A Christmas Story

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.
Then Mrs. Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.
When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.
Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.
Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drunk all the cider and hidden the liquor.. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.
Just then the doorbell rang, and an irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.
The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

I did not write the above. I got it off an email. Still it's interesting to learn how traditions get started.

Speaking of interesting, well sort of interesting, it has been so unseasonably warm, except for today (20's), that some plants and trees have apparently been fooled into thinking we have had the shortest winter season ever because they are starting to bud. I wonder what will happen in the spring?

It's song parody time again. Back in the 70's Eric Clapton had a hit record "Cocaine". That's the music that is used here. I'm sure it's the same all over the country, but states that are close by will poke fun at each other. Here in New England I'm sure the surrounding state poke fun at Massachusetts. There's certainly plenty of material to work with. In this case Tom Doyle, the man who writes and performs these parodies, takes some shots at the state of Maine. He's done this several times. This one is titled "In Maine".

I'm getting over a little cold. It started 4 days ago and it's finally gone. This is the first cold I've had in 30 years. I have been quite lucky. I attribute this hardiness to having many colds when I was younger. I also had just about all the childhood diseases. Chicken pox, mumps, measles, scarlet fever. Then there was the eye operation and the ruptured appendix. And yet I would not consider myself a sickly child. I think we are sanitizing ourselves to death. I have no facts to base this on but I wouldn't be surprised if people have weaker immune systems now. Just a thought.

For Nancy. I received the package yesterday. It looks great and my sister's going to love it. Thank you!

Well that's it for now.
I'm outta here.