Wii

This Christmas I gave Ken something he never wanted in a trillion billion years--his very own wii! Talk about surprises!

Anyway, we've all had fun with it (even Ken!), but the most fun we had was when Phil brought over his Wii Fit thing so we could all go pretend slaloming and pretend ski-jumping and pretend snow-boarding. But before we did all that extreme pretending, we let the Wii tell us how fit we are and guess what. I AM ONLY 46 IN WII YEARS AS OPPOSED TO KEN WHO'S 67 IN WII YEARS. I realize that this still makes me 322 in wii/dog years but whatevs. Wii/dog years don't count.

Merry fondue Christmas

So I've been trying to figure out what to serve for dinner on Christmas Eve. We'll have already done a fair amount of eating at my brother's house earlier in the day, plus which there will be a large-ish Christmas Day breakfast (at my house) and a ham dinner (at my mother-in-law's house). What this means is that while people like the idea of Christmas Eve dinner, they're actually not that hungry. At the same time I want us to gather properly and not just eat pizza out of a box, you know?

That's why I thought FONDUE! We'll have FONDUE! And then we'll all part our hair in the middle and put on our bell-bottoms and turn on the Sonny and Cher Christmas special and IT'LL BE GREAT! So I took the fondue pot down from its high shelf and studied it for a bit, trying to visualize 12 adults standing around the table, waiting for a turn to dunk a little bit of bread into a little pot of melted cheese.

And suddenly the fondue pot thing doesn't seem like such a brilliant idea . . .

December brain

I love the Christmas season, but I do find a big part of my brain shuts down during December. Like I woke up this morning and went it's Wednesday already? And also where's my underwear? (Answer: in the laundry basket, not washed. Who knows where Monday and Tuesday went and where was I? Second Answer: not washing underwear.)

Anyway, we all go a little nuts during this time of year. My neighbor, Kathy, was telling me on our walk this morning that she had to instruct her first-graders repeatedly not to lick the stage curtains when performing their dance for the school. December makes you crazy like that. One day you're just a normal first-grander, and then suddenly you start thinking YESSIR soon there will be PRESENTS PRESENTS PRESENTS and before you know it, you're licking curtains.

I've got to write a column today.

Yesterday's Trib column

Yesterday's bit about kids and tears at Christmas!


Here it is.