Happy and Blue 2

Today was Christmas decorations day in the Happy and Blue 2 household. Tree up. Check. Cards up. Check. Outside lights up. Check. Token presents under the tree. Check. Miscellaneous crap stapled to the walls to give the house a festive look. Check..

So I’m done. But, in the unlikely event that you are still wanting some tips on what you can do to make your house more Christmasy, here is the list of how I decorate:

1) Pull junk out from under the stairs
I like to do this at least a week in advance of actually setting anything up. It takes that long for me to be able to straighten up afterwards. Any time I have to get anything out from under the stairs I wish I was the size of a Hobbit instead of being over 6 feet tall.
About 3 feet tall would be perfect.

2) After the week of healing is over I like to procrastinate for at least another week.
I have lots of excuses saved up from previous years. There isn’t any snow yet, it’s too cold, I’m tired from working, the neighbors haven’t put their stuff up yet, I have diarrhea, etc, etc.

3) The day like today finally arrives.
I haul everything upstairs. All four big boxes of stuff. In all there are probably only two boxes worth of useable stuff but family tradition requires that I must save and carry upstairs all the stuff possibly related to Christmas.

So, two boxes of useful stuff and two boxes of broken lights, broken Christmas ornaments, used Christmas crackers, old turkey carcasses, etc.

4) Set up the tree and lights
Setting up the artificial tree is easy. Except that one leg is broken off so you have to set it just so.
And the strings of lights that always work when you test them before putting them around the tree seldom work when they are actually on the tree.

As a guide 12-15 large strings of 100 lights each will usually yield about 150 actual lights that work on a tree.

5) Hide the tree and failed lights with decorations
There is at least one big box of homemade decorations. Thank you school division for your thoughtfulness in having my children make junk I have to display in my house rather than teaching them something that may get them a job later in life.

By the time I get to the bottom of this box I am literally throwing decorations at the tree hoping they will find a bare spot to stick on. And surprisingly the more hideous the decoration the better it sticks.

6) And finally, I wrap the tree in garlands and then hide them with that silvery tinsel. Just ask any store owner where the stuff that ruins vacuum cleaners is if you aren’t sure what tinsel is.

7) Put up Christmas cards on the wall.
We haven’t really received any Christmas cards in decades now. I just use the ones from my Grannies card collection. She was popular in her day. Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth I’m guessing.
The cards give the walls a festive look and make us look popular as well.

8 ) Turn on the outdoor lights.
I live in Manitoba Canada. The land of the never-ending cold. Well except for our 2 weeks of Summer when the warm winds howl across the prairies at 100km/hr (65mph for normal countries) from some glorious place or other.

Over half the lights don’t work. So, I could climb up on the death trap I call my roof and replace them. But the thought of spending a relaxing Christmas in Intensive Care being fed turkey soup through a straw doesn’t appeal to me so I, like all my sensible neighbors, resign myself to making do with those that do work.

And who needs more than 6, make that 5, outdoor lights anyways to show off that Christmas spirit.

And in the true spirit of Christmas this post has been recycled from one of my old blogs. I found it in with the broken decorations.

Tis the season for Christmas letters. The family updates that we dread so much from people who feel the need to share the years success’s with us. Like we would care or something.

I don’t (surprise) send these letters. I also don’t invite people over and subject them to hours of boring family videos or bunches of albums of hideous pictures of my family on our trip to the Grand Canyon (not that I’ve ever been there. It looks interesting but I’m not interested in visiting a big bunch of holes in the ground any time soon)

If I was to write a letter it would go something like this:

Hi Everyone,

Hope the things in your life have been going well.

For my part the past year has been just what I expected.

Young Billy (not his real name) has just finished junior high. He turned 20 this year so it was a big accomplishment.

Billy still has dreams of becoming a Doctor so I guess the little guy will be living at home sponging off me for decades to come.

The girls are doing good.

Jessica (also not her real name) has just landed a job at the local strip joint.
Don’t worry. It doesn’t upset me. I just go there on her days off.

Sara ( oh whatever, her real name) is having her 45th (I think) marriage. She’s certainly no slut, that girl. She won’t sleep with any guy unless they get married. At least for the day the one night stand takes place.
The fact that she has her Ministers license from the Mexican University of Metaphysical and Theological Studies really has paid off. And it just cost $199 to get a Doctorate.
Who would have guessed she had that much life experience.

Mom is doing great. She doesn’t remember anything of any consequence anymore so she’s happier than a pig in a poke. Which is also kind of how her house looks at the moment. Every moment that is.

And me, well I’m still working at a job I love. I even got a raise this year when minimum wage was increased due to a mandate by the government.
I used the back pay to purchase a new box for our new house overlooking the railway tracks. Far better than our old house next to the sewage lagoon and a much better class of neighbors.

Well, I must go. Someone is trying to tear a wall piece off of my house to use to start a fire and I need to smash their head in with a great piece of pipe I found.

Have a great Christmas.

Love,
The HB2 Family

ps: I hope the picture I glued on the letter doesn’t fall off before you get it. I didn’t have any glue so I stuck it on with genetic liquid from my mouth.

Skye wrote a post about special people in our lives. More specifically about people that we have met and then left behind. And how, on occasion, we think of them and sometimes even try to get in touch with them.

She wonders why they try to contact us out of the blue. Life has moved on. The bond is broken and they are but a pleasant (sometimes unpleasant) memory.

In the end her question is who are these people in our lives.

This is my answer:

I went through 7 schools in my journey to get through high school. I wasn’t bad. We lived on an ever changing school board boundary line and with each change I was sent to another school.

As a result I didn’t have lifelong friends anywhere. I had close friends for a year or two and group friends. I became an observer of relationships. I blended in. I knew everyone, unlike the people I went to school with who only really knew the crowd they had been with all their lives.

I tend to bond with people quickly but when they leave I also move on quickly.

So, in my life, who are the people that Skye is asking about?

No one, and everyone I’ve met. Online, offline. Someone who I joked with at a grocery store. A girl I met in the bar that I convinced to dance with me. The guy I knew as a kid but didn’t hang around with that just bought a new truck, the little kid that said “Thanks, man.” when I helped him put air in his bike tire, the poor guy I shared a coffee and a joke with, the lady whose hand I held as she died in the hospital when I worked as an orderly, the guy I biked backcountry trails with…..

People step into and out of my life. I enjoy the experience and I move on.

I don’t feel a need to see these people again but if they do return I’m not unhappy to see them. There is always another experience to share. Different but new.

In my experience people often try to reconnect when something changes in their lives.

Perhaps they realize they are mortal.Perhaps someone they loved died, like a parent.Perhaps something triggered a memory and made them wonder what has been going on with someone involved in the memory.

Usually, once the connection is made it is quickly broken by reality.

So, in my life if someone tries to connect with me I am fine with it.
If contacting me helps them move through whatever issue they are facing then good.

I understand the need. I don’t do it myself but I understand the need for others to do it.

So today’s question is:
1) There isn’t one. This is just my answer to Skye’s question. Fooled ya….

This is my first attempt at making gingerbread men/women cookies for Christmas.
I don’t intend to eat them myself. They are gifts for my family.
Hopefully they like eating them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Here is my recipe which is modified from one I found on the internet:

Ingredients
6 cups of all purpose flour (whatever that is) I actually used pancake mix for mine because I knew where it was in the grocery store.

I tablespoon of baking soda. Or any other powder your Granny has sitting on her bedside table.

I tablespoon of ground ginger. I don’t know what ginger actually is so I used meat tenderizer for this part. You could use ginger if you know what it is.

I teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Ha, ha,ha..like I live in China or somewhere where this would be available. Use Mrs. Dash like I did. Or spend a fortune and go to
China.

I teaspoon of ground cloves. This Italian spice isn’t available where I shop so I just added some baking powder. It had absorbed all the odours it could from the fridge anyways.

I teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Finally something I had in the attic. If you don’t have an attic, cinnamon gum would probably work.

I cup molasses. Yeah right, I live in cowboy days. Anyways, the pork and beans I had in the cupboard said they had molasses in them so I used them instead. It’s a lot better than the consequences of me actually eating them.

I cup of brown sugar. I had white sugar so I added gravy to it to tint it brown. Just like the sugar factories do I suppose.

1/2 cup water. I used Avian because these cookies were for people I love but if you don’t care about anyone just use tap water.

1 egg. I used a few mini eggs left over from last Easter but you could probably use an egg that fell out of a chickens bum if you are sick.

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Someone told me you could buy that in a store but I had some vanilla ice cream in the freezer that tasted to bad to actually eat so I used that instead.

Directions
1) You can save a lot of time if you just mix everything in a big pot as you collect it.
Some people like to separate the ingredients and mix them in odd ways but really, they will all end up together anyways, so why prolong the agony.

2) Apparently you should cool the mixture in the fridge for several hours.
I chose to not waste my life and make the cookies immediately.

3) Cut the cookies in humanoid shapes. Don’t worry if they don’t look just right. They don’t really end up looking like real people anyways.

4) Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until black. This saves guessing if they are really cooked yet.
If you are lucky enough to know someone who has a pottery oven you could cook them in there and save yourself 14 1/2 minutes.

5) When they are finished cooking let them cool for a couple of days and then ice them with whatever you have lying around in the fridge. I used icing off some muffins I bought that tasted funny but stuff like mouldly cheese or craft glue would probably work just as well.

One last tip.
Share your cookies, and by share I mean give all of them, to relatives who live far away. Your act of kindness will impress them.

You can buy boxes of professionally made gingerbread cookies for a tenth of the cost for those that live close by. They don’t need to be impressed. They already know all about you.

A very rich man journeyed to visit a wise man to get an answer to why he felt so empty inside even though he had a huge fortune.

And the wise man, being wise of course, told him this:

“Leave all your wealth with me and return home and you will have your answer”

“You can return later and retrieve your wealth” said the wise man, although he looked kind of shifty eyed when he said it. But it may have just been a facial tick or something.
Who knows what wise men are up to.

Anyways, the rich man left all his wealth with the wise man and headed home.

The first group of people the man met tried to rob him but when they saw that he had nothing they asked him to join with them.

Needing food and a place to stay the man agreed and soon he was robbing others who happened to pass close by.

He was surprised at how easy this really was for him. But in time he came to realize that taking from others was something he had done in his business for years. And he grew tired of the group he was with and he snuck away to continue on his journey homeward.

Along the way he met another group of people. And being hungry and without shelter once again he decided to stay with them for a while.

And this group or people did nothing all day but party and laze about and ask people for handouts.

Surprisingly the man he was good at this also. For he had spent years lazing about while others labored for him. And he was used to taking the largest portion of their work from them to fuel his lavish lifestyle.

But he soon grew tired of partying and begging and decided to continue on to his home.

The journey was hard and food and shelter became scarce for the man. And at the entrance to a small village he collapsed.

When he woke up he was in the home of a poor family who had noticed him on the road.

They shared what little they had with him and asked nothing in return.
And the man wasn’t used to this and he was confused by it.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, thinking they recognized him and expected to be paid.
But they did not.

“Then, why are you caring for me when I have nothing to offer you in payment? he continued.

“Because, you needed our help” they replied.”Life isn’t about wealth from money. True wealth comes through helping each other.”

And the man stayed with them for a while. And when he was well enough he worked hard and shared what he earned with them. And he no longer felt empty.

Eventually the man returned home. But he wasn’t the same man that had left.
He was no longer concerned about his own wealth. And he shared what he had with the people who worked for him and with those in his community.

And, the wise man on the mountain grew tired of waiting for the man to return so he took the money he was holding for him and bought a fast food franchise.
And he became maddeningly wealthy.

So, today’s question is:
1) How long do you need to hold someone’s money before you spend it?