Do You Hear the People Sing?

Do you hear the people sing? If you were among the masses of Les Misérables fans who flocked to theaters this week you probably did, led by the likes of Hugh Jackman, Ann Hathaway and Russell Crowe. (Review: Jackman and Hathaway’s performances deserve props, while Sacha Baron Cohen’s tacky rendition of Master of the House should have been left out.)

The musical Les Misérables or “The Miserable,” takes place in France during the first several decades of the 1800s, a sweeping tale of patriotism, love and desperation, based on Victor Hugo’s famous novel and set to a sweeping musical score. Continue reading…

Merry Christmas

“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all and infinitely more…He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them, for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happens on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset…

It was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive posessed the knowledge. May that truly be said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

5 Memorable Xmas Moments

There’s nothing like Christmas to inspire a stroll down memory lane. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of Christmases memories in my life, but for today’s blog post, I was thinking…If I had to pick five memories that stand out as being perhaps the most memorable, they would probably be:

5. The year I got a Crystal Barbie (and found out there was no Santa Claus). I think I was five. An early reader, I had sadly begun to notice the signs. For example, we would leave cookies for Santa and the note he wrote back saying “Thanks for the cookies!” was in my dad’s handwriting. I thought it was remarkable that Santa had handwriting just like my dad’s, but politely said nothing. Then I noticed the tags on the presents from Santa were in a handwriting that looked like my mom’s. It seemed inappropriate to say anything about this either. Continue reading…

Holiday Movie Madness

One of my family’s favorite Christmas movies is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” This could be one of my dad’s favorite movies, actually. No matter how many times he has seen it, he still collapses in his chair with laughter that can be heard all over the house. We used to watch the movie for its laughs, but now, having seen it so many times, we really watch it just watch my dad fall out in the floor. Some day in the distant Christmas future we will probably be able to look back and say, “Hey kids, remember when National Lampoon Christmas killed Grandpa??” Continue reading…

Lowering My Expectations

The month of December is an especially reflective time for me – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and my birthday all hit within about a 30-day span. Another year older, another wiser, another year to reflect on life and the way the road ahead seems to be going.

My pastor once gave a fantastic sermon on marriage, in which he preached on the power of expectation. The problem, he argued, is when we come to expect certain things from our spouse – cleaning the house, fixing a car, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, mowing the lawn – and they become “required” or assumed. When these things become expected, he pointed out, the spouse can no longer show their love by doing them. When it’s taken for granted that a husband is going to work long hours to support his family, he can no longer show his love by doing it – he can only break even in his wife’s eyes. Likewise, when a wife is expected to cook the meals, wash the clothes, clean the house, etc., bathing the kids is no longer seen as an act of love, but a duty. Showing love, therefore becomes, “…and then what?” Sure you’ve done all that, but what are you going to do on top of that to show me that you love me? Continue reading…

15 Things I Will Have to Say to My Kids One Day

1. When you wanted to send a message to a friend, I remember when you had to write it down on paper, fold it and pass it across the room.

2. To listen to a song again, you had to actually rewind the cassette tape.

3. You had to go to stores to buy Christmas presents because there was no online shopping.

4. There were no gift cards.

Continue reading…

Spoilers

Confession: I sometimes skip to the back of the book. This is a sacred taboo for an author, I know, but what can I say? I don’t read the entire back of the book, mind you, just a small spoiler. In fact, the better the book, the more likely I am to skip ahead and make sure the characters don’t die before the end of it. I figure if they’re still alive on page 217, I can relax and listen to their emotional drama in Chapter Four.

It is a habit that drives my family nuts.

One of my favorite books is The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. As C.S. Lewis fans know, the book is a collection of letters written from the perspective of a senior demon to his trainee, a junior demon. Lewis’ complex wit and profound simplicity are never displayed better than in this compilation of advice on how to derail Christians, all told from the perspective of the enemy. Continue reading…

Real Pumpkin Pie

Will the real pumpkin pie please stand up? No seriously, not the raisin pumpkin pie or frou-frou cheesecake pumpkin pie or pumpkin mousse or crustless pumpkin pie – just pumpkin pie, please.

Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite dishes of November. I know this is normal, but what is abnormal might be my custom of eating it for breakfast. Or lunch. Or pretty much whenever.  It’s one of the great things about being an adult. I may not even use a plate. I eat it for just about anything except an after dinner dessert, which is how I think its makers intended it.

When I was in Britain one fall a few years ago, one of the ladies at the church I was staying with presented me with a large, misshapen pumpkin and politely asked if I would make them a pumpkin pie. They had heard so much about the grand American tradition of pumpkin pie that they wanted to experience it for themselves – and I was their chance! I tried to explain to them that I would be glad to make them a pie, but that in the U.S. we used canned pumpkin and that it would be an oddity to use real pumpkin. This didn’t deter them in the slightest from demanding a pie made from the large, knobby pumpkin they had presented me with. (“I’ve seen the inside of a pumpkin folks, and it’s like eating throw up with a fork,” I wanted to tell them.) Continue reading…

Like This

I once thought you couldn’t use the word “like” any more than we did in the 1980s. It was, like, a time when people said things like “radical” and “holy cow,” wore shoulder pads, spandex and drank Pepsi Free. “Like” was a prelude to pretty much whatever you were going to say.

Every schoolchild knew there was an important distinction between when someone “liked” you or “like liked” you, and when there were no words deep enough to express just how you felt on a subject, you could just say, “Like…yeah man.” Or if you were female, “Like…I know…right?!”

But as much as I thought the word couldn’t be overused any more than circa 1989, I think I was wrong. All you have to do now is log onto Facebook to see that like is back. Like it or not, like is bringing sexy back, along with a whole other string of words like friend, follow, subscribe, share, post, pin and tweet. Continue reading…