3rd Annual Christmas Gift Review

Once again we had a very enjoyable Christmas Eve & Day at The Diner. I enjoyed the Christmas Eve service in which I told the story (if you're interested in downloads, I have no idea if they even recorded the Christmas services--much less have any idea if they'll be on line) and very much enjoyed the Christmas Eve services that my staff led at 9PM...it was an INCREDIBLE time of worship. Kinda set the tone for my Grinch-heart to grow and break that little x-ray box that measures Grinch-heart sizes.

Christmas Day began a bit later than usual. Yes, for those of you who got up at 6:14AM with your little ones anxious to see the Santa-loot, I empathize. However, having teens in the house got us through to 9AM (still early by their standards), so there's light at the end of the tunnel, young parents.

Anyway, we'll start with the stockings:

Grossest Mis-read by Santa: In my stocking, there was a magazine entitled "Men's Vogue" which has Keifer Sutherland on the cover (with his horse) and headlines like "The Sports Issue: Heli-Boarding, Racquet Wars, and a Mad Dash Across the Sahara!" And "Survival Gear: From Boardroom to Base Camp." Tracy giggled like crazy at Santa's little joke.

2nd Grossest Mis-read by Santa: The entire family got FM radio stocking stuffers with earbuds. (Santa got them for free in a giveaway thing) Apparently, the iPod generation--which leads up to and includes me--wonders why in the world people would need to listen to the RADIO if they weren't in the car.

Honorable Mention Stuffers: The DVD's of Talledega Nights and Little Miss Sunshine. The CD's of Justin Timberlake (who is bringing sexy back--which makes me wonder where it went) and the Top Gun Soundtrack (which made me giggle like crazy at Santa's little 80's joke). Gift-cards for iTunes and Barnes & Noble for everybody!

Now, on to the gifts:

Biggest Discussion Starter: A coffee-table book titled "Iron Bowl Gold." It's gorgeous, and it contains newspaper articles about each Auburn/Alabama football game, commentary on the ones he saw by the legendary Keith Jackson, and paintings of the biggest plays of each game. That's right...paintings, by famous artist Daniel A. Moore. The discussions will start when anyone not from God's Little Acre (Alabama...for the uninitiated) sees that something like this exists. The talk won't be about the games or plays, but why would such a book exist and how much of a market there is for it.

Gift That Made Me Feel Like I Should Read Men's Vogue Monthly: An all-weather grill cover for the new grill I got about a month ago and a SERIOUS grill cleaning tool.

Gift That Got The "Touchdown" Signal You Can't Control: When a 15-year-old gets her first pair of real Birkenstocks--not Target knock-offs--her hands immediately gave the signal of joy.

Gift That Show We've Been Married A While: The in-laws loaded us down with new towels and sheets and Tracy and I were pretty pumped about that kind of thing.

Gifts That Showed Artists Live Here: Paintbrushes and paints and certificates for canvases and Dancewear and DVD's of the American Ballet Theatre made up the majority of wrapped gifts under the tree and were cause for much celebration.

Best Explanation Of Moods & Vibe Around My House: A painting apron that had the words "Because I'm An Artist, That's Why!" on it.

Gift That Shows We Have Some Mordicum Of Class: The higher-order life-liver sister and barnstorming brother in-law got Tracy and I a wine refrigerator. Tracy has real wine knowledge and appreciation. I just pretentiously throw words and phrases I've heard Tracy and Jilly use (like "Malbec" and "southeastern Austrailia's big right now") around.

Gift Of Total Surprise: Each year, Santa tries to throw the girls for some major surprise gift. This year, he apparently knew we were in dire need of a home computer (what would our schools do if our community was made up of folks who didn't have them at home?) and we rolled with the iMac. We got most of it set-up correctly (although we're having trouble setting up the "Mail" software and teleconference capability--we can check mail online but the program we got needs more information than we know...we think?) and the girls were taking photos of themselves in the photo booth in no time. I took a picture of me in the "Warhol" feature that you can look at here on my MySpace.

Gift That Got The Most Use: The DVD of season one of "How I Met Your Mother" was in the player from around 1PM until bed-time.

Best Free Gift: I introduced Tracy to "Snood" (google it) and she got addicted pretty quickly. Apparently, it's the crystal meth of games and she's hooked...although we can't get it to download correctly on the iMac (yes, we used the correct download link for Macs--again, we got MOST of the iMac set up correctly).

Best Book I Got: Punk: The Whole Story by the editors of Mojo Magazine. Photos and articles of the bands and people I listened to in my teen years. And good photos and articles, too. Related: Best Gift I Want To Buy Myself: I saw a machine in an ad that you can put your cassette tapes into it and it will burn a CD of it. When the price of those bad boys comes down in a year or two, I'll take all that music I have on cassette and put all that music I have that the good photos and articles were written about and officially fill up my iPod--all 20 gig--with it.

As you can tell, it was a good Christmas for The Diner management and family. Yes, as always, we went a bit overboard--but, you know, sometimes I don't think we have a handle on celebrations like we ought to...and if there were ever a reason to over-celebrate, suffice to say that the birth of our Lord might just be a reason--even if we do so every year. Besides, I don't think we celebrate as well as the Israelites during their festivals so maybe we all UNDER-DO Christmas, but that's another blog.

Again, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas with loved ones...The Diner sure did.