Boots and Blessings

I am so happy right now. I mean, down to my bones happy. It is December. Decorations are up around the house - maybe a little more than usual, because I'm just in such a happy state. Our Christmas tree is gorgeous. It is a magic tree, I feel pretty certain. It usually takes going to three or four places til we find a good tree. Too dry, not big enough ... you know. We headed out and at our very first place, there it was. We hadn't even given more than a cursory glance to any of the other trees, and there it was, leaning up against some others. That can't be right, I told my partner. The first one we look at? We yanked at it to see if the needles would fall. Nope, not a one. Looked all around it. A little thin on one side, but that would make it easier, since we put it in that corner anyway ... It is set up now, perfect. Lights, from trunk to tip. Ornaments we've collected over our 22+ years together. Many of them are ornaments by, about, or for, our children. Or

Genre: “Groundhog Day, Christmas Edition” Movies: The 12 Dates of Christmas, Christmas Eve Every Day, The Twelve Days of Christmas Eve, Christmas Do-Over, A Christmas Wedding Date, Three Days … and probably more I don’t know about. I love the actual “Groundhog Day” movie with Bill Murray. LOVE IT. Watch it every year, on Groundhog Day, and find yet another spiritual paradigm or lesson in it. Is it Buddhist? Christian? I can make an argument in many different directions (ultimate argument: it’s Unitarian Universalist). But I digress. So, if Groundhog Day is so great, these movies must be terrific, right? Eh, not so much. The one I do kinda like, is, I suspect, because I am now a parent. “Christmas Every Day,” in which an ungrateful teenager relives the same day over and over until he GETS IT and starts acting like a wonderful human. But there, that’s probably more about me, less about the movie. See: Mean Mom. There are so MANY of these! And they’r

You are not coming to a CMFTM for originality, or if you are, you'll be pretty disappointed. They're making these babies on the fly, baby, Time is Money, so who has time for originality? As such, most CMFTMs fall into certain oft-used-and-abused genres. Someone even made a handy  bingo scorecard of Christmas movie tropes. Today's genre is "I Want to Schtup Santa Claus." This is an interesting genre of holiday movies that seems targeted to Gen X – Boomer females. Why does this appeal to us? I conjecture it’s because of the stop action animation special, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in which a scarily thin Jessica-the-Teacher meets Kris Kringle, he gives her a doll, they get married by the Winter Miser and then she’s allowed to get nice and fat, and he still sits next to her, seemingly still in love, and eternally celebrating Christmas, but without bills or family members, or any of those other pesky things that make Christmas,

It’s all the fault of A Christmas Memory . That was a wonderful adaptation of a short story by Truman Capote made for ABC Stage 67 before I was born. Every few years or so, they’d show it again on television. It was both magical and homely. It starred Geraldine Page, and the narration was done by Truman Capote himself. His voice was so high-pitched that they had to slow down his recordings in order to lower his voice. Such a beautiful, poignant, real, story, with Buddy and his elderly cousin Sook, and her marvelous fruitcakes, augmented during prohibition by the booze sold by Mr. HaHa Jones, and sent off to friends far and near, and even the president. It was enough to make you want fruitcake. This holiday touch of magic evidently imprinted itself upon me at a crucial age, like when you walk away from a duckling, and the baby duck decides it will follow you for life, no matter how clichéd, insipid, or commercial you are. So, over the years, I've watched an awful

I'm always interested in what's UNDER things. Perhaps it's my parents' fault. The "surprise" 4th child that came 12 years after what they thought was their last, they told me that I was found under a rock. They were just walking along one day, and Mama lifted up a rock, and there I was. Frankly, that makes more sense to me than what I learned in sex ed. In any case, I now spend a decent amount of time, lifting up rocks, or conversations, or what-have-you, trying to figure out what is underneath it all.  Like these Charlie Brown Christmas Trees that they sell everywhere. I grew up on the Peanuts' tv specials -- heck, I  remember when they were accompanied with the Dolly Madison snack cake commercials -- but I'm a little befuddled as to why anyone would deliberately buy one of these decorations. Apparently, they do, since they're sold absolutely everywhere. The people buying them, they do realize that the magic of the Charlie Brown Christmas