i guess it ain’t all bad

i admit i come off a little bitter here from time…

…it happens.

partially because life is just that way most of the time, at least in my perception. and partially because, let’s face it, bitter is just funny. it is. look at most stand-up that makes you laugh…it never talks about how much they love their wife, or how their kids are awesome, or how they have the best job ever. oh, HELLS no. things have to suck. no suck, no funny. no suck, no twenty.

oh wait – that last part just applied to that night in NOLA over halloween last year. moving on…

…i fucked myself earlier this month (actually i do that pretty often if you wanna split hairs, but sue me – the UFC lives almost an hour away!) and did the “gift guide” bit earlier this month, not realizing that there’d be another sunday sixer pre-xmas.

oops.

so here we are, and it’s the holidays, and i have six months worth of cleaning to do and three days to do it…and not just complete days, but little bits here and there around work time and UFC time and what-not. and i have to change the oil on my car, as it’s starting to get a little to long for comfort between oil changes for my tastes. and i have one more xmas party coming up, actually the night this bit posts. so i’m gonna mine my brain to do something i never thought i’d do…

six GOOD xmas memories to show my life doesn’t always suck

cut the paper, cut the clues! – probably one of my favorite xmas memories was one of the things mom did to keep the myth of santa alive. my mom had really cool, very distinguishable handwriting…and she knew we’d spot it in a heartbeat on a gift card from “santa”. so mom would buy two kinds of wrapping paper that weren’t used on any of the gifts she gave us, and wrap all mine in paper “a” with a big “S” cut out of paper “b” on the boxes…then reverse that (paper “b” with a big “T” out of paper “a”) for teri. genius. i knew i got it from somewhere.

yay! two xmas’s! – this is more common for kids these days. hell, some of them have four or five depending on what all is going on with step parents and grandparents and god parents and whatever other parents they have (collect the whole set?). but when i was a kid you just had “Christmas” for the most part…except for me. and that was even a bit before the divorce. why? ’cause i had a gay uncle, and while he was allowed in my grandfather’s house because “sigh…i guess he’s family now” his new boyfriend WASN’T, and therefore wasn’t allowed in the house. so Mom’s side of the family broke off and did their own thing. i blame my grandfather more than my uncle for this…and thank the stars that we live in a more tolerant time now…sorta. did mean we got to celebrate twice, though. that’s always a good thing when you’re a kid.

green and red, with a bigger emphasis on the green these days – in reading this as i typed it i realized that sounded very money-grubbing, which it wasn’t meant to. as a kid my mom’s side of the family claimed to be green before green was cool – they recycled their wrapping paper. i don’t mean it went into a green bin that got set out curbside the day before trash day. no, i mean they took it off the gifts with the purpose of using it to wrap something else later. while i think this stems from my grandmother being in her early twenties when the great depression hit, it resulted in the gift portion of the holiday being EXCRUCIATING for us kids ’cause it took the adults ten minutes to open a gift. but, hey, at least we were all environmental and saved the rain forests and shit, right? WRONG! i found most of the saved, folded wrapping paper in my grandma’s garage when i cleaned out her house…and threw it the fuck away!

we’re still here!!! – remember that one Xmas we didn’t think we’d get to see ’cause the world was supposed to end a few days before it? seems pretty fuckin’ stupid, huh?

it’s all in the ingredients – not talking about my lasagna’s secret ingredient (lockhart brisket) but rather the holiday in general…between the stars bringing me the UFC and the state granting shane his license back it looks to be a pretty nice Xmas for me this year. okay, enough of the soppy shit – let’s close out with the funny…

unkie dan!!! – when i was doing the topper for december, how did i not remember this?

(what’s sad is when i went to find this image on google and save it i already HAD IT so there was really no excuse for skipping the poor guy on this – i kinda feel stupid for it!)

i remembered bad(der) santa which WILL be viewed at my place on Xmas eve for me, shane, and the UFC (who’s never seen it before) and possibly chased with harold & kumar’s xmas movie. some traditions just gotta happen. that being said, you already know what the next entry will be, don’t ya?