Saturday, December 11, 2010

Soliciting more responses!

Ken and I have had so much FUN reading your comments that I want more more MORE. I'm all greedy like that.

So remember how I said Christmas is a time when we can let our aesthetic guard down and openly embrace questionable taste? Well, I want you to share a favorite Christmas Guilty Pleasure--decoration, food, activity, book, story, sappy poem, whatever. I'll start.

Many years ago my grandfather asked his friend to make me a 10-inch Christmas tree constructed entirely of blue and white crystals and giant gold safety pins. There's a strand of blue lights stuffed inside, so when you plug the tree in, it's just a fine haze of holiday azure.

Okay, this thing ranks as one of my fave decorations EVER. I love this tree so much I want to marry it. Until the Christmas season is over and then I just go, never mind. You're a tree made out of safety pins. Who wants to marry that?

14 comments:

Alyosha said...

I love The Forgotten Carols. Don't tell anyone.

wjmom said...

I have an ADORABLE tree made from safety pins, but it's not blue, so you win.

Amy said...

My daddy always recites "The Boy Who Laughed At Santa Clause" on Christmas Eve. He makes this face....at the part where "it's YOU that aint!" oh man, there are no words to even begin to describe that face. I want to marry it, but then at the end of the poem when I'm looking through pictures I go "you are just a twisted up old man face....who wants to marry that?" and I give my daddy a kiss on his regular old man face.

Also those chocolate raspberry sticks that only resemble food and clearly can't be classified as real food? Love those.

Jenny said...

My mother always insists on hanging up the tree decorations that my brothers and I made in elementary school 20+ years ago. They are faded and falling apart. I try to hide my old creations in the back of the tree, especially the paper-and-yarn hula girl that still has dried frosting in her hair from a close encounter with a cookie in my backpack.

Louise Plummer said...

I bought a Christmas creche made out of resin at BYU Bookstore. Cheap cheap. If you look and don't touch, it's a lovely bluff.

Lisa B. said...

HILARIOUS. about that safety pin tree. Ditto my homemade paper star. As in, I made the paper, and then I made a star out of it. I know it sounds all artsy, and it sort of is, except at the end of the day, it's a paper star. And that's what goes on top of my tree. AND the paper is pink. Painted gold. Oh, it's special. I will never stop using it, but at the end of the tree, I look at it and say, huh, paper star.

Also, I have been thinking of songs I love/hate at Christmas . . . Mommy Kissing Santa Claus is so horrible that it's kind of good. But still horrible, there's no way out of it.

Lisa B. said...

also, in the "not really a Christmas song, but set during the season and also made of real live cheez!": that Dan Fogelberg song "Another Auld Lang Syne," which makes me roll my eyes, hard, but only to slow the tears from raining down my face. SOB.

Randi said...

Definitely the song, "Santa Clause is a Black Man":)

donnette perkins said...

Remember that cd with the naughty Christmas songs that you gave me a few years ago? That's my favorite Christmas guilty pleasure. I pull it out and play it LOUD all during the season to keep me full of holiday cheer.

Louise Plummer said...

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer should be tortured and eaten in a lovely Hungarian ghoulash.

Tiffany said...

I have a Santa head with a long straw beard that I hang wreath-style on one of the doors in my kitchen. My youngest son used to refuse to walk by it alone, especially in the dark. I love it so much, but every now and then it does seem a little creepy.

Greg and Jayne said...

I hate to admit this, but I still like red and green (with white and maybe gold and a dash of purple) decorations. I have no desire to get out my comfort zone, try a pool hall theme or go with trashy sexy chic for Christmas. I'll never have an HGTV Christmas show of my own.

Donna Tagliaferri said...

I love my fairies....if you look too closely they have kind of creepy looks on their faces...but the colors, the fabric of their costumes......they rock!
And my Radko tree....it started with 2 ornaments a friend gave me in lieu of flowers when my mother passed. My mom loved Christmas so it was so appropriate. It has grown to lots of beautiful, ridiculously expensive ornaments. I cry every time I take out those ornaments and put them on the tree. Good times, great memories...now let's eat!!

DylanE said...

Julie loves The Forgotten Carols, too. Good, but not quite on par with Together Forever with its synthesizers. Getting that red Santa playing football was fun, but it's just not as satisfying when I don't have to throw any punches to get to put it on the tree.