with 7-Up. Friends, the only way to drink egg nog is pure and ice-cold. If the snot-like consistency makes you squeamish, it is permissible to stir in a spoonful of your favorite brown liquor (I prefer E&J brandy for this purpose. A bourbon or blended whiskey is also acceptable.) For those with unlimited budgets, Budd’s and Southern Comfort produce top-notch nogs. Producer’s Dairy and Crystal offer good mid-priced brews. Avoid thin, under-spiced store brands.

I usually take an hour or two in the days before Thanksgiving to watch two classic Thanksgiving-themed TV episodes: The Bob Newhart Show episode where everyone gets drunk and orders Chinese food (“More moo goo gai pan”) and the Cheers episode that culminates in a food fight. Since I have both shows on DVD, I no longer have to sit in front of Nick At Nite or Fox 40, waiting and hoping for these to air. (Not that Fox 40 ever shows Cheers anymore. God, no. Not when there’s a quadruple helping of Everybody Loves Raymond to be had! Jesus, what a repugnant pile of coyote shit that show is. And I don’t think Nick At Nite even exists anymore.) Two or three days before Thanksgiving is time for a screening of Planes, Trains & Automobiles, which needs no introduction as the Best Thanksgiving Movie Ever (see the Holiday Comedy article in Issue 2 of the Idle Times zine for more eludication.)

Thanksgiving itself is usually pretty low-key with me. I’m very thankful for everything I have, blah, blah, blah, but the strongest feeling I have toward Thanksgiving is that anyone who refers to it as “Turkey Day” should be shot on the spot. Sometimes my extended family has a big get-together, sometimes they don’t. I could always take or leave the Macy’s parade. (I dig the big-ass balloons, but the song-and-dance stuff isn’t my bag.) Because of the hit-or-miss attitude of my family over the years, back in my married days I was content to let the wife dictate Thanksgiving plans, since her family got together annually without fail. (Hers being a family of mostly non-drinkers, I was forced to operate the car bar, a large ice chest full of Moosehead or Heineken in the trunk of my car for the exclusive, secretive use of myself and other like-minded members of the holiday gathering, parked beyond the puritan gaze of party-pooping teetotalers.) When I do manage to get to my extended family’s Thanksgiving, it’s usually a fairly laidback, booze-and-football oriented type of gathering.

At this point, everything begins gearing toward the Mother of All Holidays, Christmas. Although I am a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, I enjoy Christmas to an irrational degree. The week after Thanksgiving is when I begin making my Christmas music mix. Ever since I discovered free Napster back in 2000, I have been downloading holiday classics. The CDs I made for various family members have been praised as the best selection of Christmas songs they’ve ever heard. Classic and contemporary, I appreciate it all. I even like the Jesus songs. (Except for that super-maudlin “Christmas Shoes,” a vile, oozing canker of a song that makes me wish the songwriter and/or performer a painful death via impalement, disembowelment, or surprise attack by large tropical rodents. Not in keeping with the holiday spirit, so I simply avoid the damn thing.)

Now in the age of iTunes and 24-hour Christmas music stations on the radio, a little steam has gone out of my yearly project. Instead of mix CDs, I try to create the ultimate Christmas iTunes Playlist. Building on the previous years’ work, I add, subtract, re-listen, and re-evaluate. Is Perry Como’s or Bing Crosby’s version of “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” the “definitive” version? My latest addition to the mix: Phil Spector’s 1963 A Christmas Gift For You, featuring the Ronettes and the Crystals doing high-volume “wall of sound” versions of Christmas songs. Highlight: Darlene Love’s rendition of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”. I admit all this with a mix of pride and embarrassment. (One of the most embarrassing purchases of my life: 99 cents for an iTunes download of a children’s chorus singing “Up On The House Top”.)

The Friday after Thanksgiving is the day for putting up the Christmas decorations (except for the tree, which goes up the second weekend in December.)

My birthday comes within a week or week and a half after Thanksgiving. I’m generally pretty uncomfortable at parties, and haven’t had a birthday party since I turned 11. These days it’s just a quiet dinner with family, a few new DVDs and books, and back to business as usual. I try to downplay it…but not to the point of missing out on the new DVDs and books. As I’ve come to appreciate Christmas more for its atmosphere and high spirits, my birthday is really the only time I get to rake in a few things I haven’t yet bought for myself that year.

Part 3: Christmas — coming soon

In a convivial, end-of-season atmosphere at Bella Bru Monday night, Team Idle Time was able to bring home the Finlandia Cup to its trophy shelf for the third time. (The Cup, like the shelf, is entirely notional.) We finished third place in Monday night’s game due to some skull-busting questions like “Who did Mike Tyson defeat to win the championship in 1986?” and “What are the full names of Prince William’s and Prince Harry’s girlfriends?” (We actually got one of those thanks to Gilly.) Despite our third-place finish last night, we had enough season points overall to snag the cup. Sherice unscrambled BURNABLE I NOTE to BEIRUT, LEBANON, and WH gave us one of his patented doobies.

What’s a doobie, you ask? It’s when one team member is certain of the correct answer, the other team members do not agree and put down the consensus view, but the lone wolf’s answer turns out correct. There are two strict rules for an answer to be an official doobie: 1) The one team member must not fight for his/her answer, but shrug it off and get more satisfaction out of being a martyr to his/her cause than getting it right. 2) It must be “called” in advance, before the quizmaster reveals the actual answer at the end of the game (e.g., “OK, fucksticks. Put whatever you want. That one’s my doobie. I’m calling it.”) The name derives from a Rock and Roll Recall question in our second or third game that WH correctly identified as the Doobie Brothers, which the rest of us put down as Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Last night’s doobie came with the question “What is the largest city, by population, in the Caribbean?” and WH offered the obvious choice, Havana, Cuba. Jeannie and I, however, were inexplicably in love with the idea of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Any image I get of Puerto Rico is one of swarming masses of people, and any image I get of Havana is bars with wicker chairs, a lot of cement walls painted in pastel colors, and rusted Hungarian-made cars from the 1950s. So much for mental images.

Anyway, it is the three-peat. The trifecta. The hat trick. The scoring starts anew on December 2. I don’t know if any team has taken home four consecutive Finlandia Cups, but we are going to do our damndest.

Coming soon…”My Holiday Traditions, Part 2″ and a re-cap of Sunday night’s “White Album Show” at Harlow’s in Sacramento…

On every other night, it’s just a typical suburban, slightly-overpriced bistro. But on Monday nights, it’s an Arena. A Field of Battle. Those few, those happy few, who walk through the doors of Bella Bru in Natomas and shed their (proverbial) blood on Monday nights are indeed, a Band of Brothers (I’m using Brothers in the modern, universal sense, so Sisters, count yourself included) there to joust and tilt in the spectacular modern tournament known as …

… bar trivia.

A fad in Britain (known as “pub quizzes,” how quaint) for some time, this phenomenon has recently spread across the pond and invaded alehouses and groggeries across our fruited plain. Let the unwashed masses have their karaoke nights in the more hygienically-suspect taverns, with their peanut-shelled floors and cold sore viruses floating in the air so thick you could swat them like mosquitoes. Bar trivia is for refined brain boxes with a sense of misplaced dignity, jaw-dropping amounts of previously useless knowledge, and a bit of chip on their shoulder. It was practically made for the Institute of Idle Time.

The rules are simple: Each team (no more than six on a team, please!) gets an answer sheet, the quizmaster reads the questions aloud, and the team writes down their answers and turns it in to the quizmaster for scoring. Best score of the night wins a prize, and best average score over a season wins a “championship” prize. Shouting answers aloud is frowned upon, and immediately marks you as a loudmouthed popped-collar frat boy douche. Take your flip-flops and date rape drugs elsewhere, sir!

Continue reading →

Thoughts & reflections regarding my personal holiday traditions have been rattling around my head for the last several weeks, so I decided to put it into writing. What follows is probably the most self-indulgent, least amusing bit of blogging/posting you will ever see out of me. And it comes in three parts, for triple the fun!

If the people that knew me best were to compile a list of adjectives to describe me, “sentimental” would rank pretty far down. Probably into the triple digits. Which is why it surprises people that I am a sucker for the time of year called “The Holidays.”

I think it may have its roots in my love of ritual, and my history buff’s appreciation for the power of tradition. I am an amateur folklorist, and a basically an overgrown (alcoholic) kid. All of these things combine to form a set of traditions I go through from October to December with the dogged tenacity of a worker ant with OCD. Some are universal, some are deeply personal. And the scary thing is, more seem to get added from year to year, and very few fall away. Maybe soon I’ll experience that holiday “stress” people are always whining about. Continue reading →