Scary Claus
Over the next 10 days I'll be doing some posts about my favorite holiday traditions. Since the holidays can be a stressful time of year as well I thought it would be fun to talk about something I did NOT like as a kid about Christmas.
When I was a kid, I was terrified of Santa Claus. My mother was never one to make us do things we were afraid of, but she did occasionally ask me to go see Santa every other year or so. I would oblige, probably because I thought I wouldn't get any presents if I didn't. I would dread the event and always feel an immense sense of relief when it was over.
In my experience, there are generally two types of Santa Claus'. The first is the general mall/strip mall Santa. This guy looks like he hasn't slept in weeks and had a beer for breakfast. His suit is ratty and his beard resembles tangled fiberglass. I.e. the Santa from A Christmas Story. The second type of Santa is the Macy's Santa. This guy is actually an old dude with a white beard. He looks more like someone's grandpa than a guy that just got off a 5 day bender. He might be a little jolly around the mid-section and his pop-culture equivalent is the Santa from Miracle on 34th Street.
It seems that most of my childhood memories of visiting Santa more closely resemble the former version. The worst was at a strip mall in the town adjacent to where I grew up. He was scary, fake beard, and not the jolly old elf he was promised to be. As I walked up the cheesy candy-cane lane, that seemed a mile away from where my mother stood and waited, I could feel my heart beat quicken. I turned back and mother waved and smiled. I looked ahead to "Santa", sitting on his ply-wood and spray painted throne, hunched over and looking hung over. He perched me on his knee and asked the obligatory question, halitosis overwhelming his words. I blurted out the first thing I could think of, American Girl doll stuff and hoped that it would soon be over. We took a quick snapshot and my mother was given a Polaroid in a card stock frame.
The next time, we went to Macy's and stood in the impossibly long line to see Santa. I'm sure it was supposed to be better. After all, Santa actually was a jolly old man this time. He wasn't in a strip mall, his digs were far superior, but somehow it didn't matter. This visit was just as bad as the one before.
While an adult can make the distinctions between the two types of Santas, kids don't bother. And why should they? At the end of the day they're sitting on a stranger's lap either way. When you think about it, taking a child to sit on a strange man's lap in a mall is a bizarre and legitimately scary thing. When you take away the illusion of the spectacle, it's easy for adults to see why this could be such a terrifying event for a child.
Words to Live by
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
-Soren Kierkegaard
-Soren Kierkegaard
Mighty Oregon
I defended our team, because being a duck isn't about rankings, high profile boosters, or even how many uniform options you have. It's about the feeling in the air as you walk across the footbridge to Autzen Stadium on game day, a feeling that can only be equated to an adult's version of Christmas morning. It's about being on the other side of the country and seeing someone wearing the "O" and shaking hands. It's about supporting the PAC-10 as we consistently try to shed our underdog status. And it's about building an empire.
The state of Oregon has 1/10 the population of California. We have a small number of universities. Our economy has struggled, even when the country has experienced prosperity. I'm glad to see our great state be in the news for being among the best of the best at something. I believe Chip Kelly has kept the heads of our players on straight this season. As we rose in the rankings and continued to be undefeated he reminded them that can all change overnight. So thank you to Coach Kelly, to all the players and to Mike Bellotti who laid the groundwork. You've given us so many reasons to be proud to be ducks this year. The road has been paved for future teams, now it's time to build.
Holiday Books
I am nearly done with my term at school and have found the past few weeks were such a whirlwind I wasn't able to get much writing done. Well, actually I did a ton of writing. I was just writing a 20 page literature review and 3 other papers instead of writing for this blog. I am looking forward to this week and getting back into the habit of updating.
When I was young I loved to read and I always looked forward to bringing out the holiday books at Christmastime. Here are a few of my favorites:
The Starlight Bride by Paul Owen Lewis
This book is beautifully illustrated by Pacific Northwest author Paul Owen Lewis. A prince must find his bride and one true love before Christmas.
Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett has some of the most intricate and beautiful illustrations. The mittens in this book look a lot like the ones my grandmother used to knit for our family.
Kirsten's Suprise was a book based on the American Girl doll who had come to America with her family from Sweden. I still love this book because it is all about blending old traditions with new during the holidays.
This year I'd like to add Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien to my collection!
Fanfare: Gwyneth Paltrow
In case you missed her episode of Glee last night, here she is performing Cee Lo's "Forget You" to the New Directions.
I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing her new movie, Country Strong, which comes out in January and in which she sings. Here's to taking risks, and new directions! (pun intended)
Why Conan Matters
Conan O'Brien returned to late night television this week. It's easy to think of him as a successful celebrity millionaire, who will never need to worry about how to pay the bills, but Conan has more in common with a lot of Americans than you might think.
I like to imagine what it might have been like for Conan back in the 80's and 90's working as a writer on Saturday Night Live. He was so close to comedic success, yet in the company of people who never achieve the kind of success he eventually would. Conan eventually achieved his dream job of hosting the Tonight Show, only to fail at the highest and most public level and lose it to the guy that had it before.
Last week, when he returned to the airwaves on his new show on TBS, Conan came back humbled and it would appear, more determined than ever to be a success. It seems that his exile might have made him funnier, ignited a fire that can die with success, and gave him a new direction. The self deprecating theme provided a lot of material.
What Conan is exemplifying is that it is not our success or failure that must define us, it is how we rise again when we fall that matters. That no matter how big we get, we can always be made to feel small. That success is relative, and so is loss.
Now he moves forward, on a much smaller network. But he has started a new legacy, instead of continuing an old one, and instead of having to be pushed back into a new time slot, someone else moved back for him. You'd better believe George Lopez didn't mind being asked to follow Conan. In Conan's life, as in my own, it looks like things are going to work out after all. Not the way anyone expected, and not the way that they'd hoped, but perhaps, in the end, even better.
After all, the only thing America loves more than a success story, is a comeback.
Veteran's Day
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
