dirt don't hurt

This is your brain, any given day, When the sun shines bright or the sky is gray, January, November, July, June, or May, But this is your brain on Christmas… You wake up in the morning, at half past two, And make lists of all you have to do. Shopping, baking, and caroling, too. This is your brain on Christmas. Off to the market, something feels strange, List will do no good left on the home range. Can’t pass the red kettle without dropping some change, This is your brain on Christmas. You think of the people that make your life sing, And rush to the store to buy last minute things, Carols are blasted, who doesn’t love Bing? This is your brain on Christmas. At home there are so many memories to make, Sewing and wrapping makes any back ache. At times you feel as fruity as cake. This is your brain on Christmas. There are halls to be decked, no if’s, and’s or but’s, Stuffed reindeer antlers to be tied on our mutts, We all pray for sn...

There’s something funny about the holiday season.  While there’s plenty that is “haha-funny” and plenty that is “weird-funny,” mostly it’s just that unexplainable phenomenon of love that transcends us all no matter how we fight it. Take me, for example.  I had this week’s column mostly written and complete.  It was a long tale about how my husband had to buy the world’s largest pumpkins for our front porch and then decided to leave them there.  To rot.  And be illuminated by the Christmas lights.  I have since donned the sagging, orange orbs with festive Santa hats, and I can only hope that the temperature gets low enough to prolong the life of the biggest one, which has started to ooze itself all over the front steps. I have also fallen into the horrible trap that is the stress of the holiday season.  I feel like I have so much to do—presents to buy, crafts to make, meals to plan—that there’s no time to focus on the now.  My poor daughter...

And there we stood, all five of us, in line for our photo with Santa.  My dear husband who is not privy to the ins and outs of ordering Santa pictures, went ahead and ordered two without my knowing.  According to the way our Santa’s photo shoots work, we had paid for two pictures each of two different shots. Which is two more than we really needed. But still, when life presents you with an opportunity, you take it, and for us that meant piling in around dear old St. Nick and posing for a family photo.  It was practically a Christmas miracle in and of itself.  “Hurry up and tell him what you want,” I told the kids.  “We’ve got an important picture to take here.” And as we stood there, cheesing it up while my kids sat semi-petrified of the man in red, my first thought was one of complete practicality and selfishness.  “Finally,” I said to myself, “a full family photo.  Now I won’t have to feel like such a bad parent at preschool anymore.”...

With the weather starting to change for the worse and this being the season of giving and caring about our fellow man, woman, and child, I feel it may finally be time to discuss something that plagues so many of us on a daily basis.  And by “plague,” I really mean irritate, annoy, and drive us to frustration so much that our preschool aged passengers are picking up less-than-pleasant phrases for other drivers.  And it’s not just me.  I know for a fact that this problem is one that happens around the county, as well as the state, the country and probably all over the world.  I’m speaking of the car lane at school. If you have ever met me for longer than thirty seconds, you’re probably laughing now because the drop-off lane has been my nemesis for years.  I have been known to purposely park my car a block away and walk to pick them up because that’s how long it took me to cool myself down.  Even after years of trudging through snow and rain, I still p...