Happy War on Christmas To All
Paul on his new scooter... He didn't pull out the cell phone until later.
Christmas is a time for family, and, depending on your family, that can be good or bad. Growing up, I considered it the most important day of the year; my brother and I started crossing off the days on the calendar from the time the Sears toy catalog arrived until the big day, and even our older siblings got in the act after Thanksgiving. The haul in toys and candy made the misery of even more church and even more time spent with my crazy grandmother, Etta, worth it.
Now, it wasn’t as though I wasn’t used to spending time with Etta; she dropped by three times each day: first when we got home from school, then when my mother arrived home from work, and again at 6:40 pm, to watch us eat dinner in between Bonanza and her parliamentary law class, business and professional women (BPW) meeting, or whatever. You could set your watch by the arrival of what neighborhood kids called the “Beast of Brazee.” (the name of our side street where she parked) The first visit was to check on our general behavior and development, always found wanting, (“Your mother never trained you” was a typical refrain) and skeptically interview any friends we might have brought home from school. ”What does your father do for a living?” ”Do you take piano lessons?” ”What nationality are you?” Most days, when we didn’t hide and lock the doors, that is, she would find some reason to leave in a huff, which necessitated visit #2 to ostentatiously tattle on us and drive my mother crazy, a lifelong endeavor that was always worth another trip. Each year I had to introduce classmates to Etta just to prove she was real; I became a minor celebrity at school for having a grandmother who not only never baked a cookie in her life, but reliably showed up in a loud pantsuit every day to berate all present.
Christmas, however, brought out the worst in Etta, because her insistence that we spend Christmas Eve at her house subjected her to the indignity and effort of having to do things for other people, which was never really her strong suit. For weeks ahead of time, we would be drafted to help her decorate, and my mother was always cruelly eager to sacrifice a kid or two to get rid of Etta, so we glumly went, to attempt to once again reactivate elaborate 1935 lighting technology amid dire threats about breaking things or making anything dirty. As we tried to hang ornaments on the tree, she would repeatedly question their placement, demanding that we step back and “make a study” of what we were doing before continuing. Etta was unwilling to sacrifice artistic merit for mere speed, she always made quite clear.
She also didn’t much like to sacrifice money, so Christmas was doubly hard for her. Being saddled with seven greedy grandchildren, she established an ironclad formula, bookkeeper that she was, that each little welfare case would receive precisely seven dollars for birthdays and Christmas, coming to $98 per annum, $100 with expenses. (When I worked in her yard, the price of an A&W Teen Burger would be carefully deducted from my wages, so I knew Etta was good at math, and that root beer was an expense I couldn’t afford….) One memorable year, she came up with the money-saving idea that instead of forking over for an outlandishly extravagant $5 Douglas Fir, she would have somebody chop the top of a holly tree in her yard, and we could just wear protective gear to haul it in the house and set it up. That year was as close as she got to to a full mutiny when she again wanted us to “make a study of it,” and, as I recall was one of the more memorably awful Christmas Eves, when the drunken antics (can you blame them?) of my uncle and stepdad left Etta in a bad mood until at least July. ”I’d unload him,” she said practically daily to my mother and no doubt my aunt, too. They took her entreaties under advisement.
My last Etta Christmas was thirty years ago today, and you know what? I haven’t missed her. Yet. Who knows, someday seven bucks could be a lot of money.
Talk about someone who could leave an indelible print… Do let me know when you write that book where Etta is the central character. It’s gonna be a doozy!
Happy Holidays, Cocktailhag! Very best wishes for the year to come. I think we’re all gonna need those.
À votre santé.
As my brother said, Etta, in death, has her advantages, particularly for a blogger. Watch this space for a serialized version…. If we’re lucky, we might get some tidbits from the select few of us who knew her in comments. Merry Christmas to you, too, and all that.
T – so great to read since I feel that I know the characters — well some of them for sure.
And what a character she was!
I don’t suppose they named that fabulous Seattle restaurant – Etta’s – after her —I think not.
Merry Jewish Christmas.
Doesn’t so much feel like Christmas in LA. But it never feels like Christmas to me. T
At least you can understand my visceral dislike for that joint. Just had a great evening at Grant and Gayle’s, who by marriage are related to Etta, too. Love to all, with one notable exception.
Merry Christmas T from the drizzly midwest!
We don’t have Etta, but the new stepmonster isn’t far off. After opening her diamond earrings she managed to both brag about how big they were and complain that they weren’t big enough (“You can’t see them below my hair!”). We were ready to take the sheep shears to her!
Stay warm in that wonderful coat!
A flamethrower would work, too. It’s cold and beautiful here; the coyotes are working overtime. A hot buttered rum is certainly in order, although you probably need it more than I do. I just got back from my brother’s… The gift of the year was an electric miniature Vespa (Ipod equipped, natch) that my 13-year old nephew, Paul got. He was last seen barreling down Klickitat, talking on the cell phone and making California stops. Thank heaven I’m not a parent.
Merry Christmas to all here and lurkers and elves with Macs.
I wanted an iMac for Christmas, but the old man did not deliver. Maybe next year.
In one of my previous incarnations, I was a song parody fool, so here is one for this topic:
They’re beginning to fight the War on Christmas
Ev’rywhere we go;
If you listen to Bill and Glenn, raving with hate again
With commie plots and kooks on every show.
They’re beginning to fight the War on Christmas
Heretics galore…
But the scariest sight to see is the swastika there’ll be
On your own front door.
Thanks, Retzilian. I needed a new song to get “Mr. Grinch” out of my head, which, though perfectly suited to the Hag vocal range, is getting a little old.
Here’s another you might enjoy, although the singing range is a little higher sometimes. It’s a song that can sound good even sung badly. Also.
Oh….You better pack light
You better salute
You better be white
Don’t bring any fruit
Sarah Palin’s coming to town
Can’t take any pics
Don’t ask for a quote
If you buy a book then she gets your vote
Sarah Palin’s coming to town
She travels on a Lear Jet
Cuz she is just plain folks
She writes op-eds for right wing rags
So she’s good for Late Night jokes.
Oh, you better not fret
You only get two
And maybe she’ll let
Trig sign ‘em for you
Sarah Palin’s coming to town
Frohe Weihnachten!
and a happy new year. Keep up the good work, all of you.
Thanks, Heel, Merry Christmas to you and yours. If you’re in the mood for a laugh, I highly recommend Tom’s link.
Merry Christmas from me too. http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/christmas_under_communism.html
Boy, what a steaming pile that article was, Tom. The “thinker” ought to have been sitting on a toilet. The miseries, which smack of embroidery, sound like daily life in the USA for millions of Americans, right down to the nasty food and lack of health care. The only difference is that we have a lot more religion-addled people, and a nice sliver of rich people at the top; Jesus would be so proud.
Sheesh, am I sick of people who connect crony capitalism with the word of God.
Merry Christmas to you, too, of course. We liberals are mushy that way.
Via the American Thinker link,
I love oxymorons (we had one on the farm who was determined not to read Animal Farm) and I certainly support a strong Republican/Christianist adherence to all things Wholly Holy.
As does Rep. Henry Brown (R-SC).
@sig
(For the sane and honest among us–Merry Christmas and etc. etc. [which is PC for etc. etc.])
Nice catch, T3. I hate to tell the righties, but “Happy Holidays” is a product of the capitalist desire to sell more, not some PC whatchamacallit.
Merrly Christmas to you, too.
Great story CH.
I never had an Etta in my life, but I had an Agnes who was somewhat neurotic, especially at Christmas time – kind of an Etta-light.
Merry Christmas Hag, and best wishes in twenty-ten.
Thanks, Steven… And same to you. I have a million more Etta stories, which I will roll out on slow news days. It’s the only way I can get family members to read my blog.
Ok, Tom. You and Jeffrey Folks need to have a little perspective and a short history lesson.
Allow me to point out one very important thing about East Germany (during its Soviet years) and the Good Ol’ USA:
We won the war, gave the place to the Russians, let them run it, meanwhile West Germany was thriving. You could see West Berlin from his house, as it were.
There is no way you can turn the USA into Eastern Germany, dude. It’s just laughable to even consider this; he just jams that in at the end of the piece and it’s a total non-sequitur.
East Berlin’s condition was more about economics than religion. I could easily find a travelogue from someone in a small village far away from eastern Europe and where they have never heard of Jesus and they’d be celebrating whatever traditions they have with love, food, festivities, prayers, presents, music, decorations, etc.
There is absolutely no proof that the reason East Germany was bleak was because of a lack of religion. The fact is, it had a lot more to do with a lack of money, intentionally, in fact, because the Soviets had no intention of letting East Berlin thrive under its thumb. The Russians hated the Germans, end of story.
And that the Left Wing is running the country? If ONLY that were true. Good grief. The entire premise of the article is absurd.
Couldn’t agree more about East Berlin which I visited three times from 1979-82 including one time when I drove my family there from Kaiserslautern, West Germany. The first time I was walking along the huge and very long wall for over two hours it finally dawned on me that I was inside the wall not outside. I had a mindset of prison walls and always envisioned myself on the outside.
The contrast between East and West Berlin was very stark. It takes real idiots to fear socialized governments and fantasize that we could become like East Germany used to be. The socialist governments in Europe, especially Scandinavia take much better care of their citizens and have compassionate values that we should be emulating not condemning. Most of the world during the last decade have seen an America that is disgusting in their eyes, certainly not one to admire.
Glad to see some lurkers commenting and I want to join them in thanking the Hag for creating this site and giving me a platform to share some of my thoughts. My wish for the holidays is for love and compassion to dominate fear and hatred. Those living in fear want to find love for themselves and their fellow humans, they just don’t know how to find it and feel safe.
Thanks, rmp… Next month this dump will be a year old; time flies when you’re having fun.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and especially pinch-hitting to give a Hag a day off now and again. Hope you had a great Christmas.
Merry (Orthodox- I’m late for the other) Christmas , CH, & all .
Etta makes me thankful for my crazy relatives. They were crazy, but generally benign. The holly christmas tree (English holly, I assume)?
OMG!/lol! I had the pleasant task of bundling bunches of it ,for several seasons. Hands felt it ’til almost Valentine’s Day. :@ Making kids haul that in , and be a full-body pin cushion is truly demented.
Etta was unique; a brand. I was doing my best to keep a straight face at her funeral, when one of my mother’s lifelong friends came up to her and said, “I guess I’m sorry.”
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I’m seeing Capricorn (business woman) with a strong Virgo adjunct, probably Moon (bookkeeper). ??
Of course, Jesus was a Capricorn . . . as if.
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Y’know, for me, this whole psychoastrological grasp-of-the-gestalt thingie doesn’t correct or remedy the bad pains that hurting and hurtful people (can) do unto good times, but unveiling the mystery of where they’re coming from at least ends the surprise element in assaults which otherwise adds chaos to amplify injury.
F’r instance, Christmas might be so much more excruciating, near intolerable, if we didn’t see it coming months in advance.
Winter solstice is difficult for Leos when their Sun Sustenance goes South and stays there.
She was a Virgo; and throughout my life I avoided Virgos because of that. As far as the business thing; Etta was a feminist before her time, working in offices where she was routinely the only woman and bragged endlessly about bossing men around. (As you can imagine, she changed jobs a lot…)