Christmas Morning Notes

By the way, the above is another Christmas illustration by the late Jack Davis.

If you have seen my postings on Facebook or the blog Chicken-fat.com you might have noticed sometime near Christmas every year I mention the show on "MAMA" which was a sitcom of a poor Swedish immigrant family trying to adjust to living in America, one episode was the old mother country's wives' tales that animals could talk at midnight on Christmas Eve.

Last night Willow did not talk in human words at midnight, or at least not words  in the Young People's Dictionary:  They were all curse words.  She was cursing (and trembling) of those out in the darkness shooting firecrackers.

Which reminds me of another old country wives' tale:  Shooting guns and firecrackers on Christmas Eve to scare off evil spirits.  I think they have it in reverse:  The shooting off guns and firecrackers scare away the good spirits.

We watched the CHRISTMAS STORY last night, written by Jean Shepherd.  I remember, in the Navy, late into the night listening to Jean ramble on on his radio show.  He would talk about his memories in growing up.  If he ran out of things coming to mind he would take a break and play his kazoo until he remembered something else.

I have seen on TV the CHRISTMAS STORY many times.  It is played on several local TV stations back to back all day Christmas day.

One little scene in the CHRISTMAS STORY I think of year around.  It is so simple lit is profound.  And that is the little boy standing beside the star in the Santa line.  The little kid turns around to him one time and says, "I like Santa."  Not knowing what to say, the star say, "Un-huh".

Then minutes later the kid makes another simple statement saying, "I like blabla")  which takes the star off balance because he was running in his mind another problem... he again, focused in on the kid and said, "Un-huh."

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!