A White and Brown (But Mostly White) Christmas

Bing Crosby was an asshole. There, I said it. And I know that it is probably unfair to lump all of my judgmentalism onto the shoulders of one famous crooner for idealizing particular weather conditions for the "proper" setting of the holiday atmosphere. After all, many people had a hand in it. The screen writer of "White Christmas" came up with the story that necessitated the song. The song writer came up with the song. Various musicians were responsible for playing the score. Even the director could have put his foot down at some point. But I choose to blame Bing. He could have turned down the role, thus forcing the studio's hand to replace him with a lesser singer, which surely would have minimized the movies popularity. Mostly, though, I blame Bing because I don't like his ears.

But the truth of the matter is that snow on Christmas is just one of those things that people always hope for now. Personally, I couldn't remember a time in my life when we actually got snow on Christmas Eve, thus guaranteeing a blanket of the stuff on Christmas morning. I remember a few times when we still had remnants of earlier snows that still existed--just last year I think we still had a few dirty smudges left in some shady places--but never a proper Christmas snow.

But this year we had one. Sort of. We only got about four inches of snow, but the wind was blowing around 40 mph for the better part of two days, so what little we had kept recirculating, so it looked like it was snowing for a much longer time than it actually was. And it never really covered everything (thus the brown reference in the title) because, as soon as it did, it would blow away again only to drift several yards further away.

Nonetheless, it did a bang up job of setting the tone for the holiday. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone who needed to travel even five miles. And THAT is the problem with a white Christmas. People need to drive around on Christmas to see the family that is hither and yon, and blowing snow is decidedly not something people should be driving in. It's much better than ice, of course, but the crap we drove through on Christmas Eve was, quite possibly, the worst winter weather that I've ever experienced from behind the wheel of a vehicle. We couldn't see thirty feet in front of us, the wind was whipping us all over the place, and there were surprise drifts that spanned the entire highway in spots where the wind was partially blocked. It was a nightmare.

And I blame Bing Crosby for that, too. In fact, I blame him for everything bad ever. Weird eared prick that he was.

Anyway, enough of that.

We had a great holiday this year! Uncle Jeams' (he's graduated to something more resembling his name thanks to a few days of constant practice) visit was great. He went above and beyond in his attempts to entertain Gabe, and we really appreciated his being here. It's really too bad that Gabe probably isn't old enough to remember this Christmas forever, because it should go down as one of the best in his books. He had everything. Loads of presents, a near constant stream of activities and places to see and play, and, I think, a pretty ideal array of all of the nebulous this-and-that that supposedly makes a perfect Christmas experience.

Now, sadly, I have to listen to the periodic laments of my barely comprehensible, but still inconsolable, child coming from the other room. "Uncle Jeams . . . Uncle Jeams . . . Uncle Jeams." And then I have to explain to him that Uncle James had to go home and we'll see him another time. I'm sort of dreading when we put the Christmas decorations away and all of his Christmas candy is gone. It was the same way when Halloween passed, but at least then we had Christmas to look forward to. Now what does he have? Martin Luther King Day? Arbor Day? Sure there's Valentine's Day and Easter coming between now and summer, but, except for the candy, neither one of them is really that great.

Fortunately, we got lots of pictures and movies to help remind him of just how good he had it.

I hope to sort through all of these pictures and movies over the next few days, and I'll post the best ones on here. Some of the movies are priceless. At least to my way of thinking.

Here are a few pictures to get things rolling:

Gabe and Uncle Pedo. After looking at this picture, Jamie requested we take another one because he looks like a pedophile. We took some other, probably better, pictures, but I like this one best, still.

Cowboy Butts. Keep in mind, this is a hat that Gabe was fitting into about as well at 18 months. I'm starting to worry that she has a giant, Easter Island head that she won't be able to support.

Button's new diet plan. We're thinking of putting her on a strict diet of tissue paper. I'll let everyone know how that goes.

King Gabe. James brought both of the kids cloth crowns. I THOUGHT we had a picture of Button in hers, but I guess not. This was the only one we could snap of Gabe, too, before he snatched it off. He's not much for wearing hats still for some reason. It was all we could do to pull it down on his head and take a quick picture as he pulled it off.

Adorable. She's also wearing a new outfit--we changed her three or four times on Christmas Eve as we opened her presents.

And that's it for now. I'll try to sort through some more later today or tomorrow.