Oh Dorkmas Tree

The Wife and I have a minimalist view of decorating. Most of our walls are white and have few photos and we're in an ongoing debate over the value of curtains. When we painted an accent wall in our basement red two years ago the governor of Minnesota seriously considered holding a press conference marking the event.

But we make an exception at Christmas, as if we release our inner Elsie de Wolfe for one month out of the year. (That said, it's not as if this inner Elsie has the same skills as the influential 18th century designer whom I hadn't heard of before I Googled "famous interior designers" for this post; we still pretty much suck at interior decorating, but with everything loud and bright this season it's not that decorating for this time of year is especially difficult.)

We also begin early -- I start the decorating the moment the last bit of stuffing is unceremoniously crammed into a cheap plastic container and imprisoned into the refrigerator until Christmas. When your home's major design element is a Playmobil pirate ship and an infant's toy piano, the arrival of a tree and twinkling lights and fake garland is refreshing. That inner Elsie is just dying to get out.

I have to get a big one, because I still remember the old episode of The Waltons where they got a tree so big they poked a hole in the roof -- I've been shooting for that goal ever since. We get the wood trees, the versions that emerge under candy-cane colored tents on abandoned lots every November. We like the wood trees because we love having our carpet coated with pine needles until July. And I love scratching the roof of my van and getting my hands coated with enough pine tar to require surgical removal. And I really love the annual argument with my wife titled, "Is the Tree Straight?" It goes like this:

ME (doing serious damage to my back by bending underneath the tree for hours all while wondering, "Why can't she do this?"): Is it straight?

WIFE (clearly tired of holding the dang tree): Yes. Yes it's straight. Like an arrow. Or a compass. Now can we get on with my life?

ME (after spending several hours and numerous cracked knuckles trying to twist the screws in the tree stand): Hey, that's not straight! (Insert numerous cusswords here, then follow them with a nice gripefest between husband and wife.)

THE BOY: Mama, why are we going to the hospital?

WIFE: Because I accidentally shoved the tree down Daddy's esophagus and now it's stuck.

THE BOY: I hope he gets the same room he did last year.

This year's tree decorating required a bit more skill than usual, because this year's home includes a crawling, standing infant just tall enough to wreak considerable havoc upon any poorly placed Christmas ornaments. As you might imagine, a tree filled with lights and shiny, dangling objects is irresistable to a curious infant eager to find shiny objects he can stick into his mouth. But it's not the ornaments I'm worried about, but the tree -- a tree toppling upon my youngest would not make for a quality holiday season.

We do have some breakable ornaments, and most of them have already broken. Those that haven't been reduced to a fine layer of dust at the bottom of our ornament storage box get put toward the top of the tree. The ugly, non-breakable ornaments go toward the bottom. And then the whole tree is anchored to the wall because I'm really paranoid, which is what happens when you've had Christmas trees in homes occupied by toddlers and cats.

While my paranoia kept the two cats I used to have from taking down the tree, I've seen it happen. I was in fifth grade. I spend the night at a friend's house, and the cat repeatedly -- and I mean repeatedly -- kept knocking over the tree, all night long. Everybody woke up. The mom lifted the tree back up, grumbled about "that damn cat" and then everybody went to bed. Ten minutes later the cat did it again and the family repeated the process. Eventually, they quit putting the tree back up. Ever since, I've viewed cats as killers of Christmas trees. And that family as total idiots.

How to liven up your Thanksgiving shindig

I'm going to spend Thanksgiving like most of you: Stuffing my face surrounded by people who drive me crazy.

Truthfully, I like my family members, but most of our holiday gatherings are dull affairs that involve mostly child watching. We could venture downstairs to where I keep my television so we could watch football, but people are usually too full of turkey and cranberry sauce to get up off their chairs and, besides, who wants to watch the Detroit Lions play, anyway?

(Every year I wonder why anybody in their right mind would let the Lions play every year on Thanksgiving in front of a national TV audience. What is the NFL trying to do, make everybody in the U.S. barf at the same time?)

Occasionally, somebody will go crazy and break out a group game, and then at the end somebody will note that this year's event was successful because nobody began snoring in the midst of the festivities.

This year I aim to change that, and have come up with a few ideas to liven up the Thanksgiving feast. And, because this blog is, above all things, a source of important information, I'm sharing them here so you ccan use any of these ideas at your own holiday event.

One word: Booze. The problem with most holiday meals is that they're non-alcoholic. I say inject every item with brandy, port, 150-proof vodka, moonshine or rubbing alcohol. Sure, everything will taste bitter, but by the time your meal is over the entire family is dancing on the table. (You may consider getting an extra-strength table if you plan on doing this.) And nobody will care one bit that your turkey was dry and that your stuffing tasted like soggy Wonder Bread. (Warning: You may want to avoid this if you plan on having any uncles at your party, to avoid the dreaded drunk uncle, which actually eliminates my celebration. By the way, I would not be the drunk uncle, as I don't drink and, besides, I earned the "creepy uncle" label long ago.)

See how quickly I can creep out my niece's boyfriend. Meh. This won't take long. I'll just show him this blog post.

Chair tossing contest. Some time ago, legendary Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight tossed a chair across the basketball court because, apparently, he was cranky. Why not replicate this at home? Sure, you may get your wife/mom/sister/aunt/uncle/boss really angry, but imagine the fun you'll have after you've tossed a chair from the living room past the dining room and into the kitchen while your cousin Earl hits the wall. BAAAHAHAHAHA! Take that Earl!

Stage diving. I did this in college with my roommates. One of us dived off the couch, and the rest of us caught the diver. We each took turns. We had a blast until one of us got smacked in the head, but I'm sure that won't happen to grandma if we replicated this. So I might give this a try.

Hey, why don't you watch a movie? Wait. Did I just put something totally obvious in here?

Slip n' slide. You might consider this a bad idea, given that I live in Minnesota and would put my guests in danger of hypothermia, but I'm thinking of doing this inside. And on the steps into the basement. (Hey, I have a sump pump; what could possibly go wrong?)

Rooftop skiing. Too bad we don't have any snow. This would be a great one. Maybe Christmas.

Bungee jumping. This might work. The top of my garage roof reaches two stories. We'd just need a particularly short bungee cord.

A rousing game of "Clean DD's Refrigerator." OK, I can't do this on Thursday because I already spent about five weeks clearing my fridge of the various life forms that had taken up residence while rediscovering that the inside of said appliance was actually white. (Who knew?) For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to reduce the risk that one of my sisters would open the fridge to find some heretofore unknown species screaming at her. But this would be a good idea for future holidays. Instead, maybe we could play a game of "Re-Organize The Garage" or "Replace The Roof," "Install My New Water Heater" or "Build Me A New Deck."

Entering the movie drought

In my pre-kid days, when The Wife and I had time and money and were not chained to a pair of cute but loud distractions, we went to the movies. A lot.

We like movies, but mostly we went because we couldn't think of anything else to do with all of our time and money and personal freedom.

"Uh, we can go to the movies or do absolutely nothing again."

"Let's go to the movies."

So when The Boy's arrival was imminent, all I could think of was how many movies we were going to try and fit in by the birth day.

(While we were trying to have kids, we, uh, made various efforts to avoid getting pregnant during March and April; officially, the reason was to avoid having a Christmas baby; unofficially, the reason was to ensure that we'd be able to see Return of the King in the theaters. That said, when it was evident that The Boy would be born in July, I prayed a time or two that he'd show up only after Spider-Man 2 was released. My prayers were answered, by the way, and I indeed dragged an extremely pregnant Wife to the movie's opening. She spent most of the time in the bathroom.)

Not surprisingly, this is one thing I miss: Seeing movies unencumbered. Yes, I have Netflix, a television and a comfortable couch. And yes, I don't miss cell phones and obnoxious teenagers and the fact that I have to pawn the family jewelry to be able to pay for a night at the movies and a bag of popcorn. But I do miss the big screen, the pre-movie trivia, the clinically depressed theater staff and the decades-old unworking arcade games in the waiting area where the high scores are dominated by some dude named Ass. And the giant, in-theater movie posters. I miss them, especially because most movies hit their peak when the poster is made. I almost never want to see a movie as much as I do when I see the poster.

(A few movies hit their peak later, when the first trailer comes out; The most infamous of these was Godzilla, which years ago teased me with the single best trailer of all time, one before The Lost World, which showed Godzilla's big, green foot stomping upon the skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex; I was hooked, and wound up being so disappointed several months later when I finally saw that horrific piece of cow dung that I've refused to see Matthew Broderick in a movie ever since.)

Going to movies these days is a chore, because we have to get baby sitters. And while we have a great baby sitter in the form of my niece, it still requires the expenditure of more money along with another layer of complex, advance planning. And I'm cheap and lazy. So we don't go to many movies. And I'm hardly alone. Parents of young kids routinely say things like, "I haven't seen a non-child movie in the theaters since Ben Hur. That was back in the days before the 'Talkies' came out."

Still, the temptation to see a movie is great, to the point where I actually wondered aloud whether I should see a movie -- gulp! -- by myself.

I have no problems with people seeing movies by themselves. I have a problem with me watching a movie by myself, mostly because I can't help thinking that a single, lone, middle-aged male watching a movie in a dark theater is just really creepy. As if to confirm this, when I told my wife I was thinking of taking myself to a movie that she didn't want to see, her first reaction was "Don't do anything creepy."

What does she think I'm going to do?

ME: Uh, dear, I got arrested.

WIFE: What for now???!?

ME: Indecent exposure.

WIFE: I thought you were at the movies!

ME: I was.

WIFE: And I thought you were watching "A Christmas Carol."

ME: Uh, I was.

And at that thought, no movie for me.

The Dork hits Vegas

In the morning I'm flying to Las Vegas to attend a "conference," which apparently is some sort of pseudonym for "I'm going to gamble my life saving's away and wake up married to the waitress of a local diner."

I actually am attending a conference, but I suspect that it'll be a big challenge trying to resist skipping the whole thing so I can see repeated performances by Celine Dion and Wayne Newton. I could get a lifetime's supply of overperformed pop music and cheesy lounge tunes in three whole days. And while I'm at it I'll get my fill of neon and drunk people.

The truth is, however, that this will be my first trip to Vegas. I've never been there, mostly because I don't gamble.

(Note: According to something I looked up on the Internet by myself, only 5 percent of people admit they go to Vegas to gamble, but 87 percent gamble while they're there. So if I succeed in not gambling I'll be in the distinct minority.)

The thing is, gambling scares the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong -- the prospect of winning large sums of money appeals to me. The problem is that I have to spend money for the chance of that happening. I'd be far happier if I just walked in the door and they showered me with heaping amounts of cash. Heck, I'd be thrilled with just a few mid-sized bills. (Perhaps, if I worked hard enough, I could convince somebody to pay me to stay out of their establishment by repeatedly yelling "I HAVE A BLOG AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!" But the prospect of the owner using a few big, beefy guys to toss me out keeps that from being a viable option.)

So gambling is the only way I'll get large amounts of money, and I hate gambling because I'm risk-averse. I once drove all night with a friend of mine from college. He was a gambler, and we passed a casino on the way home. "Hey, want to stop by quick so I can throw away what little hard-earned money I have?" he asked.

"Uh, sure," I said. He was driving, after all, and I have a hard time saying no.

I had $5 on me. I used all of it on the slots, and won $0.

He went and played blackjack. After 30 minutes he was out $100.

Guess who was more upset? Me. Sure, $100 doesn't seem like much, but we were in college and neither of us would be what anybody would term "wealthy." $100 at the time WAS a lot of money. And as I was subsisting on deer meat and government cheese from a roommate's friend at the time, so was $5.

I HATED losing that $5. I kept thinking about the gas station burritos I was going to use that $5 on and it made me sad and grumpy -- and hungry. The memory of tossing that $5 out the window has stuck with me so much I've refused to go into a casino ever since.

Which of course would make Vegas an unlikely option for me, despite my love of Elvis and tiger-loving magicians.

The good news, I guess, is that come Wednesday night when I come home I'll likely have the same personal net worth that I had upon my arrival there -- unless, that is, I give into my intense obsession with Cirque du Soleil and blow it all on tickets. Must ... see ... people ... who ... bend in ... odd shapes!

Night of the Zombie Dork

Here's how I spent my Halloween: By walking slowly and stiffly, with a distant look on my face, groaning and grunting and scaring my boy.

Did I dress like a zombie? (BRRAAAAAIINS!) Hardly. I threw my back out.

(Excuse me now while I curse like a sailor and yell.)

I'd like to say that I threw my back out while valiantly defending my family from a gang of thieves or an army of black-clad ninjas; or that I was hoisting a piano upstairs by myself. The sad reality is that I hurt my back sitting down, which I still don't understand, because I sit down dozens of times every day. I'm an EXPERT at sitting down. At least I thought I was. Now that my lower back is screaming at me I have my doubts.

Much of the neighborhood knew that I did this because I screamed like a Packers fan after a Brett Favre touchdown (for the Vikings). This scared The Boy, who had to witness his father crumple to the ground, whining like a school girl. He usually only sees this when I realize that it's time to change the diaper pail.

"Is he going to DIE?" The Boy asked.

No, boy. I only FEEL like I'm going to die.

I hate back pain, because I feel so old. And this one was bad, too, so I feel really old -- zombie old. Every move I make is stiff and slow and is punctuated by a groan or a small prayer or a what-the-hell-am-I-going-through-this-for? Everything I do is preceded by a mental cost-benefit analysis (do I REALLY need to use the bathroom?) because its completion is just so difficult.

About the only good thing about my back is that it gets me out of baby care (either because I can't effectively pick up the baby or because my wife has legitimate questions about whether I really am a zombie) and house work. (I'm really sorry, dear, but I just CAN'T rake the yard; back problems, you know.) It also gives me something to complain about, and blog about. I'm getting waited upon by my wonderful wife, and I get to act like a zombie without her telling me "Hey, quit acting like a zombie."

(I know what you're thinking: "Hey, that back pain doesn't sound so bad!" But it's almost like I made a deal with the devil, or Alanis Morrisette: I get everything I want, but I have to endure a searing, debilitating pain to get it. I'd rather rake the yard and change diapers.)

So I'll have to go to the doctor today, and if I'm lucky he'll prescribe powerful painkillers and a cane. I've always wanted a really cool cane, which I could wave while chasing kids off of my lawn. Heck, if I'm going to feel this old, I might as well get some of the benefits.

Now excuse me. I've got a craving for some BRRRRAAAAAINS!!!