Tag: holidays

Magic Elves – Season 5 Day 2

On By Chris SoutherIn Dad Blogs, Family2 Comments

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and the next day, something magical happens each year in our home. Our “Magic Elves” appear. Santa sends them along on a magical slipstream of wind and snowflakes, to join our family for another season of merriment and mischief.

This is the fifth year.

The fifth.

That means we’ve had to come up with more than 100 clever and unique “things” for the elves to do each night. This is challenging, made moreso by the fact that, unlike the “Elf on the Shelf” our elves are completely soft, so they don’t stay in a pose. You can’t bend their arms and have them stay there. They can’t stand on their own. They literally are, like a sock.

But despite these challenges, we persevere. I’ll try and post some of this year’s exploits here for your enjoyment.

Here’s last night’s. As you can see, the elves created cutouts of minions and stuck their faces and appendages in them. Overall, it was cute, but I’m not sure the kids quite got what was going on here. All they saw was the minion toys and everyone drinking syrup. But hey, cross another one off the list. Only 23 more ideas to come up with.

IMAG0972

Too busy to blog!

On By Chris SoutherIn Dad Blogs, Family, Fatherhood, Marriage3 Comments

Since I’m pretty sure most folks are as busy as me, I’m just gonna go ahead and wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

I probably won’t post until at least the day after Christmas, unless the next coupla days spent up at my mother’s in Tennessee produces some unusually juicy blog fodder.

I truly hope that whatever you do these next few days, is done with genuine and heartfelt feelings. You do that, and you’re golden.

But first, I’d like to share with you my thoughts from CareerMom’s family Christmas gathering.

Please read it while singing along with “The 12 Days of Christmas” in your head (you may have to improvise here since the syllables won’t be exactly right…):

Fa la la la la, la la la la…

12 Adults Singing Cabbage Patch Songs

11 Crappy Dirty Santa Gifts

10 Yummy side dishes

9 Ladies stressing

8 Men a meandering

7 Kids a screaming

6 Kinds of wine

FIVE SPOILED BRATS!

4 Days to Go

3 Hours Here

2 Living with their folks again

With One BABY ON THE WAAAAAAAAY!

(not us…the ones living at home again…)

nativity

A Limerick for every occasion

On By Chris SoutherIn Dad Blogs, Family, Fatherhood, Marriage3 Comments

It’s over. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; or for that matter, a good thing either. It’s just simply…over.

There is so much that I could say about Thanksgiving this year, but I thought maybe I’d try and mix it up a bit.

Therefore, I hereby present, my Thanksgiving Limericks:

At my house here we held our Thanksgiving
Celebrated with joy by the living
Though some of us slept
While the rest of us swept
When the gym opened back up, I was driven!

My mom has forgotten that small boys
Will fight over food, space and small toys
When I yell, “Hey you guys STOP!”
She says, “What up there pop?
Your yelling just adds on to their noise!”

There isn’t enough hard alcohol
Stored there in the wet bar in the hall
To keep me from wishin
That my mom would stop bitchin
About the supposed economic downfall

AND LASTLY:

When the toddler is down for his long nap
Why can’t you all shut up your trap?
And stop stomping around
Like you own this here ground
Oh Lord help me put up with this crap!

Though I make fun, we really had a very good Thanksgiving. I don’t publicly thank God for my blessings too often, but I do give him all the glory and praise for what I’ve been blessed with. I hope he understands that, at times like these, I’m mostly just having a good time. I’m not really this uptight. I think God has a sense of humor too.

It’s Christmas for Goodness’ Sake

On By Chris SoutherIn Dad Blogs, Family, Society1 Comment

Nativity Scene

Despite whatever doubts I may have as to the validity of all of the things I’ve been taught regarding Jesus of Nazareth, and his time here on earth, the fact remains that I do believe. Down in whatever dark place I’ve pushed so many other things in my life, the belief that there is a benevolent God out there watching over my family (how else do you explain all the good things I have?) remains a small beacon of hope that if I’m not too bad here on earth, and if I don’t commit the same sins over and over one too many times, that maybe, just maybe when I die, I’ll end up somewhere happy and warm with my family and all of my dead pets.

I don’t believe in much; I have to be honest with you. I feel that the glass is perpetually half-empty and that given half a chance at getting away with it, most people will screw you over for $100. It’s a crappy way to live life, but hey, I’ve lived a life of facts and reality and my reality has shown this to be true for the most part.

I suppose then, this is why I take Christmas to heart like I do. I love Christmas. Oh, I’ll admit that I love the decorating and the cold weather and the fires and the gifts and the food (oh, the food!) more than I really enjoy sitting in church for two hours listening to the pastor try to come up with some unique spin on the Christmas story that no one has ever covered before, but it all goes hand in hand. So much about religion is really about how you feel about it anyway, so why should Christmas be any different?

Given all of this, I’m really offended, not just pretend-offended like so many people—I’m actually offended when non-believers relegate this time of the year to just “The Holidays.” And why do Jewish people get so offended over Christmas? I don’t know which faith first proclaimed this time of year their own, but can’t we all just get along? Can’t we all agree that, “Hey, something deeply moving and spiritual happened at some point in the year, and since we can’t really pinpoint the actual date, we’re all just going to be happy around December.”

To all the non-believers I say fine, you want to celebrate the Holidays, then do it on MLK and Valentines Day. On Christopher Columbus and President’s Day, go all out and decorate. Just let us Christians, for whom you have to thank for this time of year anyway (OK, and maybe Coca Cola is partially responsible too), enjoy this time of year without your having to pee in the punch bowl.