Sometimes we need a little help getting into the Christmas spirit

I’ve been trying hard to not Scrooge out this holiday season. In past years, this hasn’t been a problem. As a rule, I’m as jolly as Santa. But just lately … well, there’s a lot going on in the world that steps on my Christmas spirit like some elephant stomping ants.

I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. I talk with friends and many report experiencing that same sense of creeping malaise; that feeling the world – our corner of it, at least – has somehow grown meaner, more small-minded, less civil. More self-serving.

Sure, every year folks gripe about the commercialization of the holiday, the loss of focus as to what Christmas is really all about, Charlie Brown. But this year just feels different. If there really is a “trickle down” effect, I think we may be experiencing it and it’s not as wonderful as some would have us believe.

You can’t lay the blame solely on Washington or Lansing, though, tempting as that may be. You can’t hold Facebook – that digital repository of ill will and bad manners – exclusively responsible, either. The trolls and zealots have been with us always, though it could be argued the online realm has given them larger soapboxes upon which to stand.

Even the media (fake or otherwise) can’t be held exclusively accountable for our tepid Christmas spirit. Reporting the news is not the same as making it, though again, it’s all too easy to kill the messenger.

So, what’s at the root of the problem?

I think you’d need a sociology degree, or at least you’d need to be a lot smarter than I am, to answer that question accurately.

It’s hard to maintain the hope and joyful spirit of Bob Cratchit when you’re (seemingly) living in a world of Ebenezers. Every so often, though, I come across something that makes it a little easier.

I’m thinking of a news story I read recently about Crystal Pacheco, a first-grade student living in Edinburg, Texas. As part of a class assignment, Crystal wrote the following letter to Santa: “Dear Santa Claus, I have binde good this day. This Christmas I would like a ball and a food. I need a blanket.” And if that doesn’t break your heart, you really need to be visited by three spirits.

The part of the story that really breaks my heart, though, is the part that came after, once Crystal’s teacher posted her letter on Facebook. All of a sudden, if only for a while, the online trolls slunk back into their caves, the zealots stepped off their soapboxes.

Within days, Crystal’s school had taken delivery of over 600 blankets, as well as some balls. The school fielded numerous calls, letters and emails from folks all over the country – and around the world – anxious to help.

When I read about that outpouring of good will, well, things suddenly felt a little less bleak. Maybe, I thought, we’re not all avaricious narcissists after all. Maybe there are more good people than bad. Maybe just one person, me, you, anyone, can in some small way make our world a better place.

Oh, I know this is still a dark time. The last time things got this dark they actually named an age for it: The Dark Ages. But the thing to remember, the thing that matters, is this: The Dark Ages were followed by the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, a time of beauty, truth, understanding.

I suppose it will always be the Scrooges of the world who make the most racket, while the Bob Cratchits go about doing good works in their own, quiet way. But my guess is there are a whole lot more Bob Cratchits in the world than there are Scrooges.

And remember, even Scrooge came around in the end.

We’ll be alright. Merry Christmas.

MTaylor325@gmail.com

MTRealityCheck.Blogspot.com

(616) 745-9530

We need a little less begatting around the holidays

I need to be rich. Not just a little rich, but a lot; six or seven million in monetary liquidity, at least.

I didn’t used to feel this way. There was a time, and not that long ago, that money was all but meaningless to me. As long as I had food on the table, a roof over my head and reasonably fast internet, I was happy as a well-fed, housed, wi-fi-connected clam.

But no more. Now I need the big bucks and I need ‘em now. Preferably in the next two days.

It’s because of my grandkids. I have too many of them and Christmas is this Saturday. My grandkids – Edison, Rosie, Ari, Kaelyn, Juniper, Junior, Daniel, Abraham, Blake, Valerie and Camdyn – have all happened in the past 16 years. And there’s at least one more we know about on his way.

My children, along with Mrs.Taylor’s (formerly Lori Frankforter’s), are responsible for more “begats” than the books of Genesis and 1 Chronicles combined. Seeing as I am the sole Catholic in this extended family, there’s absolutely no reason for all this widespread begatting. No logical reason, anyway.

Technically speaking, there could be another three grandkids – or even four if my oldest son could find a nice girl and settle down – by next Christmas. That’s 15 grandkids, man! A lot of presents to buy, in anybody’s book!

I mean, there are Arab sheiks with a dozen wives who have fewer grandkids than I do! And unlike me, the sheiks can afford them!

My daughter, Aubreii, assures me that Juniper, who was born just a couple months ago, is the last for her. But she’s said that before. At this point, I’m not sure she can be trusted. Mrs. T’s (fLF’s) daughter, Megan, is currently working on Number Three and is young enough to maintain her present reproductive pace for another decade or two.

As to the boys, Jordan, James and Jason (they should open the Three J’s Ranch or something), who knows how many more kids they could begat in the next 20 years?

Look, I love kids and I especially love my grandkids, every one of them. Even Rosie, who’s now 14 and spends almost all her time sulking and drawing anime figures in a sketch pad.

But I’ve done the math. If my children and Mrs. T’s (fLF’s) keep begatting at their current rate, and if my grandkids begin grand-begatting at the usual age, in 20 years I could easily have 6.2 million grandchildren and great-grandchildren. (I should point out my last math class was ninth grade algebra, and Mr. Paepke only passed me with a D because he felt sorry for me and it was becoming obvious I belonged in a special class.)

At the moment, I have only 11 grandkids with number 12 on the way to round it out to an even dozen. From a present-buying point of view, that about did me in this year. How am I going to handle buying for 6.2 million? I mean, even if I start shopping in June, like I always promise myself I’m going to do, that’s just too many presents.

So. I need to be rich. Not just rich enough to afford all those presents, but (preferably) rich enough to hire someone to do all that shopping for me.

Maybe I could hire one of my grandkids.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

It’s time to put the earthquake rumors to rest

If you live within 200 miles of town, you’re probably still reeling over the events of Sunday afternoon. Like so many, you’re no doubt wondering what caused the earthquake-like tremors that  shattered windows, startled small children and caused cows to stop producing milk.

Local news networks speculated the quake was caused by a meteor impact. This prompted at least one presidential candidate to propose a temporary ban on all undocumented meteors entering U.S. airspace. This in turn lead to strident protests on the part of the M-DAC (Meteor Diversity Action Committee), which pointed out that banning meteors based on their previous location in the solar system was not only unconstitutional, but just plain stupid.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, suggested fracking caused the tremors. Spokespersons for FY-WDA (Forget You, We’re Drilling Anyway) countered that earthquakes are a common occurrence in Michigan and Sunday’s event had nothing to do with fracking. They then added, “Yes, we do always keep our fingers crossed — just for luck. It’s got nothing to do with lying or anything.”

Several farmers reported seeing UFOs in the area around the time of the incident. Homeland Security established a perimeter and declared the area under “maroon alert.”

At any rate, before all this gets completely out of hand, I figured I’d better come clean: it was me. I caused the quake.

I didn’t mean to and I’ll happily pay for damages caused by my actions, which again, were entirely unintentional. If you simply must lay blame, blame the holiday.

It happened, after all, while I was putting up Christmas lights.

I’ve written in the past about my abject cowardice when it comes to heights. It sounds funny in print, but in real life, lemme tell ya, it’s a drag. I can’t wear boots with tall heels without getting all light in the head.

I once actually fainted in one of those glass elevators that run up the side of a tall building in Detroit. I can’t watch movies featuring mountain climbers, tightrope walkers or gymnasts on a balance beam without spilling my beer.

(If you’d like to insert a “plucka-plucka” chicken sound into this narrative, now would be the time.)

And yet, every December I get up on that blasted ladder to hang Christmas lights. It’s only 10 steps up, but it was from Number Nine that I toppled. 

That was several days ago, as I write this. It’s raining today and water is filling the impact crater left by my fall. A few late season ducks have gathered there for a last swim before heading south for the winter.

I’m typing with my arm in a sling, not the easiest task in the world. The urgent care doc says I may need surgery to get my humerus settled back into its rotator cuff, whatever that is.

On the bright side, my Christmas lights look nice and cheery, with the exception of that last string on the west end of the house; that one’s hanging askew, one end stapled to the roof, the other curled forlornly beside the impact crater.

So if you happen to drive by my house next August and see a guy paddling a floaty around his front lawn lake while Christmas lights blaze away on his roofline, you’ll know why.

My official Top Five Christmas Movies countdown

Most readers don’t know this, but my first real newspaper “gig” — nearly 25 years ago — was writing movie reviews. That’s how I got started in the business and I’ve never looked back, despite numerous editors who have suggested I probably should.

So this week’s column — my top five Christmas movies countdown — is a return to familiar territory. Let’s begin.

Listed here are what I feel to be the five most important holiday films of all time. There are of course some glaring omissions and opinions vary. These are the five I can’t live without.

What’s in YOUR top five? Send an email to the address at the end of this article and add your voice to the conversation! But for now, these are mine:

Number 5: A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” should not have been the hit it is. The made-for-TV special, which originally aired in 1965, was produced on a shoestring budget under a sponsorship deal with Coca-Cola.

Lack of decent funding resulted in the film’s sometimes choppy animation. Likewise, stilted voice-overs — some from child actors too young to read their lines — produced dialogue as choppy as the video. Then there are the editing snafus, such as the one in which Schroeder stops playing piano while the characters go right on dancing.

None of that mattered to viewers or critics, however. In fact, those “quirks” are precisely what make “A Charlie Brown Christmas” so popular, year after year.

For those who grew up with the film, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas until you’ve heard Linus explain the holiday to Charlie Brown by reading from the Gospel of Luke.

Best line from the movie? “…And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Number 4: HOME ALONE

“Home Alone,” which hit theaters in 1990 and has since made yearly TV appearances, is the most recent film on my “must see” list.

The film features a young Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old boy mistakenly left at home when his upper-class family flies to Paris for the holidays.

An ensemble cast, with standout performances by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as two inept burglars, help this flick transcend its slapstick origins. A heartwarming sub-plot involving “Old Man” Marley, Kevin’s scary next-door neighbor, further elevates the film beyond the one-liner, “jokey” status that bogs down so many holiday comedies.

Best line? “Keep the change, ya filthy animal!”

Number 3: A CHRISTMAS STORY

While “Home Alone” is among the top-grossing comedies of all time, “A Christmas Story” bombed at the box office and only gained popularity after it began airing on television. Since its release in 1983, it has become a holiday staple.

The story is a brilliant compendium of loosely-joined vignettes centered on the life of nine-year-old “Ralphie” Parker, played by Peter Billingsley, and his quest to snag a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.

The charm of this film is found in the way it manages to capture that elusive “something” that reminds viewers of what it’s really like to be a kid at Christmas. From bullies and clueless teachers to coming to terms with the possibility Santa may not be everything he’s cracked up to be, “A Christmas Story” delivers a holiday present no home should be without.

Best line? Nope, it’s NOT, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” The BEST line is, “In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.”

Number 2: MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET

There have been many remakes of this 1947 classic, but this one, starring Edmund Gwenn as an elderly man who believes (or indeed, probably is) St. Nick, is the only one you need to see.

After being hired on as an emergency replacement for an inebriated Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Santa, Gwenn proceeds to slowly convince those around him that it is indeed his name on the title of the fabled reindeer-powered sleigh.

A young Natalie Wood as the girl who has trouble relating to such childish notions as Santa Claus demonstrates a talent far beyond other child actors of the time. Likewise, Maureen O’Hara brings the character of the overworked, divorced mother to the screen for what may have been the first time ever.

As for Gwenn, it’s no surprise his role as Santa netted him an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The writing, story and screenplay also garnered an Oscar nod.

Best line? “Maybe I didn’t do such a wonderful thing after all.”

Number 1: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Produced and directed in 1946 by Frank Capra, who more than any other director of his time truly understood the American zeitgeist, “It’s a Wonderful Life” tells the everyman tale of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), a small town businessman who yearns for wider horizons.

After his uncle misplaces a large sum of money from the bank George manages, George considers suicide, only to be halted at the penultimate moment by a floundering Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), who turns out to be his guardian angel.

Clarence shows George a world in which he has never been born, and in the end, George realizes his life truly is, well, wonderful.

Rarely has a film managed to so deftly walk that narrowest of tightropes between preachiness and the truly inspirational. 

Though “It’s a Wonderful Life” didn’t turn big numbers at the box office, it has over the years won the hearts of generations of viewers and is recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American movies of all time.

Best line? George’s angry tirade to his money-grubbing nemesis, Mr. Potter, played to crotchety perfection by Lionel Barrymore: “Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about ... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you'll ever be!”

OK, that’s my top five and I can’t believe I left out “White Christmas” and “The Bells of St. Mary’s” either. “The Polar Express” and “Scrooged” are another pair of gems that didn’t make my personal cut. Likewise, I had to deep six “Elf” and “Nightmare Before Christmas,” both of which I like.

I’m sure there are others I’ve neglected. I’m hoping readers will point them out, since this year I’ve already seen those listed above, and there are plenty of cold evenings between now and Christmas.

To those who hate every film on my list, well, what can I say? Keep the change, ya filthy animal!

Share your top five with me at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Time to experience the latest, greatest shopping experience. Again

The mall is dead.

I couldn't believe I was reading those words. But there they were in the newspaper, a quote from the developer who owns the mall in question. Apparently, the developer plans to close off much of the mall, add "open spaces" and make other changes that will allow shoppers to get in and out in a hurry.

They want to make the experience less mall-like, and more like shopping at the old stores that used to be downtown, before the malls drove them all out of business.

All I can say is, I wish they would make up their minds, especially with Christmas right around the corner.

When I was a kid, Christmas shopping meant one thing: downtown. It was a major family event. My dad would put on a suit, my mom a dress; even we kids were wrestled into our Sunday best. We'd all pile in the Ford and make the 10 minute drive downtown, followed by the 20 minute search for an open parking space.

The stroll along snowy, downtown streets was nothing short of magical. Kids choirs sang on street corners, Salvation Army quartets blatted out-of-tune Christmas carols on dented trombones and coronets, the frosted windows of stores with august names like Steketee's and Wurzburg's glimmered and glowed with the promise of Christmas presents yet to come. Yes, kiddies, it really was just like A Christmas Story or "The PolarExpress."

At some point in the evening, we'd visit Santa, ride the monorail around Herpolsheimer's basement, and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows. By the time we arrived back home, we were tired, filled with the avarice only a child at Christmas can really understand, and ready to begin counting down the days until Santa's arrival.

Then, sometime around my 13th birthday, the first mall appeared. It grew like a mushroom on the outskirts of town, far from downtown, farther from our house.  "It'll never fly," my old man predicted. "Nobody's going to drive all the way out there in the middle of nowhere."

But parking was free. The family could shop in December without coats, hats, mittens. It was enclosed. Warm. Comfortable. Convenient. Seductive.

Over the course of a few years, the mall's Muzak siren song lured my family--and the families of so many others--away from downtown, away from the venerable stores that had stood as bastions of consumerism for generations. Despite the best efforts of planners, pundits and politicians, downtown died a slow and tedious death, one from which it has only begun in recent years to resurrect itself.

As the decades passed and I grew older, I couldn't help but feel a melancholy nostalgia for those downtown shopping trips with the folks and siblings. But change happens with or without our permission. I grew accustomed to the malls, the crowds, the cheesy Christmas decorations that were but a poor, inexpensive imitation of downtown's former glorious offerings.

And now, now at this late date, I read that the mall is dead. That the developer wants to "de-mall-ify" what was the area's first mall. The developer wants to appeal to the "modern" shopper.

I don't know if it's too late to put in my two cents, Mr. Developer, but here's an idea: Gather all those stores and put them in separate buildings, but within a similar geographical location, someplace like--oh, I don't know--downtown, say. Give them all big, picture windows facing the sidewalk. Hire a couple children's choirs and maybe give the Salvation Army Band a place to play.

It's a radical idea, I know. But it just might work.

Mike Taylor's book Looking at the Pint Half Full is available at mtrealitycheck.com or in digital format from Barnes & Nobles, Amazon and other online booksellers. Email Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com. 

I would give a lot for some of my mom’s fruitcake this Christmas

Fruitcake. It’s the one substance guaranteed to ruin what might otherwise be a happy holiday.

Yeah, I know there are people who love fruitcake. There also are people who enjoy Pauly Shore movies and the singing of Michael Bolton. This does not make any of those things—Shore, Bolton, or fruitcake—good.

While I have always felt free to express my dislike of Shore and Bolton, I was, for decades, forced to pretend I enjoy fruitcake. Why? Because I’m Irish, Catholic, and every year at Christmastime, my mother would make me one of those god-awful bricks of dough and pickled fruit. And when a good Irish Catholic boy’s mother presents him with a fruitcake—or any gift—the aforementioned Irish Catholic boy pretends he likes it, no matter what. It’s the law.

The holiday fruitcakes started coming the first Christmas after I married Wife Number One and moved out of the house. Wife Number One loved my mother’s fruitcake, and made the mistake of telling her so, thereby ensuring we would receive one each and every Christmas thereafter.

This was not a problem for so long as I was married to Wife Number One (five years, as it turned out). But when we went our separate ways, the fruitcakes kept coming.

This left me in the unenviable position of either a) eating the fruitcake myself, which was unthinkable, or b) throwing away perfectly good food, also unthinkable. There were—or so I had been brought up to believe—starving children in China who would sell their oxen for just one bite of my mother’s fruitcake. In later years it occurred to me that those starving children could just eat the ox if it came to that, but at the time the argument seemed plausible.

Faced with these choices, I would usually eat one small slice of fruitcake, heavily laden with Cool Whip to mask the flavor, just to assuage the guilt. What was left I would wrap in aluminum foil and place on a back refrigerator shelf. There the fruitcake would sit, week after week, month after month. Eventually, usually by July or August, I would toss out the moss-covered block, all the while mumbling to myself about what a shame it was that the fruitcake had gone bad.

This went on year after year after year. My mother lovingly crafted her fruitcake and gave it to me with a satisfied smile, secure in the knowledge that she was bringing some happiness into the life of her eldest son.

Then I ruined everything. After nearly 30 years of silence, I broke down and told my mom how I felt about fruitcake. Honesty, I decided in a moment of pitiable self-delusion, was the best policy.

“Oh,” my mother said, doing her best to hide her disappointment, “why didn’t you tell me?”

A fair question, but impossible to answer. I shrugged. That year my mother gave my fruitcake to my sister.

That was five years ago and I haven’t had a fruitcake in my house since.

I wish I had one this year. Shortly after I shared the truth with my mom, she stopped baking fruitcakes altogether. Then she stopped cooking, washing, cleaning house, dressing herself … the doctors said it was Alzheimer’s.

The drugs slowed it down, but not enough. When I visit her this Christmas, she won’t know who I am. She doesn’t know who she is. It will be a miracle, and not a kind one, if she’s still here next Christmas.

This is the woman who taught me to tie my shoes, who bandaged my scraped knees and made homemade chicken soup to battle my colds; the woman who spent the best years of her life making sure my life was good.

And I couldn’t pretend for just a little while longer that I loved her fruitcake.

If she could give me one this year, I swear I’d wake up Christmas morning, eat the whole damn thing, and count myself lucky.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com. Fun LOCAL events covered by Mike Taylor online HERE!

Want the perfect family this holiday season? Rent ‘em

I was talking with Angela, the girl who cuts my hair, the other day. It turns out we’re both going to be spending Christmas day alone.

Now, before you start feeling all weepy for me (or Angela), let me just say, it’s not so bad. I’ll be celebrating the holiday with the kids the day before Christmas and with friends a couple days after. But Christmas morning I’ll be flying solo.

I thought about asking Angela to join me Christmas morning, but she’s cute and younger than the socks I usually wear; I was afraid she’d take my invitation the wrong way. Too many people already think I’m a dirty old man; I don’t need to add Angela to that list.

At any rate, Angela (or maybe it was me, I don’t remember) came up with a good idea for dealing with solo Christmas mornings – rental families. This is the perfect time for a business like this to take off in a big way. The economy stinks, people are looking for work, and a lot of guys – like me – have been recently dumped and could use some company come December 25.

I envision it like this: For $100, say, you could rent a spouse. She would show up at the house early with “bed-head” and wearing an old robe. She would fix some coffee and maybe a couple eggs, and then wake you up with a cheery, “C’mon sleepyhead, Santa’s been here!”

You’d go downstairs together, turn on the tree lights, and then open presents.

“This isn’t what I asked for at all,” the rent-a-wife would say. “Don’t you remember? I asked for the green sweater. This one is blue! Did you at least save the receipt this year?”

It would be exactly like having a real wife in the house, only the coffee would be better.

Rent-a-kids also would be available at $50 each, so for $350, you could share Christmas morning with a nice, Catholic family like the one you grew up in. If you’re not Catholic, you could save a few bucks and rent just two kids, or even one, if you’re a yuppie.

The kids would dutifully scream excitedly over good presents and moan about the “gift” pajamas sent by Aunt Marge. They would shred wrapping paper with the fervor of rabid weasels disemboweling a bunny rabbit. The boys would make fun of the girls’ “stupid” gifts of tea sets and Barbie dolls, while boasting about their own Tonka trucks and GI Joe’s.

All of the children would complain bitterly that Santa did not, yet again, bring them either an iPod or a PlayStation.

The youngest child would spill eggnog down the heat register and the oldest girl would sob inconsolably after discovering the batteries for her remote-control Barbie Dream Car are not included and all the stores are closed.

But it won’t all be one-sided; your rent-a-family also would have presents for you. These would, however, consist of a garish holiday tie featuring Garfield in an elf’s hat and a pair of slippers shaped like the head of an antelope – pretty much what your “real” family would have purchased, if you had one.

By the time your rent-a-family leaves, sometime after 1 p.m., you’ll be happy to spend the rest of the day on your own, eating Chinese food and catching a flick.

Of course, as good as this idea is, maybe I’m coming at it from the wrong angle. So, if there are any single moms with a lot of kids out there who need a husband Christmas morning, I’m available. One-hundred bucks gets me sitting around the tree for two hours pretending I like the Garfield tie; for $150 I’ll even make the coffee.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

It’s tough getting through the Christmas eating season

Christmas is over and 2009 is just hours away. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad. Glad, glad, glad. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holidays, but they’re killing me.

One Christmas I could handle, but this year—by the time you read this—I’ll have had five. I blame my big, fat, Catholic family. There are just too many of us.

My first Christmas—the only one that’s totally stress-free—comes Christmas Day. The Lovely Mrs. Taylor and I wake up late (we can do this now that the kids are grown and out of the house). Mrs. T bakes cinnamon rolls while I drink coffee. We eat the cinnamon rolls and open our presents while “A Christmas Story” plays silently on the television and the gas fireplace pretends to warm the living room.

Later, we go out for Chinese.

That’s it. Simple. Peaceful. Perfect.

The next day, the kids and grandkids come by for our annual Mexican Christmas. We’re not Mexican, but by this time the kids—who have spent the previous two days with various in-laws and step-parents eating turkey and ham—are ready for something different.

The house fills with the sublime chaos of overexcited children hopped up on a potent mix of candy canes, cookies and Mrs. Taylor’s homemade fudge. Something usually gets broken, but who cares?

Tacos are eaten, presents are opened, batteries are installed, Legos are chewed into unrecognizable lumps by the dog, and a good time is had by all.

By the time everyone leaves, I am exhausted, stuffed with refried beans, and happy.

The next day, we gather at my in-law’s home for The Lovely Mrs. Taylor’s family’s family Christmas. My mother-in-law is a magnificent cook, and we all enjoy a “traditional” Christmas feast, usually to shameful excess.

Presents are again exchanged and opened. More food is eaten. Mrs. Taylor packs up a few leftovers for consumption in front of the television later that evening and we somehow manage to waddle out the door and squeeze into the car for the drive home.

The next day, we again go to the in-law’s house, this time for Christmas with the members of the family who come in from out of town and couldn’t be there the day before. We eat. We open more presents. We eat again.

Mrs. Taylor operates the fork lift now required to move me from the sofa to the car and back home again.

The next day, I visit my folks’ to exchange presents with them. They insist on feeding me because I’m “looking a little thin.”

I am not looking thin, nor have I looked anything like thin since the early 1980s, but telling them this does no good.

The next day is New Year’s Eve. Looking for all the world like a manatee with a thyroid condition, I don my black suit and accompany Mrs. Taylor to a New Year’s Eve party where—you guessed it—we eat.

The sound of bells ringing in the New Year is obscured by the squeal of my belt stretching beyond the manufacturer’s recommended tolerances.

I’ll be stopping by the gym Monday to renew my membership. I have 51 weeks until next Christmas’ eating season begins again. By then, if I work real hard, I should just about be back to my weight of seven days ago.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Top Five list of things nobody wants for Christmas

A sure sign that Christmas is coming; ads for electric hot dog bun warmers have started to appear in newspaper circulars.

Soon, superstore shelves across America will overflow with this sort of stuff; retail detritus that finds it’s way out of the warehouse but once a year—during the holiday shopping season. Why only then? Because nobody, but nobody, would ever buy this junk for themselves.

These are “gift items,” purchased for people you either don’t know or don’t like and we all give or receive at least a couple of them every year.

They are generally inexpensive, inoffensive and useless—everything you’re looking for in a “Secret Santa” present for the boss’ nephew down in payroll.

I’m not trying to Scrooge out here, folks, but really, isn’t it time we put an end to this madness? Retailers will hate me, but I’m going to take a stand here. Who knows, it might be the start of something big. Vive la revolution!

That said, here’s a list of things I do not want for Christmas. Seriously, if you were thinking of getting me one of the following items, make a donation to the Santa Claus Girls or some other charity instead. They could use the cash and come Christmas morning, I won’t have to feign excitement over an electric hot dog bun warmer.

At any rate, here’s my Top Five:

1) The bun warmer, or any electric appliance that takes up an acre of counter space and performs the exact same job as my microwave or stovetop, only more slowly and inefficiently.

2) A travel grooming kit. When on the road, I will not need to trim my nose hairs, perform a self-manicure, or grind calluses from the bottoms of my feet. If I think I might actually want to do these things while traveling, I’ll take along the proper tools for the job, which I already have in my medicine cabinet.

3) A funny calendar. Yeah, I like Dilbert, too, but I have calendars on my laptop, PDA and cell phone. I’m not going to use a little pad of tear-off sheets to keep track of my appointments. I’ll read the first three cartoons, and then the thing will sit like a brick on my desk until 2014, at which point The Lovely Mrs. Taylor will finally throw it out.

4) Cheap, battery operated LCD “video games.” If it costs less than a Gameboy, it’s junk. Nobody wants these, do you hear me? Nobody! Stop buying them and maybe they’ll go away.

5) Kinetic “sculptures.” I’m talking about water-filled glass birds that “drink” ceaselessly, metal balls that clack back and forth, bubbles that rise and fall through a plastic tube … these are all fun for about 20 seconds, and then they just gather dust until Mrs. T’s garage sale in June.

That’s my Top Five list of things nobody wants; heaven knows there are plenty more where these came from.

So this year, folks, let’s all stick it to the man and refuse to buy, give, or receive junk gifts. Give a homemade card, instead, or a batch of oatmeal cookies. Or put the money toward that Santa Claus Girls or Salvation Army donation.

And remember, nobody, in the history of the world, has ever needed or wanted a hot dog bun warmer.


More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.