After the Holidays in the Mission

On the Set - The Holiday Special

Dreaming of a Dwight Christmas

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Sepia Saturday: Christmas in June

(Here is our contribution to this week's Sepia Saturday. Check out the others here.)

I am fortunate to have a wonderful sister, but for much of my childhood I longed to have a brother and can see ways that plays a role in my life to this day. The above photo is from the Christmas of 1965 when I was nine and my cousin Jeb was three. Jeb lived with us at different stages of his first eight or nine years, and it fulfilled part of my longing to have a brother.

Today we see each other at best once a year, and we are about as different in appearance and temperament as could be possible. But, looking back at these photos (and the one of me below in 1958 during my second Christmas), I am amazed as how similar we looked. That may be one of the great gifts of participating in Sepia Saturday -- looking back at one's own past as something of an outsider and being surprised by the insights that come from the view.

That Christmas was the first Christmas spent by our family at the digs called "Lazy Acres" built by my grandparents and later the home of my parents. It was in the family for exactly 50 years. For the Christmas of 2006, our family gathered there one last time, and I did a multi-part slide/video/music show for the experience. Below is the "finale" that featured the various "cast members", many of whom have appeared in here in past Sepia Saturday installments.

Junk Thief Had a Great Date for Christmas Eve Dinner

From Our House to Your House

Bow and I would like to wish everyone the best for "the holidays" in whatever way you choose to celebrate or ignore them.

P.S. Bow said that it is not gauche to send Dingos, Greenies, Kongs filled with cream cheese or other treats after Christmas if you are so inclined.

Who is Landron?

This Landron installation -- Hound of the Holidays (2007) -- continues to delight young and old alike. Note basenji paws on the right.

Shopping Tips from Anita

Nothing Says Christmas Like Wencke Myhre

Yuletide Yodelling

Even in "this economy" I find myself enjoying Christmas -- and not "the holidays" -- more each year. I enjoy it not in any reason for the season kind of way but more in the way that is woven through with pleasant memories, especially those rooted in optimism that leave me feeling, well, optimistic.

There seems to be something of an arch in my life with Christmas reaching its absolute nadir in my 50th year (a season tainted with death, loss and pessimism) and slowly ascending with each year. I won't quote Cavify's "Candles", but there is certainly much of that sentiment at this point.

For countless years, I dismissed Christmas as a crass, pointless system to support capitalism. It is still very much that, yet I take unusual comfort in things associated with Christmas -- not things I buy or am given this year but those from the past.

So, a couple examples":

* Sometime in the mid-1970s I bought the glass reindeer at the long-defunct Midwest department store John A. Brown. I purchased it with visions of it in my first urban and urbane pied-a-terre in a coastal city where I would be buying presents at Macy's when it was local department store not the company store of the nation. By the time I actually had my first abode, I thought I was far too sophisticated to have such a piece of schlock in my home.

* The tall man on the right holds not special aesthetic meaning on its own. However, my sister discovered it two years ago (on that above mentioned worst Christmas ever) when we were dismantling our parents' home. It was nestled in the back of the mud room closet and was something my mother bought in preparation for the last Christmas she was alive, 2003. She was too disoriented by the time the holiday arrived to remember to send it to me. Getting it three years later made it all the more meaningful. The sack it came in was from a store two blocks from a store two blocks away from the last house I lived in before moving to California. I know that she was not so disoriented that she went there hoping to find me in my old above, but I wonder if she drove by my old house, thinking of the times when we had Christmases together there.

As mentioned earlier, I oddly associate the Beatles with Christmas. Forty years ago, I went to the premier of Yellow Submarine with my best friend, thinking we had seen the most progressive form of animation to descend on humanity.

Finally, I share the introduction to the show I am watching as I write this -- 1988's Pee Wee's Christmas Special. It's a glorious mix of sweetness, wackiness and creativity. And, since one of my presents this year was a Dremel, it's not out of the question that next year there will be a Junk Thief Junk Shack Holiday Hootinanny.

Fuh LEETH, Fuh LEETH, I Am So Fuh LEETH

Enjoy the day.

JTTV - Season 3, Episode 4 - Just Us Kitties

With a cast of superstars and an amazing soundtrack, here's this year's holiday special. Hope you enjoy it and, more importantly, enjoy your holiday. Thought you might enjoy a couple of stills from this episode.

Bow Reacts to the Jingle Cats & Dogs Video

Silent, Sweet Sufjan's Santa Serenade

At the risk of giving our beloved WAT too much praise (which he duly deserves) has anyone else checked out the five-disc holiday album coming out Monday from Sufjan Stevens? I can't think of anyone else who so fully embodies modesty and outrageous ambition. As if his goal to make an album about every state in the union were not enough, now he comes out with the most ambitious holiday album ever. For all his exuberance, he always seems so mellow and unperturbed.

UPDATE: Hmm...maybe I had him pegged wrong. We can hope. Yum.
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The Appropriate Gifts 'In This Economy'

Last year, we shared this holiday classic as evidence that Christmas is not about consumerism, but the spirit of junk thievery repurposing.

So now we offer another favorite below. Casper was the one cartoon character that makes Tinky Winky, Snaggle Puss and Barney look butch by comparison. Even as a kiddo, I was never sure if people reacted sharply to Casper because he was a ghost or because he was so...uh, friendly. No childhood character merits as much Freudian re-examination as Casper. I blame him for how my life went on such a path.

JTTV Holiday Rerun # 2

Heavenly Intonations

Unexpected Pleasing Nighttime Beverage

In theory, at least, I despise almost anything with chocolate, mainly because any significant amount of it makes me groggy, depressed and feeling hopeless. However, the past few nights I have found surprising pleasure with a mug of cocoa if only for the nostalgia of the red mugs that have been a part of my family for as many holiday seasons as I can remember. My fondness for eggnog is not quite as strong, although the neighboring glasses evoke as many memories.

Cadillac Christmas

I'm going very light on decorating for the holidays this year, using at most 10% of the decorations that I have in off site storage. Were I to use all of them, it would take at least two trips with my car filled to the brim.

My sister's packages arrived today, and as usual there were a couple of "open now" gifts. There seems to be a new pattern of holiday pillows coming from her. Many really loved this one from last year, and now there is this Cadillac pillow. I'm not sure of the entire story yet but assume the script is from our grandfather's early 1960s fin-mobile. I'm using the excuse of being concerned about Bow eating too many of the decorations for a reason to not put up more this year. Maybe it's appropriate "in this economy" (most abused phrase since "maverick").

We're Getting into the Spirit 'round Here