Love Actually is a White Christmas

So last night in order to start ramping up our Christmas spirit, the wife and I sat down to watch some Christmas movies (which we will probably do every night this week). As she scrolled through Netflix looking for something, because we were both too lazy to get up and put a DVD in, she asked what Christmas movie I wanted to watch. I immediately said Die Hard just to annoy her a little. The ongoing debate of whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie has been raging more during this holiday season for us. I knew full well she wouldn’t want to watch Die Hard, not to mention the fact that it isn’t on Netflix nor do we have it on DVD. But I digress…she was leaning toward Love Actually and I agreed not remember just how emotionally vulnerable that movie makes me.

Yes, I can admit that Love Actually gets me every time. I get choked up, I get teary eyed, it is just a good movie. For the guys out there reading this wondering if they need to check my “man card”, you are fooling yourself if you can’t find something to enjoy about that movie. It has comedy, it has a solid plot, it has a stellar cast (including the guy who plays Rick from The Walking Dead), and there’s a little bit of topless-ness thrown in for good measure. What more do you need? I like all the story lines and how they mesh without being forced. I like how it shows the different aspects of love in everyday situations. It doesn’t deliberately paint a rosy picture of love, it tells it like it is and yet love comes out looking pretty damn good. I’ve liked that movie ever since it came out. My closest friend and I went to see it twice in the theater that year and watched it several times again and again once we got it on DVD. It makes me want to surprise my wife with a hidden band (a scene from the movie). It makes me want to get caught in a passionate kiss with her during my niece and nephew’s Christmas pageant (also a scene in the movie). It makes me want to blow off a wild, fun night to meet my best friend for drinks (yes, also in the movie). It just makes you want to embrace love and the people you love. The perfect primer for the holidays where you are potentially surrounded by the people most important to you.

When that was over my wife slyly put on what is probably one of my favorite Christmas movies that I don’t give enough love to…WhiteChristmas. Some of you have probably never seen it, it came out before all of my potential audience was born and probably before some of your parents were born too. It is just a feel good, fun movie that showcases what talent was before the segregation of stars into the realms of movies, music, and television. These people had it all, in spades. I challenge you not to be impressed with the smooth, almost effortless singing of Bing Crosby. He looks almost half asleep as it croons and you have to wonder where the naturally talented singers are these days as everyone auto-tunes themselves into robotic-ness. Opposite the sweetly melodic Rosemary Clooney (the aunt of George Clooney), they make counting your blessings before bed seem like the most sensible thing in the world. Throw in the comedic timing of Danny Kaye and the superb dancing of Vera Ellen and you have an ensemble that matches the power of Love Actually 50 years earlier. White Christmas has all the heart, laughs, and love that you could want in a Christmas classic. Don’t forget the spectacle of elaborate dance numbers or of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye with feather fans and butterflies in their hair. I highly recommend it if you’ve never watched before.

We still have so many Christmas movies to get through before the big day. Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, A Miser Brother’s Christmas, Frosty Returns (meh, not great), A Charlie Brown Christmas…we’ve got a lot to cover. We traditionally spread them out a bit more through the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it seems the time has gotten away from us (and we’re watching the whole series of Big Bang Theory right now). But there is one special one that I’m looking forward to. A tradition my wife and I have had throughout our relationship is to watch one special movie on Christmas Eve. I won’t tell everyone what it is, but it is on my top five list of Christmas movies and it’s pretty obscure. You’ll never guess. Maybe I’ll talk about it in my next post. Until then, Merry Christmas everybody!

Don't Look a Hobby Horse in the Mouth

So, recently, my wife and I were talking about hobbies and how we are both in desperate need of something to occupy our time other than work, eating, television, and sleep (not that all of those aren’t enjoyable or necessary). The topic of a hobby for me went back to my old stand-by…this…writing. Yes, I used to write a lot back in the day. Some of it was thought provoking and informative and some of it was just pure indulgence, but it was a good outlet for my thoughts and a fun way to take up some of my time. At the time I was writing so vigorously I was employed as a youth minister and time was something I had an overabundance of. Once I started working on my MBA and then got a real job, time seemed like a luxury that I couldn’t afford to take up with mindless meandering through my thought world. But, as I have recently gotten a real REAL job with a company that is so focused on its employees and their work-life balance, I have come to find myself with a little more free time than I had been used to. Up until this point I had been occupying my newfound time with an increase in television consumption. However, now that is proving to be tedious as it seems like I watch the same things over and over again. So, I am going to try to do the writing thing more. I know I have proclaimed my return to regularly writing with trumpets and fanfare in the past and those have fizzled out quickly, so I am approaching this a little differently. No hullaballoo this time. Just this intro and now on to my topic this time around which happens to be, my writing.

In that same conversation where we talked about hobbies and me getting back to writing my beautiful wife reiterated her love of my writing. She has particular posts from my blog that she enjoys incredibly. One that she says she could read over and over is my ode to mashed potatoes. She talks about that blog post every time the topic of my writing comes up. Over the time that we’ve been together and she’s known of my past blogging exploits, every time she has brought up “the mashed potato one” I have smiled and nodded and laughed at her enthusiasm. The thing is, I could not remember for the life of me what I had written in that post or practically any of the posts I’d done back then. So, the smile and nod was the only reaction I had at my disposal. However, this time, as she prodded me with questions about how I came up with it, I broke down and told her I couldn’t even remember what I had written. So, she quickly grabbed her phone to pull it up and read to me (I was driving at the time). This situation immediately made me want to write something because I found it so odd and entertaining.

Let’s just think about this for a second. I had no idea what I had written. I was experiencing this for the first time just like any other reader who might stumble across it when searching for the mythical land of Lake Gravy. And from what I heard as my prose slipped wildly from my wife’s excited mouth was incredible. I’m not bragging about my writing, as most of you know, but it was pretty amazing. I don’t know how I came up with all those metaphors. I don’t know some of the words I used, I’d have to reference a dictionary, but I was apparently fluent and comfortable with them then. It almost doesn’t even sound like something I’d write. It has a little Ted Mosby pretentiousness to it as well as a Half Baked munchies craving vibe. It is literally an ode to mashed potatoes and gravy. As if written by someone who had spent their entire life studying it and was boiling it down into simple (if not overly wordy) terms. There is a touch of poetry there. A touch of lyricism. And a heaping healing of what might only be described as creative liberties (i.e. craziness). I never thought I would enjoy hearing what I had written so much. Perhaps if someone other than my biggest fan was reading it to me, I might not have. Regardless of that, I was impressed with myself and a little shocked also. I wonder if other writers feel this way when they are confronted with their work.

I can’t promise more gems like the mashed potato post will be coming in the future. It depends on if my passion for something gets sparked to a high enough level to write like that. I was in rare form on that one. I had a couple other ones that matched that excitement and level of silliness. Not a lot though. Truthfully, I miss having that kind of passion for something. That kind of furor. It seems like the older I get the more I feel sort of “meh” about a lot of things. Sure, mashed potatoes still do it for me. Whataburger still elicits that kind of reaction. But, my passions have calmed somewhat. Right now, my biggest passion is my wife. My smart, silly, beautiful wife, who brightens my days and warms my nights. I could write a blog about her that matches the intensity of the mashed potato one, but I’m sure she wouldn’t want that. Haha! I guess that might be what this is all about. Trying to find my passion again. Writing brought out all of those passions, all of that excitement, when I was younger. Maybe it will again. Hopefully it will. Join me and we will see!

 

Test...test...test of my convictions

“Go to college and you can be successful like I am.” My father may not have used those exact words, but that was the gist of most of his life lessons growing up. Though I watched my father get up five days a week and go to a job that I knew he didn’t have any passion for, I still believed in the notion that he was successful. I, like many Americans of my generation, measured success by dollars in the bank and my father was doing well in that regard. So, how could I not believe him? Why would I not believe him?

My father grew up on a farm in rural South Dakota. He attended college for both his Bachelors and Masters degrees with a brief stint in the Army during the Vietnam War. He volunteered. He has convinced me all my life that hard work, loyalty, and education will get you places. After getting his Masters he was recruited to a fledgling software company started by an eccentric man with dreams of grandeur. The company asked him to move, he moved. And when he fell in love and started a family, he told them he wouldn’t anymore. He sacrificed some of his upward mobility in the company for his ideals about family. Another lesson he taught, family comes first. Though, his loyalty and dedication to the job still made him successful. I don’t know how much he made, but I know my brother and I never wanted for anything essential. He provided and it set an example that has always stuck with me. I knew that my father got an education, got a job, and through his strength of character and talent, was a success at that job. So when he instilled in us the important of going to college, we didn’t question it.

I guess you could call me a millennial, though I’m not sure I am. I was born in 1982, which means I was conscious enough to see how some folks struggled through the 80s. It also means I was in my most impressionable and formative years during the 90s. The Go-Go 90s. It was an economic boom that no one realized was one. In school we heard stories of people graduating college and being offered mid-six figure salaries just for having a degree. Companies were so desperate for employees that it didn’t even matter if you studied the field they operated in. I remember as a sophomore in high school hearing that someone’s brother, who had studied Medieval Literature, was getting a job with a tech firm starting out at $50,000 a year. Medieval Literature?! This furthered my belief and understanding that college would get me where I wanted to be…making money aka being successful.

So, knowing that I was going to go to college, I picked the most prestigious one within a limited driving distance of my home (family first). This private institution was nestled snugly in one of the most affluent suburbs of my home town. It was everything you’d expect of a private college. Small classes, affluent students, beautifully manicured campus and a steep sticker price were all on the list of amenities. My father, believing in the power of a college education was on board. He had started college funds for us and took out extra loans in his name to cover the expense. He made it happen partly because of his conviction that this would be good for me and partly because of my brother’s failed attempt at college. More on that at another time. So, I became a college student, one of only three out of my graduating class to attend that college. I was in a strange new place and I don’t deal with strange new places well.

My college experience was uneventful...