It’s been almost a week, so it’s time to dig through those bags of Christmas presents stacked up in the bedroom and try to make some sense of the head-scratchers. You know, the unusual and perplexing ones you received. Call it “The Christmas Gift Search for Meaning.” That’s when you try to find the answer to why someone thought you needed such a thing. Try it. It’s rather enlightening. Two portable car battery chargers – These both came from my aunt. She’s the queen of strange and mystifying Christmas gifts. Usually there’s a theme, and this year it was: “A hurricane is gonna’ kick you in your privates, so be prepared!!!” As such — and because here in St. Augustine, Fla., we’ve been through two hurricanes in a single calendar year — we got solar-powered radios, military-grade tactical flashlights AND multiple car battery chargers … just in case while fleeing a hurricane my car breaks down MULTIPLE TIMES. My aunt doesn’t understand that in this disposable age, when car batteries go dead, people just walk away and call an Uber. Even in hurricanes.
The meaning behind a Christmas light car ride
It doesn’t help that it’s 76 degrees outside, and that when you file into the car, there are mosquitoes buzzing your ears. But gather up your family, no matter what the temperature, and load them in for a spin around town looking for Christmas lights, and you’ll feel the holiday spirit, even in Florida … where it feels more like a rotisserie chicken than December. The temperature doesn’t matter as you roll around looking for the most garish, the most over-the-top, the most outlandish, retina-blinding, chaotic spectacles of light that anyone can plant in their yard. There are houses drowned in blow-up lawn decorations with absolutely no thought put into how they’re grouped together. Hula Santa in board shorts hanging with frigid North Pole Santa and penguins? Who cares! It’s Christmas! Houses displaying taste and grace and a holiday sensibility with simple, twinkling white lights and dignified Christmas wreathes. And houses that look like their owners bought up the entire holiday sale aisle and then dumped them out of a helicopter.
The Dark Side tries to spoil new ‘Star Wars’ for me
Must … resist … the … Dark … Side. It calls to me. Tempts me to read spoilers about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” before I have a chance to see it. “Brian! Just Google: ‘spoilers for new Star Wars movie.’ The Force will show you the way.” No … must … resist …. I messed up royally with the last installment. Read a few too many stories and learned about Han Solo’s death. Wait, a minute … you didn’t know that? I meant how he landed the Millennium Falcon in a yellow zone and Republic Parking Enforcement put a boot on it. I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I don’t want to read too much, or accidentally scroll through something that gives away key plot points. I have to resist for a few more days … until I can get my unenthusiastic family off the couch to go see it.
Dial-it-in Christmas decorating
It may have been a world record for Christmas decorating. In fact, I think it took longer to get the boxes out of the attic than it did to get ornaments on the tree and the holiday nick-knacks dispersed about the house. I’ve nearly foregone Christmas just so I wouldn’t have to drag those dang boxes down the rickety attic steps. Nothing is worse than hitting your head multiple times, stumbling over luggage and nearly toppling out of the opening, only to be told: “No! That’s a box of Thanksgiving stuff! We need Christmas!” But once it was all down, decorating became a slapdash race this year. Even more so than previous years. At times, it looked more like net-casting or leaf-blowing than decorating. Maybe it was the weather. It felt like 120 degrees outside as I strained in the sun to put Christmas light icicles around the front porch and not get impaled on the bougainvillea. My wife reported to her aunt in Long Island that it was a very Florida Christmas: “We’re all in shorts, the doors are open and we’ve got the AC running.” Maybe that had something to do with the not-so-festive mood. The just-get-it-done approach. Like we were at the beach, not the North Pole.
Lessons from Thanksgiving
It was a time to give thanks — to be mindful, take stock in all that we have and show gratitude. That is the meaning of Thanksgiving. But along with it, the holiday brings a lot of other lessons for us to learn and ponder. Lessons not quite as significant, but just as important. Like how dogs would sooner be thrown into a pool of hot lava than go out in the rain. And if you’re in a hurry – because it’s Thanksgiving morning and there’s a turkey in the oven – they’ll fight you even more. My brother and his family traveled north this year to visit my sister-in-law’s family. We took care of his dog, who I affectionately refer to as “Meat Chunk.” It’s because she resembles a side of beef. She runs around the house with my dog crashing into things, dislodging structural support walls and crushing toes. Because my dog and his are like dueling tornadoes, Meat Chunk was going back to her house Thanksgiving morning. The rainy morning. The morning when everything was flooded. The morning I had a 15-second window that didn’t include time for scrambling around the car trying to get her out and yelling, “Damn you, Meat Chunk, it’s just a little rain!” That got a few stares on the street.
Memo for a Winter Spectacular
Memo to Dad Subject: Upcoming performance of ‘The Winter Spectacular’ Because you are known NOT to pay attention, I am writing you this memo to go over important instructions for my performance of “The Winter Spectacular.” As you may recall, but probably don’t because you had that blank look on your face at dinner, “The Winter Spectacular” is when I dance and spin colored streamers to the delightful sounds of Christmas music. It is for select family members and takes place in the dining room. You remember now? All coming back to you? Your role in the performance is very simple … which is why I’m worried. Whenever something is “simple” you either: 1) over-complicate it, or 2) don’t pay any attention. LIKE RIGHT NOW! Are you paying attention!?! Come on, stay with me. OK, so here are some key things you must remember: • The performance will last approximately 4 hours. There will be seven 20-minute intermissions, and an encore that should take a little over an hour depending on how long the applause goes on for. • You are strictly forbidden from taking bathroom breaks, coffee breaks, breaks to complain about how long the show is or any mention of soccer matches on TV that you’re missing. We all know you’re DVR-ing them!
The Thanksgiving Quiz
Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and to get everyone ready for the cooking and the horde of family members who will complain about your food, question all of your hard work and then spend the whole day fighting like a pack of drunken honey badgers, I’ve put together this quiz. Answers at the bottom. 1. How do you know when the turkey is ready? A. It reaches an internal temperature of 865 degrees. B. The ice chunk in the body cavity finally melts. C. You get tired of guests asking when it’s going to be ready so you just start carving it, even though the juices aren’t running clear. D. You have a “hunch” or a “good feeling about it.” 2. At what time is it appropriate to open the first bottle of wine? A. 5:15 a.m. B. 5:30 a.m. C. 5:45 a.m. D. After the 52nd time your mother calls asking when she is supposed to come over. 3. What is the best way to defuse family tension at the dinner table? A. Tap dance routine. B. Faking appendicitis. C. Blurting out as loud as you can: “IT WAS COL. MUSTARD IN THE PARLOR WITH THE PIPE!!!” D. Demand that all family members submit to genetic testing to prove that you are related by blood.
Big, dang TV time
There are moments in our lives when insights reveal themselves in special events and the world is never the same again. The birth of a child. A marriage. A devastating illness or injury. A milestone birthday. A career change. Or when you realize your TV screen isn’t big enough. BLAMMO! Hurricane Irma did it for me. We were staying with friends — designated by the county as the official Thompson evacuation shelter — and I was watching The Weather Channel, mesmerized. “That’s a big dang TV!” I told my friend. “I mean, it’s like a Jumbotron. I’m seriously concerned Irma might just roar out it and bowl me over. If I still have a house after this, I need a big dang TV, too!” He just looked at me and said: “Yeah man, I think you do.” Thank you, Hurricane Irma. You have helped me to see the light.
Life in a Nutshell wins Florida Press Club award for commentary writing
Brian Thompson’s column won first place in the Florida Press Club’s 2017 Excellence in Journalism Competition in a category for commentary writing. The Bradenton Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel were the other winners in the category. This is the 8th award the column has won from the Press Club since 2000. Read the three columns submitted for the award: https://www.nutshellcity.com/the-lesson-from-hurricane-matthew/ https://www.nutshellcity.com/the-somewhat-flight-of-the-christmas-drone/ https://www.nutshellcity.com/a-family-river-rapid-down-memory-lane/
Long live Halloween, said the dad with the stretched waistband
At the last moment, Halloween was saved. My worst fears — that a pyramid-sized pile of candy wouldn’t materialize from my daughter’s well-worn trick-or-treating pumpkin — were allayed. Long live Halloween … the night when dads gorge themselves on the spoils of their children’s hard work. But this year, it wasn’t looking so good. My 11-year-old daughter had decided a week or so ago she wasn’t going to participate. No dressing up. No trick-or-treating with friends. No pyramid of sweetness for dear old dad. She would just give out candy at home … THAT WE HAD TO BUY!!! My daughter only eats about a third of her candy from Halloween: pink and red Starbursts, a scattering of Skittles, Whoppers and a few other sugar-laden, artificially-dyed brands. They have to meet her high standards, and not seem tampered with. (If a cat so much as looks at my child funny, she blacklists the house, quarantines the candy as “tampered with” and turns it over to me.) All that candy – Almond Joys, Snickers, Baby Ruths! – all become mine.