The next several days are going to be somewhat hectic as I sell the masses cigars, humidors,  pipe tobacco and everything you can possibly smoke to make the holidays memorable.

I want to thank all that have visited and commented here in the past year.
Although I have been a slacker in the ‘Department of Replies’ know that I have read each and every comment left and that I really appreciate your visits.

I will be celebrating the holidays with family and many close friends and consider myself  blessed.
This is a time for the celebration of love.
And there is so much that I love.

I wish for all of you, tender and sweet dreams, hot chocolate memories, stockings filled with holiday confections and joys of heaven, healing conversation and the ultimate love of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes asleep in a manger.
Somewhere in Bethlehem . . .

I even wish for you some snowflakes on Christmas Eve.
Just not too many.

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” ~Andy Rooney

A Merry Christmas to all,

~m

~m

ps. Thanks to my friend GerryM for the video link!

I am blessed to have a place called home where I am loved,
where I can be myself,
somewhere that’s much more than just a home.
I am richly blessed.
I thank the Lord and my many guardian angels for taking such good care of me,
a disciple that sometimes feels unworthy of the many blessings received but a devoted disciple nonetheless.
A Merry Christmas to all.
Happy New Year, too.
I wish each and every one of you peace.
See you in 2011 . . .

~m

I stood at South Station tonight watching the Christmas Train roll along the tracks.
They set it up every year and tonight I found myself daydreaming [night dreaming?] a bit,
reminiscing about days gone by, Christmases past, simple times and in some smaller way, happier times.
Gone are the days of smoking Lionel train sets
and Adirondack baseball bats made of white ash, a hardwood that had that ‘swack’ sound
when you made contact with the ball.
We didn’t use those shitty aluminum bats made to save the freekin’ rainforest.
We cut down trees for bats and played baseball.
End of story.
I wonder how many boys have ever discovered the feeling of a baseball finding the ‘sweet spot’ on a bat;
it is something almost indescribable in a way.
It feels so very right and almost heavenly.
The same goes for the waxy and comfortable aroma upon opening of a fresh box of  ©Crayola crayons.
The memories of things that made me happy back then are now located high on a shelf,
out of view and out of reach.
I’m afraid that if I did try to touch them that they would sadly dissolve, settling into some
cob-webbed and cranial antechamber to be forever lost and untouchable ala ‘the Island of misfit Toys’;
“Nobody wants a Charlie in a box.”
Or a train with square wheels.
Christmas is supposed to be a season of hope and sacred renewal, love and unexpected miracles, the innocence of a child and the birth of the Christ.
My biggest problem is my inability to turn off the omnipresent and methodical holiday din; a most socially accepted version of seasonal torture.
Please don’t waterboard me with the Carpenter’s Christmas album.
I’ll give you my PayPal  and Amazon password, just not that.
My mind gets filled with everything but holiday spirit as sights, lights and sounds careen off my internal walls of yuletide cynicism and silent nights; I want so much more for my heart but it never seems to happen.
Maybe this year . . . maybe I will drift away on some runaway train to a tropical island where I can sell hot dogs from a stand while drinking Guinness and smoking Cuban cigars.
My Perfect Merry Christmas.
In a perfect world . . .

~m

I tend to go all indigo at this time of the year,
not for the laughs, and not for the seasonal tears,
I just go this funky shade of blue; no reason, no tears, no season, no fears . . . no.
And once again,
No.
It’s a seasonal dysfunction in need of correction,
a part of my life in need of direction,
in need of some indigo inflection and words that will never rhyme no matter what I do.
And I do.
Black. Obsidian. Shaft. Last.
Map of nowhere that I will ever be found.
It’s a yuletide cave of sorts; one that’s long, dark and godforsaken for seasonal reasons that will forever elude me.
Indigo . . .
is simply bluer than blue
Like Me.
Merry Me.
Merry, merry, me, where intricacies of the heart are a silent but beautiful holiday accident   . . .

~m

‘Christmasness’ is just a silly word I made up for this post title.
I have successfully made it through another Thanksgiving and will now wade through
the infinite complexity of Christmas with all its meaningless verve and endless commercial fluff.
For me, this is a season that has lost all meaning.
Period.
A-freekin’-men.
I have automatically tuned out the Carpenter’s ‘Merry Christmas, Darling’ and Nat King Cole’s ‘Christmas Song’,
not because I don’t like chestnuts on an open fire but because these days the sentiment means very little to me these days in terms of spirit.
I’m not the first person to say that this holiday has gone commercial but it has
and I have a tough time participating.
That’s just me.
My fountain pens are loaded with some amazing inks and I will just write my way though the holidays.
It will not only calm me down but may take some of the Grinch out of me by the 24th.
Look for a post on Christmas Day.
Until then,
I wish all of you peace and multiple moments of crystal blue silence amidst
the [unnecessary and] perpetual seasonal noise.

Pax,

~m

ps. wanted to tag this post, “Dear Santa, I’ve been a very bad boy this year. 5 tons of coal should do,”
but it seemed a bit long . . .

The text below was a spam comment on my blog that absolutely floored me.
It went into moderation (go figure) but I decided this was not a ‘bot’
but an actual person spamming me.
A very funny person, truth be told.
Sorry to say I will not be posting any Christmas links. (boldface text=meta tags)
They commented on a post written for Sarah before she started out on her current venture.
Funny stuff.

“I’m currently being held hostage by the Russian Mafia  [-xmas, christmas, santa]-
and being beaten to post spam comments on public forums!
If you don’t approve this they will maim me. [-jingle bells, christmas music-]
They are coming back now. [-one horse open sleigh, christmas gifts, christmas music-]
Please save me! [-xmas jokes, christmas morning, christmas carol]
-
but seriously, just trying to make a buck.
Help me out if you know how/can.
Hope this one was at least a bit entertaining.
Original credit to a much more original hustler.”

Original?
Entertaining?
Hells yeah!

*not blogging but a repost like this should suffice.

I thought this was hysterical.
If you know someone that’s Italian send them this link.
Believe me, they will relate.
After a recent comment, from the author, (3.3.08) I’ve found out who the man behind the story is and have given him full credit.
Wonderful story, Bill.
It almost made me take the chino’s to Browntown . . .

An Italian Christmas

by Bill Ervolino

I thought it would be a nice idea to bring a date to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve.
I thought it would be interesting for a non-Italian girl to see how an Italian family spends the holidays. I thought my mother and my date would hit it off like partridges and pear trees.
So, I was wrong. Sue me.

I had only known Karen for three weeks when I extended the invitation.
“I know these family things can be a little weird,” I told her, “but my folks
are great, and we always have a lot of fun on Christmas Eve.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Karen said.

I had only known my mother for 31 years when I told her I’d be bringing Karen with me.
“She’s a very nice girl and she’s really looking forward to meeting all of you.”

“Sounds fine to me,” my mother said.

And that was that.
Two telephone calls.
Two sounds-fine-to-me.
What more could I want?

I should point out, I suppose, that in Italian households, Christmas Eve is the social event of the season — an Italian woman’s reason d’etre.
She cleans. She cooks. She bakes. She orchestrates every minute of the entire evening.
Christmas Eve is what Italian women live for.
I should also point out, I suppose, that when it comes to the kind of women that make Italian men go nuts, Karen is it.

She doesn’t clean.
She doesn’t cook.
She doesn’t bake.

And she has the largest breasts I have ever seen on a human being.

I brought her anyway.

7p.m. –

We arrive.
Karen and I walk in and putter around for half an hour waiting for the other guests to show up. During that half hour, my mother grills Karen like a cheeseburger and cannily determines that Karen does not clean, cook, or bake. My father is equally observant. He pulls me into the living room and notes, “She has the largest breasts I have ever seen on a human being.”

7:30 p.m. –

Others arrive. Uncle Ziti walks in with my Aunt Mafalde, assorted kids, assorted gifts.
We sit around the dining room table for antipasto, a symmetrically composed platter of lettuce, roasted peppers, black olives, salami, prosciutto, provolone, and anchovies.
When I offer to make Karen’s plate she says, “Thank you. But none of those things, okay?”
She points to the anchovies. “You don’t like anchovies?” I ask. “I don’t like fish,” Karen announces to one and all, as 67 other varieties of foods-that-swim are baking, broiling and simmering in the next room.

My mother makes the sign of the cross and things are getting uncomfortable.
Aunt Mafalde asks Karen what her family eats on Christmas Eve.
Karen says, “Knockwurst.”
My father, who is still staring in a daze, at Karen’s chest,
temporarily snaps out of it to murmur, “Knockers?”

My mother kicks him so hard he gets a blood clot.
None of this is turning out the way I’d hoped.

8:00 p.m. –

Second course.

The spaghetti and crab sauce is on the way to the table. Karen declines the crab sauce and says she’ll make her own with butter and ketchup. My mother asks me to join her in the kitchen. I take
My “Merry Christmas” napkin from my lap, place it on the “Merry Christmas” tablecloth and walk into the kitchen. “I don’t want to start any trouble,” my mother says calmly, clutching a bottle of ketchup in her hands. “But if she pours this on my pasta, I’m going to throw acid in her face.” “Come on,” I tell her. “It’s Christmas. Let her eat what she wants.”
My mother considers the situation, and then nods.
As I turn to walk back into the dining room, she grabs my shoulder. “Tell me the truth,” she says, “are you serious with this tramp?”
“She’s not a tramp,” I reply. “And I’ve only known her for three weeks.”
“Well, it’s your life”, she tells me, “but if you marry her, she’ll poison you.”

8:30 p.m. –

More fish.
My stomach is knotted like one of those macramé plant hangers that are always three times larger than the plants they hold. All the women get up to clear away the spaghetti dishes, except for Karen, who, instead, lights a cigarette.
“Why don’t you give them a little hand?” I politely suggest.
Karen makes a face and walks into the kitchen carrying three forks.
“Dear, you don’t have to do that,” my mother tells her, smiling painfully.
“Oh, okay,” Karen says, putting the forks on the sink.
As she reenters the dining room, a wine glass flies over her head, and smashes against the wall. From the kitchen, my mother says, “Whoops.”
I vaguely remember that line from Torch Song Trilogy. “Whoops?”
No. “Whoops is when you fall down an elevator shaft.”

More fish comes out.
After some goading, Karen tries a piece of scungilli, which she describes as “slimy, like worms.” My mother winces, bites her hand and pounds her chest like one of those old women you always see in the sixth row of a funeral home.
Aunt Mafalde does the same.
Karen, believing that this is something that all Italian women do on Christmas Eve, bites her hand and pounds her chest. My Uncle Ziti doesn’t know what to make of it.
My father’s dentures fall out and chew a six-inch gash in the tablecloth.

10:00 p.m. –
Coffee, dessert. Espresso all around. A little anisette. A curl of lemon peel.
When Karen asks for milk, my mother finally slaps her in the face with cannoli.
I guess it had to happen sooner or later.
Karen, believing that this is something that all Italian women do on Christmas Eve, picks up cannoli and slaps my mother with it.

“This is fun,” Karen says.

Fun? No. Fun is when you fall down an elevator shaft.
But, amazingly, everyone is laughing and smiling and filled with good cheer — even my mother, who grabs me by the shoulder, laughs and
says,
“Get this bitch out of my house.”

Sounds fine to me.

After I hit the ‘publish’ button on this post I will be away
from the blog I so love for a little bit.
I have so many wonderful things to cook for the holidays over the next few days
that I will have no time to sit down and visit here.
I want to wish each and every person that visits a wonderful Christmas filled with
all the things you’ve come to know and love over the years.
I pray that broken hearts can be somehow mended, shattered spirits can be lifted,
a little grace can be restored and that
at least one person finally finds the true meaning of the holiday.
May God bless all of you.
Thanks for reading here.
I leave you with one of my favorite renditions of a Christmas classic.
And have yourself a Merry Little Christmas . . .

To my wife . . .
(and in a small way to a  very dear friend from Cape Cod ’09.  Do you remember?)