Terrifying, Magical Singing Elves

By far, for me, the best part of Christmas is the music. Well, and the food. Well, and the gifts. But I love the music so much. I’m totally fine with hearing it creep in during November. I love playing it my car, playing it while I am cleaning my house, playing it while I am baking delicious holiday things to eat (because, seriously, the BEST part of the Holidays has to be the food. Or the gifts. Or maybe its the music.) I love singing holiday songs. I’m not an amazing singer by any stretch of the imagination and I think that everyone, at least once in their life, should sing carols in a large group for an audience. Maybe you join a local or ward choir. Maybe you go to one of those Messiah sing-a-longs, but there is something magical about communal singing that just makes you feel the spirit of Christmas.

I know some people don’t love Christmas songs. They think they are too annoying or too saccharine or too ubiquitous during this season. They want them only played beginning on the Friday after Christmas and playing until December 25th. No more. I heard once of a group of friends who played a group game every holiday season called “The Drummer Boy Challenge.” The game would start on November 1st. You would go about your normal errands and lives, but if at any time, you heard “The Little Drummer Boy” paying in a public place, you were eliminated. The person who went the longest without hearing the song anywhere was declared the winner. Obviously you have no control over when and if you hear that song, unless you just stayed in doors all day. But it adds a certain menace to the season that feels appropriately festive.

Last year, I posted a Spotify playlist of some of my favorite, unusual Christmas songs. I think it’s still an winner - in fact, I’ll post it at the bottom of this post again. Consuming the vast amounts of Christmas music that I do has made me realize that there are some artists that definitely should be recording Christmas songs. And other’s that shouldn’t. Twisted Sister should probably stay out of the Christmas Album game, as should David Hasslehoff (Do you remember when Heidi Klum had a Christmas single? Auf wiedersehen, indeed.) . The album that has been getting the most play for me this Christmas is Annie Lennox’s Christmas Cornucopia. One of her songs is on the playlist, but you really should go listen to the whole album. Annie Lennox makes me thing of a bizarre and beautiful Christmas Angel who is equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring. I imagine that her and Tilda Swinton ride sleighs made of ice pulled by albino reindeer and wear fox skins while they listen to this record. It’s odd and magical and amazing, just like a holiday where we imagine a magical elf puts toys in our socks.

I love to buy new albums and expand my never ending Holiday playlist. Please come over to the Facebook page and let me know what albums should add to my list. After all, it’s pretty clear that other than food and gifts, holiday music is the best part of Christmas.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...Already.

So there you are, 9:30 at night and you realize you need a cup of sugar.  You could ask you neighbor but it's late and you hate them so you head to target.  You are wandering around the Home Decor section because you remember your sister-in-law's cousin pined these chevron candle sticks that you think might be on sale now that Halloween is over and before you know it, you realize that you are standing in the middle of a winter wonderland, complete with actual snow and Jewel singing "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear".  And you huff out in distain, "CHRISTMAS?!!  Already? That is disgusting!  Disgraceful!  Stores bring this crap out earlier and earlier just to make a buck well, I won't have it!" So you pull out your phone and update you status to the tune of "Those brash capitalist money grubbers!  Christmas right after Halloween?  What about Thanksgiving?!  Disgusting!  Disgraceful!"  and all your friends 'like' you in agreement and update similar statuses which are 'liked' by similar friends who update their status which are 'liked' forever and ever, amen.

So, you've done your part so you turn to leave and there you see it.  The small sign that says 'Holiday Decor 25% off'.  You pause for a moment and look at the offering and it's all disgusting and disgraceful but there are these adorable boiled wool ornaments of ballerina mice that your daughter will love and she'll pull out year after year to hang on the tree and she will name them and assign each one to a different member of the family and she will tell her own children, your grandchildren, about the Christmases she had at home hanging these mice by their tales in your flocked tree (you saw it on Pintrest and it's super coming back) and those grandchildren will gather in you lawyers office the week after you die, all of them holding each other grieving your loss, but also shooting sideways glances at each other each of them wondering the same question...who's gonna get Grandma's Christmas Mice...and they are 25% off.  So, you take the set, because, you justify, they will be gone by this weekend and you want to pick the ones with the cute faces and not be stuck with the leftovers at 2:00 am on Black Friday.

Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Swipe.

and you are on your way.  You pause for a moment at a stop light to check your phone and you get that twinge of excitement over seeing so many comments/likes over your 'Save Thanksgiving' status.


Well, let me tell you sweetheart.  Josh and I work retail, and if you are disgusted then just picture us, two months ago getting our Holiday Binders with plan-o-grams and concepts and holiday 'raps' ready to have a smooth roll out for Christmas on November 1st! Both of us thinking, it can't be time already?! Really?!  Didn't we just do this?!

AND YET....

There it goes, November 1st, and with it, baskets full of Christmas Loot leaving with a smiling customer who quips quips about the early bird and worms and such.

We sell it.

Every year earlier, every year more of it.

Josh's store has even started opening on Thanksgiving day (a terrifying trend) and you know what?! They make scads of money. You better believe if I'm the fat cat sitting on top of a huge company, home on Thanksgiving with my family, but my marriage was a little shaky this year and my wife thinks I don't appreciate her the way I did when we were dating, so I think I will get her a little something extra for Christmas and that something extra should probably be a yacht, then yeah, I'm gonna open on Thanksgiving, because people, even people with inscrutable commitment to tradition and the season, will shop, they will hand over fists full of cash to be able to have first.

Several years ago, I worked at a retailer in Orem, Utah who relocated its store to another part of Orem, Utah and part of the relocation was that we would be open on Sundays.  We whined and begged but the Company, based out of California, knew best and we were open on Sundays.  Years later, and just last Sunday, I drove by that store and it was closed for the day.  No one shopped.  The store didn't make enough money to keep the lights on and pay the employees and the company was loosing money and companies HATE to loose money so they closed, just for the day, because it made the most business cents (that's right).

So this is the world we have, it was given to us by our parents who lived on farms and had to hand make their Christmas decorations and chop down their Christmas Trees and the entire family budget for Christmas was an orange, and they took turns opening four handmade presents, two of which were a separated pair of crocheted socks and they were grateful, so grateful, in fact, they closed all the stores on Thanksgiving so they could all sit around a table and tell each other who thankful they were of all that they had and so the people who worked in the stores could to the same! And for one day in November the country gathered and reminisced and laughed late late into the night, because no one had to get up very early the next morning.    

A Very Traditional Christmas

"Something old, something red, something borrowed, something dead," as Krampus, St. Nicholas' holiday devil, famously said. What that phrase I just made up now means is that holidays are steeped in tradition. For most of us, Christmastime is when we dust off winter traditions we loved as kids and continue to build them within our families and/or we try to create new ones that we hope will catch on.

---

When I was growing up, my mom and dad tried very hard to make Christmas different from other times of the year. Much of the time we were either lower-middle class or poor but that never seemed to matter. It was magical.

The decorations would go up (some handmade the year or five before), the egg nog and wassail would flow freely, and the kitchen smelled at various times of ham, turkey, spices, rolls, cocoa, sugar cookies, homemade mints, caramels, and pecan logs.

We always had music playing and I remember especially loving Andy Williams, MoTab, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, and John Denver and the Muppets. Each year we'd mark the calendar, much like my contemporary Ken Craig, so as not to miss any stop-motion or traditionally animated holiday special. My favorite? "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

We often went caroling, sledding, and visiting Grandma's house during the holidays and one of my favorite Christmases was when we took boxes of food, blankets, and other supplies and gave them to homeless people.

On Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open one present, not including the less exciting traditional new pajamas gift. In our home, we had 4-7 kids at various times – there was always a baby to play Jesus –  so this night was when my dad would read Luke 2 and Mark something while we dressed in robes and towels to portray the remaining roles of Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, and Shepherds. Christmas Eve at our house always felt calm yet tinged with excitement. We would eat, watch movies or specials, play board games, put ginger bread houses together, and continue working on some 5,000,000 piece puzzle. There was always a puzzle being built. My little brother Jared was the king of puzzles, even at the earliest age. I was good at finding the edges.

Christmas morning, when we were finally allowed to stop pretending we were asleep, my mom would turn on the twinkling lights, put on Bing Crosby, and we'd all line up at the top of the stairs or in the hall according to age, youngest first. My parents were masters of the Ty Pennington reveal, creating suspense, joy, anxiety, and glee with one or two well-timed grins. As we'd enter the main room of the home, screams of delight would fill the home as we'd find the part of the sofa or recliner where our stockings were pinned, marking also where Santa had left each child's gifts. We never tore into our gifts at this point. We always went around in a circle, one gift at a time, so that we could share in the awe of each sibling's haul. Doing this made the morning last and, by the time we were done, the tough choice of which toy to free from its plastic prison faced each of us. We were never poor on Christmas.

---

Today, I have a wife and two kids. Our time together during the holidays is mostly filled with trying to figure out how we can do as little as possible and get more couch togetherness time. It's what we like to do. We're pretty good at it year round but we do have our traditions too.

We still cook at Christmas (Amelia is fantastic at it) but we don't really do the homemade candy part. We "try" to eat healthy-ish treats (and by that I mean packages of peanut M&Ms). We love egg nog and cocoa time. We often have a "pickin' ham" which, once we've used it for the main dish, we cover in the fridge and pick at it to make sandwiches or ... just eat a drive-by handful.

Amelia and the kids usually decorate the tree after school one day while I'm at work and I think they like it. This year we got our first fresh tree as a family, tied it on the roof, and brought it home without incident. Our home smelled like what I imagine Narnia would smell like – crisp, clean, fresh, piney, and British – for at least a week.

Music is still a big part of Christmas for us, and thankfully, my kids love the John Denver/Muppets album as much as Amelia and I did/do. It might come from our iPhone speaker set via Spotify but it still infuses our home with holiday cheer. "It's a Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 42nd Street," and animated shows we remember to DVR are regularly viewed. We also love to go to the theater to see as many movies as we can during the break, something we could never do as a family when I was young.

We serve others given the opportunity and get wonderful drop in visits from our dear friends and near strangers. We'll take cookies around from time to time as well. We'll build snowmen, have snowball fights, and go sledding from time to time but not every year. I'm ok with it.

On Christmas Eve, the kids open new pajamas and my dad usually drops by with their gifts, watches them open them, and has some cheese and crackers. That night or sometime the next afternoon we get visits from other family in the area. Our home is sort of the gathering place at Christmas.

I always read Luke 2 and Mark something while but we haven't done the role-playing part. The kids simply listen as they cuddle their mother. Christmas Eve at our house is calm yet filled with anticipation. We eat, watch movies or specials, play board games, and work on some 5,000,000,000 piece puzzle. Amelia and the kids are brilliant at puzzles. I am good at finding the edges.

Christmas morning, I turn on the twinkling lights, put on Bing Crosby and we line up the two excited munchkins in the hall. We try to master the Ty Pennington reveal but the truth is I'm just as excited as they are. As we enter the main room of the home, gasps of happy breath escape and fill our home as they find the part of the sofa or chair where the stockings were hung. Our daughter always checks to see if Santa has eaten the milk and cookies and if he's left a thank you note. He always does but he only leaves a few gifts for the kids. (The best ones come labeled "From Mom and Dad.") We never tear into our presents. We go in a circle, one gift at a time, so that we can share in the experience of giving and receiving. Doing this makes the morning last. I never want it to end. I hope our kids feel it too and I hope they find some tradition like these they enjoy enough to try and pass on.

We've been blessed in recent years so money at Christmas hasn't been the issue I imagine it was for my parents. But, I don't think it ever would be. Our love for each other, the Spirit in our home, and our traditions make it feel special to me. We'll never be poor on Christmas.

Happy holidays.

A Public Service Announcement

As the holidays approach and many of you prepare to load up the family car and make the migration back to…well, wherever it is you don’t currently live, I would like to take this opportunity to present a Public Service Announcement, brought to you by the makers of Craig Children, and other fine products.

Throughout the course of my life, ladies and gentlemen, I have made more road trips than the Rolling Stones (but without the liquor and with only a fraction of the heroine). And inevitably, during every trip, I have reached that late-night breaking point where my eyes are just not going to stay open any longer. And I know I am not alone in this.

To combat this phenomenon, I have tried the following measures, to no avail:

1. Loud music. I have found this method ineffective, no matter how loud the music. Somehow, even the raucous melodies of Def Leppard become a soft lullaby. Mr. Sandman may start out pouring sugar on me, but soon enough, he is simply pouring sleepy dust in my eyes.

2. Food. Many are the late-night journeys where I have combined my fuel stops with a quick dash into the convenience store to grab an armful of sugary, life-saving goodness. Sodas, M&Ms, Hostess, what have you. I gobble it in record time and enjoy about 10 minutes of alertness. About enough time to get back on the highway. Then I’m not only fighting off sleepiness, but a sugar coma.

3. Face out the window. This is where you roll down the window and stick your face out into the frozen night air – while simultaneously waking up everyone in the car with an oppressive blast of arctic wind. This wakes you up all right, and then the window closes, you shutter once or twice, the heater picks back up, and 1.5 seconds later, you’re right back where you started.

It was during one of my many road trips during college that I discovered what worked for me, personally. I remember getting drowsy and thinking to myself, “What might keep me awake and alert?” And it dawned on me that being focused on something would help. And while I was too tired to focus on anything profound or life-altering, I knew if I could find something simple that required my attention…some small task…it would keep me alert.

So I undressed.

In a slow and calculated manner, I removed article by article until I was completely naked. There I was driving 80 mph down the freeway completely in the buff. And then I got dressed again – slowly and calculated, item by item.

Small, simple tasks.

Genius? Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes these things just come to me. But maybe it is. Maybe it’s inspiration. And I’ll tell you this – nude driving will keep you awake, if for no other reason, because you now have incorporated the fear of being pulled over by a highway patrol officer or worse yet, crashing and being found naked and unconscious – and cold! – for all the world to see.

I remember the first road trip Katie and I took after we were married. We were driving from Utah to Los Angeles, to interview for an internship with NBC. We got a bit of a late start, and somewhere between Cedar City and St. George it was 1 a.m., and I was getting awfully sleepy. Katie was in the passenger seat, well into a nap, so I had nobody to talk to. Well, no worries. At this point I was well versed in Plan N.A.K.E.D. (Nude Alert Ken Effectively Driving), so I began the undressing process. I thought nothing of it until my newlywed wife woke up to find a fully nude husband driving 80 mph down I-15, humming Pour Some Sugar On Me. It occurred to me in that moment that prior to our getting married, I had never had the Plan N.A.K.E.D. talk with Katie.

It was a bit of an awkward moment, and I was really starting to wish I hadn’t picked up that hitchhiker in Paragonah. (Zoing! Thank you I’ll be here all week!) Katie had an inquisitive look on her face that I had never seen before, nor since. But she just sat up, wiped her eyes and said, “Is it hot in here or is it just me?”

Nowadays, with seven kids traveling with us, I’ll admit that my once flawless plan seems inappropriate. I couldn’t find an effective, alternate method of staying awake, so we generally travel during the day now. But I miss the quietness of having everyone asleep as we barrel down the highway, with me and my iPod rocking out to A Very Merry Def Leppard Christmas. 

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Its my favorite time of year. I love Halloween. I love candy, and scary movies and spook alleys (I'm taking my son to his first this year!) I'm far from the PTA resident Halloween expert (that would be Topher, who I believe picks out his costume about 8 months in advance) but when I came home from work last night and all the Halloween decorations were out, it made me smile.

The other day I introduced my kids to one of my childhood Halloween traditions, watching the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. That crazy, cooky, old-fashioned cartoon voiced entirely by Bing Crosby.

I probably hadn't watched this movie for about 15 years, and it was as delightful and as charming as I remember it to be. But it was also kind of crazy. I was amazed at how odd it was.

It feels very grown up. It makes no apologies about the lyrics it uses and doesn't dumb it down for the kids at all, even though it is a kids cartoon. It uses words like "debonair" and "elucidate." Can you imagine Twitch from the Fresh Beat Band saying "elucidate?" I don't think so. Remember Katrina, and how she is kind of a jerk? That wouldn't fly on TV today. My friend Kacy said this much better than I am saying it now, but it feels like kids shows are dumbed down for kids now. There was probably a lot of marketing money and child psychology that went into why Dora yells so much, but all I'm saying is we're still watching Bing Crosby sing about the odd schoolmaster 60 years later. Take that, Backpack.

But my kids still loved it. It definitely holds up. They laughed when the short lady danced around like a crazy person, just like I remember laughing when I was younger. They were a little spooked out by the cackle of the Horseman as he chased Ichabod through the hollow. And they were puzzled by the ending (spoiler!) Did Ichabod die? Was the Horseman Brom Bones? I still don't know the answers.

So happy Halloween season. Bring on the candy corn, autumn leaves, pumpkins and pumpkin-flavored everything. Just don't make me watch The Fresh Beat Band Halloween special. I don't think I can handle it.

Apparently, I make up holidays

I think it was only about a week ago that I stated that my favorite holiday was "Dumpster Day." And I still hold to that assertion. But there is another amazing holiday that in my family falls on May 5th (Hint: it's not Cinco de Mayo.) It's a holiday we made up. We call it Bingham Book Day.

I think it started when we were poor newly weds and I wanted and excuse to be able to frivolously spend money in a book store without feeling bad about it. So we made up a holiday wherein we would go, as a family, to the book store and everyone could pick out whatever book they wanted. We imagined that when we had kids we would make a real adventure of it and it would get our kids excited about books and reading. And it sort of worked out that way.

We picked May 5th just because it would be easy to remember. We tried in past years to have it on National Read Aloud Book Day or other such literary days but we would always forget and then have to reschedule. So we picked May 5th several years ago and it has worked for us every year.

The celebrations have varied in intensity. Some years, while we lived in Portland, we would ride the train into downtown to go to Powell's, the amazing old book store there, and then have dinner in the city. Other years we would go to Costco, but our books there and then eat pizza in the Costco Cafe. But we always have fun and we always come home with more than one book per person. (It's hard to say no when your kids are asking you to buy books.)

And even though I have visions of my kids picking fantastic storybooks, or classics that I loved as a child, they usually buy a book about weather, or desert animals, or robots. But that's OK. I am a firm believer that you should let your kids read WHATEVER they want so reading is fun. They may or may not ever read your favorite book from childhood, but they will learn to love reading, and that is the most important part.

So I write this post as a gift to you. Every year when I blog (at my other blog) about Bingham Book Day, family and friends always say "Oh, I wish we celebrated that holiday!" Here's the thing: YOU CAN!! You don't have to do it tomorrow. You could do it next week, or in a month or whenever works for you. Just load the kids into the car, head to the bookstore and tell them they can get whatever book they want. They go to dinner and talk about what you picked. You can go to a used book store (or Costco - they have a well curated collection) and eat at McDonalds (or Costco - those hot dogs are $1.50 and come withe a drink! C'mon!)

So Happy Bingham Book Day tomorrow, or whenever you chose to celbrate it.

(If you are so inclined read about my familys past book days here, here, and here.)

Happy Dumpster Day!

I use instagram to take photos of dumpsters! Follow me at jooshanoosh.

My favorite holiday happens in the spring. No, it is not Easter, despite the amazing candy. It's not Arbor Day, with its....trees. And it is certainly not Groundhog day, because I find groundhogs incredibly creepy.

Its Salt Lake Counties Dumpster Delivery Day. See, once a year, the good folks at Salt Lake County Special Service station dumpsters throughout the neighborhoods of the city. The leave the dumpster for the day and then take it away. You have the whole day to fill it up with as much crap as you possibly can.

Like any good holiday, there is a bit of mystery around it. You don't know for sure which day they will be coming until a few day's before when you get this baby in the mail:

It's like a little pink postcard of joy. Then there is the mystery of where they will put the dumpster. Will it be conveniently located in front of my yard? Will it be super inconvenient and across the street and down a few doors? (That's a bad Dumpster Day when that happens.) I've actually seen people camp out in their yards so that when the trucks arrive they can flag them down and direct them to a prime location. It is kind of like camping out for a parade, except instead of throwing candy, they drop of large dumpsters.

I don't know why throwing things away brings me so much joy, but it does. I could never be a hoarder. I just don't have that "well this might be useful someday" gene. Just like the Dixie Chicks said, I like wide open spaces.

And because of that, Dumpster Day is a day of celebration. I literally clapped when I pulled onto my street after work yesterday and saw it lined with dumpsters. My brother-in-law, who feels the same way about Dumpster Day as I do, takes the day off work so he has a full 24 hours to throw junk out. There is a sense of community as all the neighbors are outside cleaning up their yards and sneaking boxes of their kids' old toys out to throw away. Yes, occasionally a fight breaks out when someone has filled the dumpster too quickly before the neighbors they share it with have had a chance to throw their stuff away. And sure, there are the creepy scavengers that drive around looking for stuff to scavenge and hollering at you "You throwin' away any car batteries?" But all of that adds to the celebration and charm of the holiday.

As I write this, the dumpster fairies (note: sanitation workers do not approve of being called "fairies") are loading this years dumpster onto the back of their magical dump truck, to whisk it off to an enchanted landfill somewhere. And I sit in a house that has a few less boxes of Happy Meal toys and a yard with nicely pruned trees and watch. Until next year, Dumpster Day. Until next year.