Bright Lights, Big City, Great Charity

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Dan and I are in NYC for a quick overnight*, to experience a Brush With Greatness of the highest order.  We have VIP tickets to see Sandra Bernhard tonight, and to meet her after the show!

Can’t wait to tell you guys all about it!  in the meanwhile…

There is still time to do a little more charitable giving in 2012; Sandra donated the tickets and meet and greet for a silent auction to benefit the True Colors Fund, an important civil rights organization.  http://truecolorsfund.org/

True Colors was founded by Cyndi Lauper, who notes on the website;  “Everyone—whether straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender—should be allowed to show their true colors, and be accepted and loved for who they are. Every American should be guaranteed equal treatment, at school, at work, in their relationships, in service of their country…and in every part of their lives.”

Amen to that.

*NY/CT Cousins-we love you and miss you and wish we could catch up with you, but are in town just for the show and back home first thing in the morning.

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The Elephant In The Room

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

It seems like an unlikely pursuit for me, but due to some unique circumstances I participate in a White Elephant every year.  It’s all adults; no kids like Jane to ruin everyone’s good time while they’re being greedy.

Traditionally, we start each year with an argument about the rules, until everyone remembers that my way is the 100% unequivocally correct way to play the game.  Between you and me, it’s kind of cute how other people think this is the year they will prevail.  Forget about it suckers.

Regardless of the rules, typically a White Elephant seems to be successful when everyone ends up with something they don’t want, don’t need, or don’t want to need.  Everyone except the person who gets my gift; because I am in a perpetual state of confusion about whether we’re supposed to be doing gag gifts or real gifts or what, and I err on the side of caution and get the nicest unisex gift $25 can buy.

But it’s always a toss-up.  This year one of the guys opened his gift to find a Justin Bieber perfume and lotion kit.  This poor sucker doesn’t have a daughter or a niece or a neighbor who is the right age/disposition for that bag of crap.  The next gift someone opened was a bottle of, apparently, a very nice red.  The person who gets that just sighs and puts it out on the table, because clearly someone is going to snag it immediately.

There are inevitably Chia pets, lava lamps, old age kits with Geritol and ExLax (that one falls into the don’t want to need category).  I usually get one of those items.  A few years ago I lucked out and got the first/last pick.  There was an enormous Nerf gun that was clearly the best gift ever, so I hadn’t lost faith entirely.

There are the practical gift type people, the ones who give a thermos, or a first aid kit, or a a set of mini screwdrivers or whatever.  I’ll admit that although I have little idea how to use them, I do love the mini screwdrivers, but not as a gift.  Gifts should be frivolous and fun.

In the last category are the wholly unimaginative gift givers.  Oh goody, another Starbucks gift card.  Yes, we all drink $6/cup coffee by the gallon (or maybe that’s just me), but again, something missing with the wow factor.

This year, much to my delight, I snagged the best, best, bestest, coolest gift ever.  It is playful yet practical, fashionable yet useful, silly yet serious, dated yet timeless.  Take a look…

darth

Yep, that’s correct, a Darth Vader bubble gum dispenser, already full of gumballs.  Oh how the light gleamed off his black plastic shell as he sat patiently awaiting my turn.  His “Try Me!” sign calling me like a beacon.  And the only person left to go after me is the most serious of serious people who frankly didn’t understand why the rest of us were drooling over Darth.  She of course chose the thermos, which I am 99% sure is the gift she brought herself.  As soon as she touched the thermos I called “game over!” and established a firm grip on Darth.

Geez, everyone wanted to touch him and play with him and get gum out of him, but let’s be fair, I was entitled to the first and the longest turn.  Only when I had hit his button over and over again to hear his heavy breathing, and I had 8-10 gumballs stuffed in my mouth, did I allow anyone else to look at him or hit his button, and even then only with direct supervision.

I don’t know what Santa brought all of you this year—but if it didn’t include this incredible item, it might as well be coal.

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Denim For The People!

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

Normally jeans are strictly prohibited in my office, but we’ve declared the week between Christmas and New Year’s jeans week.  We get ridiculously excited about it; the anticipation of it alone gets everyone jazzed.  I don’t know what it is about the magic of dressing down, but it almost feels like you’re not going to work.  Almost.  Everyone is in a better mood, and in addition to greeting people with both eyebrows raised, a smile and a “how was your holiday” (we’re all very PC in referring to a generic day as if we all had a holiday yesterday), it is considered good form to add “do you love jeans week or what?”  In fact, for this week only I can skip standard greetings altogether and just say “is jeans week great or what?” 

Some people spend a lot of time standing around talking about how great it is.  I guess they don’t remember the old days when, despite any declarations of freedom from Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem, in law firm world business attire meant skirt suits, pantyhose and mousy little 1” pumps for women.  Every single day.  On special occasions back then we only got so far as business casual week, and we were thrilled beyond belief to wear khakis to work.  And while Betty and Gloria paved the way a generation before, to me just being able to ditch pantyhose was women’s liberation. Jeans?  Only if there were blizzard conditions, and we were still expected to change when we got to the office.  I forgot my work shoes on one such occasion and although I was rocking snow boots with my blue pinstripe suit, the men running the place were not amused.

Sorry, I think I just went off on a tangent, as I am prone to do.  I’m starting to sound like some kind of crotchety old lady, “well that’s the way it was in my day and it worked just fine!” 

OK, back to jeans week. I’m only partially responsible for approving jeans week, but everyone gives me all the credit, so this is the one and only time anyone who works here might say “You’re awesome!” or “You rock!”, strictly regarding jeans week.  I don’t let it go to my head or believe for a minute it has anything to do with how I actually perform the other 51 weeks of the year, but that’s cool; many administrators don’t even get that much.  What I find even more interesting is that it’s not unusual for a partner to also thank me for jeans week, as if I was a free agent. 

For some reason, I always convince myself that throwing on jeans doesn’t take nearly as long as putting on pants, so I sleep an extra 10 minutes.  Unfortunately, that just means we leave 10 minutes later, because in reality it doesn’t save me any time.  I still have to go through the process of which jeans, shoes, and top.  Now if we ever had sweat suit week I’d shave a good 15 minutes off my morning prep time, easily.  Then it’s just a small leap to fuzzy robe and slippers week, which would require only that I roll out of bed and into the car.  Now we’re talking ultimate efficiency.

In fact, when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I thought the whole thing through very carefully and decided that it would be infinitely easier in the morning if I just slept in my clothes.  I tried it for a few days and really loved it, but of course it didn’t take long for my mom to say “You look like you slept in those clothes” to which I proudly said “I did!  Isn’t it awesome!” 

That’s when mom reminded me that she’d gotten up in the middle of the night and driven me all the way to NJ to get nice clothes and look at me now.  I eagerly suggested that we nix the trips to NJ, but she wasn’t going for it.

 

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Who Am I, And Why Am I Here?

Posted on December 25, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

When the band announced the most embarrassing story contest the other night, my friends had some doozies but would not get up and tell them.  Two stories are so good and completely humiliating, they simply must be told.

My friend and her family went to the Naval Academy to attend the wedding of a former neighbor.  My friend’s mom was looking around the crowd anxiously for long lost neighbors.  “Where are the Johnsons?” she whispered.  “Don’t you think the Millers will be here?” and “Where on earth are Bill and Susan Thomas?”  The woman sitting in front of them had enough; she turned around and shushed them.  Just then the processional started, and a lovely stranger made her way down the aisle.  My friend’s family wondered aloud who that was, and the woman in front of them turned around and hissed “the mother of the bride!” to which my friend’s mother said “no it’s not!”

With the odd guest list and the even odder mother of the bride, something didn’t seem right.  Finally, my friend’s mom pulled the invitation out of her purse and took a peek.  Oh.  Did that say 3:00?  Because she could have sworn it said 2:00, which is why they were in the chapel a full hour before the wedding they actually intended to attend started.  It’s just that the Naval Academy has back-to-back weddings on a tight schedule.  Relieved, at least she now knew why the Millers weren’t there.  Yet.

So the 2:00 wedding family has an album full of pictures with people no one can identify, but it’s all good.  Ultimately both weddings were lovely, Bill and Susan Thomas did make it to the wedding, and all’s well that ends well.

Is there anything more embarrassing than going to the wrong wedding?  You be the judge.  My friend had been working at her new firm for just a short time when a secretary who had worked there for 30 years passed away.  Naturally, my friend hadn’t seen her much because the woman had been out sick most of the time (she was dying after all).  But the two colleagues that came to the funeral with her knew the woman well.  It was an open casket, and her colleagues kept saying “she looks so different; not anything like the Susan we knew.”  Well, yes, death will do that kind of thing to a person.  But they never noted that the poor deceased in the casket bore no resemblance whatsoever to their former secretary.

In the meanwhile, there were only a handful of people at the funeral, so my friend and her colleagues were very obvious.  My friend went to pay her respects to the family, explaining who she was and noting what a wonderful employee Susan had been.  The family seemed confused and didn’t respond, so my friend slipped back to her seat.  She noted that the family was in a daze and hadn’t registered who she was.  But another odd thing-they kept calling her Kathy, not Susan.  Perplexing.  I mean she looked so different, and her family was even calling her by a different name, and…wait a minute…could it be that they were at the wrong funeral?

Oh well, these things happen.  The important thing is that everyone meant well.

I think these mishaps could be avoided in the future if everyone made better use of name tags.  At the wedding a “Hello, My Name Is MOTHER OF THE BRIDE” tag would have cleared up the confusion right away.  At the funeral, if the person in the casket had been wearing a “Hello, My Name Is DECEASED CAFETERIA WORKER” tag, my friend would have moved on until she found someone in a casket wearing a “Hello, My Name Is DECEASED LEGAL SECRETARY” tag.  Nice and easy.

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Things That Go Bump In The Night

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

If you’re lucky, once in a lifetime an opportunity will come along that will change the entire course of your future.  Friday night was such an opportunity for me.

My friend’s husband plays in a band and she invited several of us to come out and hear him play.  The band was fantastic, but there was something bigger than all that.  Do my ears deceive me or did they just announce a “most embarrassing story” contest?  OMG.  If ever a contest was made for me, this was it.

So naturally I went for it.  I figured my refused-to-check-my-coat story was the most entertaining, and the most embarrassing.  Well let me tell you, the crowd went wild.  Begging and screaming that I stay on stage and tell more stories.  Begging I tell you.  But as painful as it was, I had to tear myself away from the mic and the roaring crowds and go back to my table.  And since I know some of you are going to worry about it; no, I did not stumble, fall or inadvertently take out any persons or things as I walked back.

But alas, I didn’t win the contest; I took 2nd place out of 2.  The story that won the contest involved exposure of a female body part, so I feel like it had an unfair advantage.  Besides, what better ending to an embarrassing story contest than to lose the contest?  It’s embarrassing and somehow perfectly fitting.

The music was great and I ended up dancing, but for the first time, my bad dancing paled in comparison to another woman’s, well, sideshow.  She glided up to the dance floor and began swaying and moving to music, but not the music that was being played.  In her mind, she was somewhere far far away.

She twirled around in her skirt, and randomly poked at the air with her index finger in a move that looked to be the bad love child of Saturday Night Fever and Walk Like an Egyptian.  She reached both arms high up over her head and contemplated the ceiling for a few minutes and then just shuffled her feet on the floor for a while, staring off into space.  She was singing something, but it was definitely not the song the band was playing.

Just as we were taking all that in, a gentleman got up from his table and headed toward the dance floor.  As he walked he started doing this very odd warm-up maneuver, shaking up and down his whole body as if he was possessed.  Out of nowhere, a leg would kick out, or an elbow.  He picked up Ms. Thing’s move and began to randomly punch air with his index fingers too.  And every once in a while he would just shimmy and shake for an uncomfortable amount of time.  It was as if he was being electrocuted but the pain was inflicted upon the rest of us.

The poor guys in the band were now staring down at the floor, biting their lips in order to keep from laughing.  Normally it’s unkind to comment on others’ dance styles, but this was straight out of a movie…a bad movie.  We noticed that everyone all around us was squirming and pointing and staring off into space in an attempt to learn these hot new dance moves.  Admittedly, this odd couple could keep a crowd entertained—we were all in hysterics.

So all’s well that ends well.  A fun evening with some good friends, a great band, a chance to be on stage, and people drawing more negative attention to themselves than I can even dream about.  Life is good.

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The Spirit Of Christmas?

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

There are three things you can count on in this world—taxes, death and holiday sweaters. I understand taxes and the inevitability of death, but I am slack-jawed when it comes to holiday sweaters. They typically look like a small child’s craft project, all felt and glitter and hot-glue-gunned. And they are all too frequently adorned with bells.

There are lots of sweater themes from which to choose; gingerbread men, Santa (with or without reindeer). Reindeer (with or without Santa), Christmas Trees (with ornaments hanging off the shirt), Snowmen, Christmas dogs and/or Christmas cats, you name the holiday theme; it is featured on an ugly sweater somewhere. The people sweaters are bad enough, but my friend recently spotted a dog in a festive holiday sweater.  She immediately called the SPCA to report the abuse, and I applaud her for her efforts.

Ugly holiday sweaters have now entered the sacred world of hip pop references.  There are ugly sweater parties, ugly sweater swaps, and even e-bay auctions touting ugly sweaters.  With a deft hand one could even make ugly sweater sugar cookies.

But why stop at sweaters?  How about the people who put antlers on their cars or wreaths on their fenders?  I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it, but what does that have to do with the religious holiday?  I can only compare it to the Jewish high holidays, and note that you don’t see anyone driving around with a Book of Life hood ornament or blowing a shofar in traffic instead of the car horn.

There are so many sights and sounds of the season; the endless freakin’ holiday music, It’s A Wonderful Life, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, which should really be called The Grinch Who TRIED To Steal Christmas. I mean, weren’t all the Whos in Whoville perfectly fine without any of the trappings of a modern Christmas?

And then there are the lawn displays.  Many of our neighbors have really beautiful nativity scenes, but some interpretations are more interesting than others.  There is a family up the street who use to adorn their lawn with a Disney nativity scene.  We’re talking full blown here–Mickey Mouse as the baby Jesus, Pluto, Goofy and Donald Duck as the three wise men, Minnie Mouse as the Virgin Mary.

I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the fine marketing folks at Disney came up with this idea.  The buzz kill in the crowd would keep insisting that it be tasteful, respectful.  The extremists would have been rooting for Cinderella’s castle as the manger, and maybe even put glass slippers on the Virgin Minnie.  And ultimately there would have to be the suits who isolated the market demographic for such an item and declared it a winner.

But hey, at least it’s a nativity scene, rich with the story of Christmas.  There are other scenes that seem to be lost in the translation.  This year a family has started a new tradition-pink pig Santa.  Yes, what conveys the spirit of Christmas more than a pink pig dressed up in a Santa suit?

piggy2

Is that festive or what?  The pig and the penguin in a Peacable Kingdom.  Note that the goose is typically attired year-round according to the season; it’s unusual to see it stark naked like that.  Checking out the goose’s outfit for the day is one of the things I most look forward to as I head out to work each day.

But another family in our neighborhood has blown the whole thing out of the water, literally, with a flamingo gliding along on a skating rink.

flamingo

I’ll admit that I love it all, every last lawn and light and reindeer.  And believe me when I tell you that if we can ever find a Disney Does Nativity set to buy, it will be proudly displayed on our lawn from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.

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Will Argue For Fun

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

When Dan and I moved into our new home in 1997, we struck up a conversation about where we would put our Christmas tree, if we had one, which we do not.  I felt strongly that our fictional tree should go in the living room in the front of the house, in front of a huge window so it would look pretty looking in to the house.  Dan felt strongly that the fictional tree should go in the back of the house, in the family room, since that’s where we spend all our time.  Metaphorically our choices speak volumes but that’s beside the point.  For now.

We agreed to disagree that first year, as we have ultimately done every year we’ve been in our house, because we have the same discussion/argument every December.  We never let a minor fact (that we don’t have a tree because we don’t celebrate Christmas) get in the way of a good argument.  I mean, discussion.  The point is that one of us must be 100% right, and Dan must be 100% wrong, and the whole matter needs to be settled. 

I think it’s pretty awesome that we don’t have enough real issues to argue about that we make stuff up, but on the other hand, maybe we could both be satisfied with not arguing at all.  Nah, not for me.  I love the heated back and forth of a fake argument.  We’re like our own little debate team, except that one of us is very smug and Dan is not.

Every year, Dan attempts to convince me that we should actually have a Christmas tree.  He points out that it is a pagan, not Christian, tradition, but it still makes no sense because we are neither Christian nor pagan.  Heck, we’re just barely Jewish enough to know the secret handshake.

There are decorations to be decided upon as well.  If we had lights for example, I absolutely, positively would have lights outlining our roof, and of course Santa, his sleigh, and at least half the reindeer.  Dan feels equally certain that he would not be climbing around on a roof, because it’s not that much fun to fall.  He thinks that argument is going to theoretically get him out of hanging theoretical lights?  No sir, I don’t think so.  I also think the outside decorations should be way over the top, but in a completely tasteful manner.  Something classy like pink flamingos with Santa hats—only a dozen or so because I don’t want it to look tacky or anything. 

Why stop at Christmas when there are so many other hypothetical issues to discuss?  There is the matter of what we would have named our kids if we’d decided to have kids; we are oceans apart on that so it’s probably best that we didn’t have kids.  When I am angry, upset or just incredulous about a situation, Dan likes to remind me that in a parallel universe things might be working out differently.  Maybe everything is perfect but I just don’t know it because I’m in this universe while parallel Jill is living it up in another.  Seriously, WTF?  If I don’t know about it why does it matter?  Dan says why do you know about it if it doesn’t matter?  I get confused and point out that one of the cats is being super adorable to distract him from the fact that I have no idea what we’re even talking about anymore.

We have occasionally had an argument about how bad it would be to have so many cats as to appear eccentric.  Oh I don’t know, 4, just to pick a number at random.  I don’t know how many of our cats are with us in parallel universe(s), but right here in this universe the argument is no longer hypothetical.

Anyway, I have another bone to pick with Dan.  If we were Christian, would he try to talk me out of having a tree because it’s a pagan tradition?  It’s an important matter that we shall settle…eventually.

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Will Work For Fashion

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

There are few things more stressful to a woman than figuring out what to wear every day.  I try to keep up a rotation for work so there are at least 8 business days before I repeat outfits, but sometimes that’s a stretch.  Men just don’t understand the thought that goes into it.

I step in my closet and see my favorite brown wool number.  The pants are kind of long so I have to wear 4” heels, but I just wore huge heels yesterday, and I need to give my poor feet a break.  OK, so what can I wear with shoes that have no more than 2” heels?  Of course!  The gray suit.  Oh shoot-the gray suit is kind of thin and it’s like 20 below outside, so no go.  No problem, I’ll just wear the gray dress.  Except…the only clean tights I have right now are brown.

OK, brown tights and brown dress?  Hmmm.  I love that dress why don’t I ever wear it?  I pull it on and immediately remember that it has this super itchy tag that will not cut cleanly.  Okey dokey, brown dress back on the hanger to wait until the next time I put it on and remember it’s too itchy.

Light bulb—the green suit!  Why am I being so silly when the obvious choice is right in front of me?  Except…it’s not right in front of me.  Where the &^%$#* is my green suit?  It takes me a couple minutes of panicking before I remember that it’s at the dry cleaners, which is currently closed.

The plaid skirt would be brilliant if I’d ever found a matching sweater.  Nope, I just have a sweater that seems like it would match until I actually put it with the skirt.  Bottom line, great skirt, nothing to wear with it.

I stare at the camel wool suit and try to remember if that’s what I actually wore just yesterday.  The day before that?  If I can’t remember when I last wore it, will anyone else?  Doubtful, but too risky.  A 2 day rotation is completely unacceptable.

Heavy sigh.  The cats are scratching on my closet door, what the hell do they know?  They never need a change of fur-they go from day to evening to next day to next evening, always looking smashing.  Dan is telling me I need to hustle up, and what exactly am I supposed to do?  Go to work in my pajamas?

OK, take a deep breath, remain calm.  And that’s when I spot it—the blue suit.  Warm enough?  Check.  Itchy tag?  No.  2” blue heels?  Absolutely.  Whew.  I pull on the suit and scramble downstairs.

That’s when Dan tells me I need to change because there’s a giant stain on my jacket.

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I Saw Something Blanking Santa Claus

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

I feel the need to discuss a very serious issue plaguing our country:  Kitty Porn.  I try not to judge but personally I think it’s disgusting.  I know there are people out there who enjoy looking at pictures of innocent cats and even kittens au naturel, giving a look that says “come hither.”  I’ve even seen cross-species cat/dog type situations.

Capture

Heck, I’ve even posted pictures of my cats “cuddling” and “grooming each other.”  I’m not proud of it, I can tell you that.

At Washington Animal Rescue League, the volunteers name all the animals when they come through the door.  We didn’t bring home Janet, Chrissy and Jack, we brought home Vibba, Giggles and Cloud.  Those are porn names for sure.  The kittens even looked a little ashamed of their name tags.  They don’t like to talk about their past lives, but I personally believe there’s some history there, if you know what I mean.  Helen was named Terrapin originally, and I think she kept her nose, or whatever, clean in the past.

I didn’t even know about animal porn until it was introduced to me years and years ago by CJ and Lisa.  Dan and I went up to their guest room to go to bed, and right before our eyes were stuffed animals placed in compromising positions all over the bed.  We laughed it off, but it was disconcerting.  I mean, the stuffed animals belonged to their small children.

The holidays, a time that should be filled with innocence and clean thoughts, and we are once again visiting CJ and Lisa.  As we drive into their neighborhood, we notice that some of the decorative lawn deer are placed in, well, interesting poses.  And OMG, what is Donner doing to Blitzen?  Is that Santa with a hot little elf?  And what in the world was Mrs. Claus doing??  We couldn’t believe our eyes.  Apparently everyone in the neighborhood was running around at all hours of the night helping each other “decorate” for the holidays.  Lock up your deer folks; it’s a free for all!

We may have been laughing till our stomachs hurt on the outside, but inside we were feeling cheap and dirty.  And after our 4th or 5th tour of the neighborhood, we immediately stopped looking at the poor creatures.

Animal porn has no shame; people are unapologetically wearing sweaters that objectify innocent animals.

Capture

In this season of warm feelings and heart-felt wishes, I only hope that everyone keeps their paws to themselves.

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The Year Jane Ruined Christmas

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Jill Foer Hirsch

We’ve all seen the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and A Christmas Carol, but I know a real family who will never have Christmas again.  It all started with a crying 6 year old, and not to point fingers, but she singlehandedly ruined Christmas.  Let’s call her Jane.

Everything started innocently enough with an old fashioned afternoon of White Elephant.  If anyone had known the tragedy that would befall them, they would have tossed all the gifts in the trash, unopened.  But they didn’t know…they couldn’t know…that hidden deep in one of those packages was a Target Gift Card.

As it turns out, Jane had just been perusing a Target circular and a certain toy caught her eye.  In her mind she decided that everything good in the world came from Target.  And to this day, no one disputes that point.

What happened next is the stuff of myths, rumors, innuendos, and tall tales.  Perhaps we will never know what happened that fateful day, but if you talk to the old men playing chess in the park, the tale will unravel like this; Jane’s mommy got the Target card.  Jane was stoked!!  That toy is mine!

But an aunt or a cousin or a family friend (does it really matter?) soon swooped in and took the Target card and left Jane’s mommy a lump of coal in exchange.  Yes, technically that’s the point of a White Elephant, but…Jane was acting like a child.  The way she cried and carried on you would think someone had stolen one of her toys!  Perhaps the exact toy that Target card was meant to buy.

Everything kind of went downhill from there, and everyone was mad and sad and grumpy and annoyed.  Jane pulled herself together but it was too late to save Christmas…just too late.  The following year, the family thought they could go on with Christmas, but some people were still grumpy and acting like children (everyone except Jane that is, because she’d forgotten all about it).

Back in the days before email, carrier pigeons brought notes from family member to family member, each bemoaning the wretched Christmas of the prior year.  Some family members thought Christmas should be called off altogether.  Others thought that they should have another White Elephant, but leave Jane out of the mix.  And there was some sentiment that everyone could choose gifts but leave them wrapped, so no one would know who ended up with which crappy gift.  The only thing they all agreed upon was that the whole stinkin’ mess was Jane’s fault.

Luckily, one of the three Wise Guys came along and sent pigeons off with notes to everyone.  There will be Christmas this year!  There must be Christmas this year!  And all the little children in the village shouted with glee!  Their memory from the prior Christmas was of the taste of hot chocolate burning their tongues, the warmth of the fire on their backs, the way the sprinkles on the sugar cookies sparkled like diamonds.  The Wise Guy reminded everyone how the Jewish children played with the Christian children with nary a word about who allegedly killed Christ.

The Target Card Incident had long faded from the children’s memories.  And the grumpy adults watched the children make Christmas whole again.

I would love to say that the grumpy adults once again warmly embraced their Family Christmas, but that remains to be seen.  I pray that Jane can pull herself together this year and not act like a 6 year old.  Because she’s 7 now and enough is enough.

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