NO WAY!!
Despite the fact that I am too preoccupied with silly stuff such as getting paid DOESN'T mean that your most favorite Q&A pasttime, The Axis of Weevil Thursday Three is going to take a nap! So let us all give thanks for Doc Smith's willingness to volunteer to host today's event, because as we all know, the show must go on.
I do also want to thank the ever-faithful Sarah Getzler, our first runner-up in the competition to host the event, and remind her that if Jim is unable to fulfill his duties, it will fall upon her to finish his reign.
In any event, here are Jim's questions today:
1. Best/worst Christmas/holiday party you have attended?
Well, I would have to say that the best one would be the one sponsored by my former employer, The Bad Place, that was held in December 1990. This was mine and Miss Reba's first date. That one date pretty much glued us together from then on.
Worst? Can't really say, but the ones we have at my current workplace are terrible. Which probably explains why we got this e-mail from the secretary yesterday:
Since nobody wants to party, Rudolph has decided we should have snacks beginning Wednesday Dec. 20th, Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd of next week in lieu of our usual Christmas Party. A sign-up sheet will be available, choose the group day you want and what you bring is up to you.
Merry ^&%$*ing Christmas and Happy *!@&^ing Hannukah.2. Best/worst religious Christmas/holiday activity.
Well, this one always throws everyone for a loop, but we don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. We don't have special church services or decorate the yard with Nativity scenes or stuff like that, because to us, it's a nice excuse to eat, see the family, and swap presents.
3. Best/worst gift--given or received?
When I was little, I always got stuff like apples and walnuts and tangerines in my stocking. I always hated this, because come ON! Who wants crap like that when Santa gives all the other kids big socksful of CANDY!!
It wasn't until many years later that I realized that when my mom and dad were growing up, there was nothing better than to get up on Christmas morning and find that Santa Claus had left them a piece of fruit. Because in little backwater Alabama coal towns in the 1930s, an orange or a tangerine was something so wild and so exotic--so expensive--that kids like my mom and dad didn't get them except at Christmas. And usually, that orange or that handful of nuts was all they got.
So when I think about it now, I think the best present I ever got were those reminders of the lives my parents had lived.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at December 14, 2006 08:44 AMDunno if it's just me, but I can't see comments over at Dr. Jim's. So I'm telling you I'm up, and you can relay the message please.
Posted by: skinnydan at December 14, 2006 10:20 AMGotcha covered--and get well soon!
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at December 14, 2006 10:29 AMYou loathe all Christmas music, Skinnydan?
I readily understand that the lyrics wouldn't grab you, but not even the tune to "O, Holy Night"?
Posted by: Janis Gore at December 14, 2006 10:45 AMNot the Celtic lilt of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"?
Posted by: Janis Gore at December 14, 2006 10:54 AMClearly the local stores are playing the wrong things. "Holy Night" seems to have been replaced by "Jingle Bell Rock" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."
If Tom Lehrer's Christmas tune were to be played, or even "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" I might be less grumpy. Either way, it's the incessantness of it all that drives me nuts, not so much the specifics of what they play.
Posted by: skinnydan at December 14, 2006 02:51 PMNow that I fully understand.
Posted by: Janis Gore at December 14, 2006 03:12 PM
What day is collard day?
My favorite snack.
So far, no one has signed up for anything, not even collards.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at December 14, 2006 04:21 PMWhy, today is collard day, Dr. Jim.
To go with JW's fresh-packed peas and salmon croquettes.
Posted by: Janis Gore at December 14, 2006 04:37 PM1. Worst Christmas/holiday party you have attended?
Worst: any fancy dress party. It’s the week before Christmas, the roads are clogged with frantic shoppers, you haven’t finished shopping for your own children, the heatwave is into its fifth day of century temperatures and work blithely announces a fancy dress theme for the compulsory Christmas party. Have you ever had a conversation with a Chief Financial Officer dressed up as an elephant? Worse, have you ever tried to find an elephant costume three days before Christmas?
Best: A work Christmas dinner in Yarra Valley wine country, at De Bortoli winery restaurant set high on a hill overlooking endless vine-covered hills sloping away west as the sun set. That was a good one. And no fancy dress, just fancy food and fine wine.
2. Best/worst religious Christmas/holiday activity.
In this case, the worst is the best. My oldest son was in St Patrick’s Cathedral Choir for years. The endless performances and practice hours were horrendous but midnight Mass was sublime, if I could stay awake.
3. Best/worst gift--given or received?
Again, the worst was the best. When I was ten or eleven, being a little detective, I found out that the truck I was to receive for Christmas from mother and father was second hand and obtained from relatives. Years later I realised they were in dire straits. Father was out of work in 1967. Somehow I didn’t realise it at the time. I didn’t want someone else’s truck. Now I think of it as the most caring gift ever.