Author: Joel

The Reality of Santa Claus and Parenthood

My wife, the Elder Extroverted Holy One, pointed out a realization she made last night with some friends. WE are the parents! WE have to do all that Santa Claus stuff! ZOINKS!

Geez, I thought all that stuff was going to end up under the tree by the time we all wake up on Christmas morning. What? I have to put a bike together at 3:00 in the morning!?! Huh? Presents have to remain hidden until Christmas eve? I understand that the unreality of the St. Nick has been my reality for a long time now. But it just occurred to us that now the Young Extroverted One is at that age of Christmas magic. And that WE are the ones who have to perpetuate that magic. Which is cool and fine with me but that should have been on the parenting syllabus. Now I feel so overwhelmed and not quite ready for this Christmas magic to happen.

I suppose as long as the YEO experiences this holidy magic it’ll be just fine. Just can’t let her see us sweatin’ it!

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?!?

So . . . this new rigging gig.

Um . . . yeah.

My rigging supervisor takes off for a pilgrimage to Haifa and I’m stuck here doing his job. Ordering labor, messing around with CAD drawings, dealing with rigging advances and the questions. Oh gosh, the questions! I’ve only learned a small amount of rigging knowledge and I am barraged by questions! Ugh.

All this stuff for one guy (me) plus, the Pam Tillis show coming out and cheerleaders with New Years Eve celebrations moving in. You might as well count me out for the Christmas season. I’ll just go ahead and go shopping for gifts after the mad holiday rush. Maybe I can get deals on returned stuff!

Merry AfterChristmas!

We Celebrate Whose Birthday?

Just a quick observation to ponder . . . What is the connection between some churches and Santa Claus? I’ve seen several Baptist churches advertising breakfast with Santa?!? And then I read some blogs about the same here, here, here and here. The last three describing a breakfast with Santa accompanied by photos that occurred at the Otter Creek Church.

I don’t have a problem with the jolly, old elf. Nor do I have problems with pictures of kids and the guy. They’re kind of funny. But this whole blending of Santa with the birth of Jesus. What are we REALLY celebrating here? I don’t get it.

Any thoughts?

Nature Calls

Last night while the Elder Extroverted Holy One was letting the dogs out (yes, dogs plural. That’s another post) she noticed some movement into a tree. She wasn’t quite sure what it was so she asked the Young Extroverted One to get me. There we were, shivering in the cold peering up into a tree. When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness I spotted an owl! An owl in our semi-urban East Nashville yard!?! It was quite a site, us looking at her and she looking at us. As I crept closer with the YEO in my arms and a laser pointer to make sure that YEO did indeed see the owl (I was careful not to get the owl in her huge eyes) she flew off to the next yard and perched upon another tree to keep an eye on us. But the cold was too much and we rushed back inside.

On further investigation, because I’ve lost my art of bird identification, we found that the owl was a Barred Owl Strix varia. *As an aside, I had a Botany professor that told me it’s not about remembering ALL of the indentifications. Just knowing where to look it up.* Reading the description of habitat makes it even more strange that she was in our yard. YEO was very excited about the siting. She pretended to be an owl and told stories of owl visitations at her school during naptime. And then she passed out possibly dreaming of owls.

Christmas has been Ruined

Well, not really. It’s just that Pam Tillis (or her people) and the Gaylord Opryland people have just been added to the top of my Fecal Roster.

The Pam Tillis dinner show started in one smaller ballroom (that was the first all-nighter) right around Thanksgiving. Yesterday they packed up everything and reset it in the biggest ballroom. So, from 2PM on Wednesday to about 8:30AM on Thursday I was doing some form or wrapping GAC-flex around truss, powering up chainmotors, running cable in the catwalk and ceiling and hanging Christmas ornaments from the ballroom ceiling.

In small doses? Like a regular 8 or 9 hour day? Not so bad. But 18 and half hours?!?!? Ugh. At the moment I’m a little brain dead. So, it makes sense that I should be trying to write something that makes sense to others here.

I’m happy for the new experiences of the rigging world but the hours can suck sometimes. At least I get paid a little more.

The Magic of Christmas Television

My wife was right (once again, sigh). There is just something magical about watching those Christmas specials on regular commercial TV. I received from Netflix the other day three movies. A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman and Jack Frost (there are more in my queue) arrived in the mail yesterday with all of their holiday splendor. The envelopes even had the Young Extroverted One’s name on them! So, we watched a couple of them last night and it just didn’t seem the same.

There were no cheesey commercial breaks to go refill your hot chocolate or to get more popcorn. Nobody telling me that I need the clapper or a chia pet. (Have you seen the new chia head line? Disturbing.) Or even worse, finding out that I’m not a good husband if I don’t get my lovely wife some sort of ugly diamond pendant. I absolutely hate commercials and I really don’t want to subject YEO to commercials. But, there is something different about putting up with the commercials during the special Christmas shows. Especially as you’re cuddled up with the family on the couch (YEO calls it ‘FAMILY SNUGGLE!’). I guess it just wouldn’t be Christmas without those pesky commercials.

. . . we’ll be right back after these messages . . .