Randall and Cory and I and company show Disneyland what’s what:

A few of us, at Cory’s behest, decided to go caroling last Wednesday evening.  We bundled up, got some cider, and prepared to warm up our lungs while warming other people’s hearts.

Now, I’ve been caroling two or three times.  In general, I remembered it being fun and nice and a good way to feel like you’re making people enjoy Christmas more.  However, tonight, we decided to rock the carols unguarded.  That is, we decided to go to random houses around the neighborhood instead of just going to the (admittedly few) houses of people we knew.  This meant potential awkwardness, to be sure, but also potential spreading of joy and hearkening back to a time when doing so (for a free meal, incidentally.  Look up caroling’s history) was a welcome surprise and blessing.

This year, a little part of my seasonal naïveté died.

While walking around with friends on a crisp night is never something I will regret, we seemed to have an uncanny ability to discover the incongruously-decorated houses of Christmas loathing.  Perhaps they had expended their enthusiasm for the season while setting up the $200 inflatable Snoopy lawn ornament, but the majority of houses we sang at were simply teeming with Christ Apathy.  One lady only got out of her living room chair after we launched into the fifth verse of “I Saw Three Ships” on her doorstep.   Twice were we shushed by people claiming infirm relatives in their house.  Really.  These people actually said, “Oh, could you not?  I don’t think my ailing mother needs to hear people singing beautiful Christmas carols while her leg is in a cast.”  (She may have indeed been sickly and noise-sensitive, but my ire is easily raised by Scroogian behavior)  Two other houses sent a child to answer the door, and let the terribly confused/half frightened-to-death child absorb all of our singing before coming over to toss a “thanks!” our way as we were walking down the driveway.

That’s not to say that the night was a disappointment.  (It was, to some extent, but those words are not meant to say that, specifically)  We were warmly thanked and listened to by a few houses, and one man even pulled his truck over and asked us to carol unto his family.  That was cool.  Especially when we got to sing “Good Christian Men Rejoice” to Dr. Berding as he stood by his idling car, clearly needing to leave in the near future.  Oh, did I mention that he (and apparently like ten other houses) was actually, really, for seriously in the bathtub when we came by his house the first time?  I have no words.

What I learned:

-Caroling at retirement homes makes sense because most of those residents can’t escape from you or feign being busy.  You have them cornered.

-The more you suggest that it is not kosher to walk across people’s lawns right after they have generously let you belt out your five verses of “Good King Wenceslas” on their doorstep, the more likely it becomes that your buddy will decide to tromp right over that expensively-manicured lawn.   Personal issue.  I’m neurotic.

-No matter how much you all decide to sing “every verse of every carol” beforehand, you will always cave to abbreviation once it becomes clear how acutely aware of the 50 degree weather your audience is.

-When you have just left a house after waiting on their doorstep for a minute without an answer, do not go back because someone says that they “just saw someone in the window!”

-Appoint a leader of the song for each house, or a leader for the whole night.  Cory realized the necessity of this before we did, but we still got to enjoy a little sample of wandering harmonies on verses of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

-Cider is always as good as you think it will be, and probably better.  Stovetop-brewed, of course.  (Still can’t find those mulling spices at the store…)

I meant to put this up on Monday, when we got our Christmas tree.

Light and snow forbear their glow in deference to who they know

Is born tonight and now alights on earth to save it from sin’s blight,

That foulness which befouled our midst now trembles at a tiny fist

And runs from He who comes to be our Christmas for eternity

Here are some current manifestations of my sloth:

-I need to wash my car, but everyone is saying that it is going to rain this weekend.  There is an inverse relationship between the amount of dirt on my car and the percentage that it will actually rain when predicted.

-I went “Christmas shopping” this afternoon, but really just talked to a couple of friends on the phone for an hour and a half.  I perused the standard places, but I just couldn’t bear to buy anything that a store told me would be “a perfect gift for Dad this Christmas!”  I mean, a scarf/remote holder combo?  Not so much.  This is lazy because I should really do my shopping online (enough time for delivery, less expensive, more selection) but I just wanted to feel productive by going to stores.  Delusional laziness!

-I bought “apple cider tea” instead of actual apple cider packets because I couldn’t find the latter.  I looked all over the store for them, but Bigelow Apple Cider Tea was the closest I could find.   It’s not that close at all, turns out.

-I changed my sheets but just tossed the dirty ones in my hamper for the time being.  Who has over an HOUR to do laundry on a Saturday, after all?

-We still have some extra lights to hang outside our house, but I have creatively found Perfectly Legitimate Reasons® not to do so.  They even blink, for crying out loud, but I haven’t forced myself to do them.  (Aside:  I hope Dad beat Brian in getting our lights up this year, despite my lack of help…)

-I am so lazy that I thought it would be easier to sit down and write about sloth than to actually climb into bed.

I guess I was wrong.  Good night.

-

Closing eyes and clenching fists

enamored with the silences

Can’t constrain cacophony,

Belying stoic fraudulence.

Endearing each to other’s own

Their hands of fury cave

As rigid digits lose their hold

Their souls by love are saved.

Dreams can surprise at the strangest of times

But rarely do they stay remembered

For instance, last night

My dream gave me a fright

But those images are now dismembered.

- – - – -

I dreamed (saying dreamt seems so pre….verse….) last night about someone I met a long time ago.  They had gotten married, but only recently, and they suddenly had a child.  I somehow found this out while eating at the taco shack with former college roommates.  I guess the taco shack is a hub of information these days.  Only, it was also my house, in the dream.  We had a big front porch outside of the taco shack house, but I remember suddenly coming face to face with this guy that I had never really spoken with, but I was kind of intimidated by him.  AT FIRST.  Then, I brushed him off like so much lint from a blazer, and started repairing my bunk bed.

So.  I am reminiscing about some dumb dream I had that makes no sense and was probably brought on by too much food (or not enough food…?  Perhaps.) the day before.  Why does this seem important to me?  Because I remember it.  I usually don’t remember dreams (except for a few recurring ones throughout my life), but this one has managed to elude cerebral effacement  (Good band name).   I like this.  Effectually, it’s like I have been told a secret by someone who then died.  I am the only person who knows what happened at the taco shack (because I ingeniously hid the names from your eyes!), and I don’t plan on revealing what I think it means any time soon.  Oh, I know what it means.  Connecting the dots in this subconscious novella is a paint-by-flipping-numbers exercise to me.  But I’m on vacation, and you’re in consternation, and the taco shack will retain its information!

Hello, candy time!

If you can tell me what the deal is with those enormous sunglasses that girls (and girlie men) wear.

Seriously.  I’ve got the serial number on this Lincoln set aside like cold pancakes at a slumber party.

We had one of our better Two Stories Tall nights yesterday, as a couple dozen people graced our apartment with their presence and voices.  The gist of the thing, which we have held sporadically over the last 18 months that I have lived here, is that people read something aloud for the collective enjoyment of those present.  In college I had a few experiences of reading through plays, narratives and dialogues with friends and classmates, and I always enjoyed it.

This likely stems from how my dad used to read my brother and me Hardy Boys stories at night before bedtime.  I remember begging for another chapter, Skull Mountain (Dun, da-da-da Duuuuuuuuun), and the mud-covered license plate in the story about the signpost.  I remember my Dad reading other stuff too, but the Hardy Boys stories stand out to me a lot.  I hope I someday have kids that enjoy doing that as much as I did and do.

So, Randall transcribed (it took him hours) a Peter Wimsey mystery and delineated the various characters’ lines enough to be read by at least a portion of the people present.  It was a lot of fun.  We’ve had some fun TST nights before, but this one probably had the most people that actually wanted to be involved with it.  We had to draw names out of a hat to see who would get to read the parts, and people were noticeably disappointed and forlorn when they received none.  Thankfully, Randall also thought ahead enough to break up some of the narration, and others shared with those less fortunate.  And, when you add in the fact that one of our friends from the spring play Randall and I were in showed up from West Covina, you know it had to be a blast.  We heard voices and accents that probably should never see the light of day (most of those by me), but I think listening to a story with an audience is a commonly-enjoyed human experience.  We just don’t give it much of a chance these days.

And, speaking of things our society classifies as “just for children,” we also followed up the “Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag” story with a Grimm Fairy Tale:  The Girl with no Hands.  (Or something like that)  You can find it easily enough online (it’s public domain), but the thing is just horrifically violent.  I mean, this poor girl has her hands chopped off by her Dad because the devil made him do it.  It’s ok, though, because she is pious.  Man, stories were different back in those times.  And, by “different,” I mean awful.

Of course, anything can become awesome when read aloud by the right people, and it’s safe to say that the right people were picked.

You just had to be there. (Mostly to taste Cory’s Cornbread and Randall’s brownies, the girls’ sweet potato bread, the other girls’ brownies, Cream Soda, more food……)

And, unlike that ghastly story, mine has a moral:  Go read to someone.  You should read to kids, friends, spouses, fiancees, financiers and chancellors.  Just don’t let the timeless tradition of oral regaling die out.  (I blame stupid internet…)