Twas the day before Jesus was born, and through the house...

Dearest Reader,

Happy Solstice-Derivative Gift Exchange Ritual!

It is Christmas Eve and I am in Vermont, the green mountain state.  And it's green and mountainous.  Denver has apparently hogged all of the winter snow for themselves and thus there is a conspicuous lack of white on the ground.

As I lounge on the chocolate leather couch, the sound of the Charger/Sea Hawks game on the giant television washing over me. I'm not paying attention to it except for peeking at the occasional slow-motion replay.  Jacquelyn is sitting in the chair near me, knitting her sister a scarf which must be done tonight.  Ethan is upstairs on the third floor, playing video games with Jacquelyn's younger brother.

There is a strange lack of Christmas programming on television.  Where, oh where are my claymation classics?  I want my bumbles that bounce and my Land of Misfit Toys. Instead I've seen Evil Dead 2 and part of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  I haven't seen hide nor hair of my most favorite of holiday movies, Scrooged.

As long as i'm on television, I'm mostly amused by the commercials.  Since I haven't watched actual broadcast television in about three years, and Entertainment Weekly and the Enquirer don't cover commercials, it's a weird world to walk into.  Especially since I'm on the east coast, as opposed to my sheltered midwest, I'm seeing commercials for Jack-in-the-Box and Sonic, establishments unknown in Wisconsin.

Tomorrow morning, the present-opening frenzy will begin.  That's pretty exciting, but something I;m sure most of you can relate to.  So really, there's nothing too special about that.  Hmmm....

So, yes, I survived the second plane flight of my life, though the take-off was pretty wobbly.  Well, more so, we were kind of sideways right after take-off and then fifteen minutes after they turned off the seatbelt light and started serving our half-can of soda, peanuts and little crackers shaped like airplanes, the pilot yelled for all the flight attendants to sit down and buckle up just as we hit some nasty turbulence.  Ethan looked a little worried, but I told him it was ok, that it was the equivalent of a rough road on the highway, some air gravel.

I'm going to eat some food and find some holiday programming to watch.  I'll be back later.

Until then, I remain,

Jack Shoegazer