Five good things from the Christmas Fair!
Wow, what a handsome header image that is. “He worked really hard, Grandma.”
If you read me back on X-E, you know all about this Christmas fair. The one with the “basket raffles.” I’ve gone to this church-hosted Christmas fair every year for as long as I can remember. It can be a cruel mistress, but I just can’t imagine a holiday season without it.
“Cruel mistress?” Yeah, seriously. The reason I didn’t write about the fair last year is because it totally dicked me over. I must’ve blown a week’s pay on raffle tickets, not because I was dying for any of the prizes, but because the thought of breaking my win streak was emotionally crippling. Not good for a guy who perpetually lives on the brink, fearing the faintest of winds.
I went completely overboard, shoving twenty or more tickets into raffle bags that otherwise had no more than five. I intentionally aimed for junky prizes just to guarantee victory.
Well, it didn’t happen. The streak was broken, and with it, my last remaining ties to the church. I was convinced that those raffles had been rigged. When 75 bucks’ worth of raffle tickets can’t win you 20 bucks’ worth of NY Aquarium passes, SOMETHING IS WRONG.
But one bad experience should not ruin a lifelong tradition, so tonight, I went back. Took it easy on the raffles, though. Fool me twice.
Here are five good things from this year’s Christmas fair:
#1: Santa & Mrs. Claus do the Gangnam Style dance.
Look close, and you’ll spot everyone’s favorite couple on stage, doing the Gangnam Style dance.
There’s always music playing at these fairs, but it’s usually Christmas music. This year, I guess someone switched the dial from 106.7 to Z100, because I’d barely had a chance to grumble about “kids today” before an unseen MC instructed the Clauses to get up there and shake what their mudders gave ’em.
The whole place stopped and stared. You might imagine that the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Claus dancing would’ve invited everyone to adopt a “party attitude,” but it was more like we were witnessing the world’s longest car crash. Nobody knew what to do, even if all of us agreed that something needed to be done.
Six hours later, the song ended, and we went back to browsing cookies and incense holders. A total “let’s collectively pretend that never happened” moment.
Screw that. I will NEVER forget. Read More…
Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/9/12.
Yesterday, you may have seen a post about how I was canceling the site’s Christmas season due to time-and-other constraints.
As you can see, that post is no longer here. And we have a solid argument from Dino Drac to thank.
“I know you’re busy, but I just got a giant python. You sure you want to waste that?”
Turns out, I don’t.
Dino Drac, you should be a salesman. I see you going door to door with a briefcase full of chocolate bars. You’ll lie about how the proceeds go to some made up charity. Deep down, nobody will believe you, but show me the man who will cast stones at a briefcase-carrying tyrannosaurus. We’ll be rich.
Anyway, the snake.
It is LARGE. It’s hard to tell when the thing is all curvy, but if stretched into a straight line, we’d see that this python is easily a six-footer.
“It’s squirming all over the place. How am I supposed to contain it?”
Good question, Dino Drac. Maybe you aren’t. It’s better to give than to receive, right? Well, now you can grant freedom to a giant snake. Later, when it’s out in the forest with an adolescent mongoose halfway down its throat, it will remember you fondly.
“I think I’d rather keep it in a box.”
Yeah. That’s why you’re a more fitting mascot for the site’s Halloween season.
Dino Drac’s Advent Calendar: 12/8/12.
Okay, NOW things are starting to feel like Christmas.
Today’s gift is a complete DINOSAUR SKELETON, which arrived in pieces for Dino Drac to put together. (As you might imagine, that was a macabre image. In human hands it would have only seemed like an archaeological process, but Dino Drac looked more like an undertaker.)
He’s afraid to guess at what type of dinosaur these bones once belonged to, and so am I. It’s not that we don’t have theories. There are simply too many dinosaurs that look like this. I consider myself a huge dinosaur fan, and Dino Drac *is* a dinosaur. Neither one of us can afford to be wrong.
It was with those apprehensions that we settled on calling it a Somethingsaurus.
We estimate the height of Somethingsaurus at a solid ten feet. He was probably a carnivorous predator, though this assumption was mostly based on us not wanting our bony pal to have been a lame scavenger, or worse, a plant-eating pacifist who wreaked no havoc.
Dino Drac isn’t big on non sequiturs, but his next question throws me for a loop: “What are those little drumstick things people use to play xylophones?”
“Mallets. Why?”
“Look at this guy’s ribcage. I hope Playmobil gives me a xylophone mallet tomorrow.”
Good call, Dino Drac.
BFCDAW #9: Cheers, trunky.
It’s Friday. Fantastic freakin’ Friday. I’m so looking forward to having time to put more on the site than bad doodles and pictures of plastic shovels. But, since it is not the weekend yet, I must do what is necessary to survive:
That’s a Christmas tree trunk. You know, the part you slice off before setting the tree into its base. Apparently, those specific “cut pieces” are called “butts.” I can assure you that I will NEVER call them that. “Log,” okay. “Butt?” Never. I’m sticking with trunk.
Some people were sticklers about getting the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey. Me? I was much more focused on hunks of Christmas tree wood. Even if I typically misplaced those hunks within five hours, I just adored the idea of keeping mementos of dead Christmas trees.
Plus, for a while at least, they stunk of pine and were sticky-in-a-fun-way.
Today we pay tribute to the cut parts of Christmas tree trunks. Cheers, trunky.