[Friday Funny] Christmas with Mom

[The Friday Funny]

One last themed Friday Funny for this season, from the inimitable Bruce Cameron...  I hope you all had a good holiday!

-------------------------------------------

The Cameron Column # 245 

A FREE Internet Newsletter brought to you by W. Bruce Cameron with 
almost no impact on global warming! 

If you are not a subscriber, I would really love it if you'd consider 
subscribing.  To do so, please send a message to 
TheCameronColumn-on at letters.webvalence.com.  To unsubscribe, DON'T 
reply to this message.  See the footer following this message for more 
information! 

Hey, visit the Cameron Column Website at 
http://www.wbrucecameron.com/  

Write to me at Bruce at wbrucecameron.com 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
Well, I had this one all ready to go so that it would arrive before 
the holidays, but I neglected to push the button that says, "push this 
button."  Probably every single one of you felt that I ruined your 
holiday joy! 

I hope you enjoy this one.  I received several requests for it, so 
okay, the requesters had their holidays ruined, too.  I am so not 
worthy! 

Best wishes from everyone here at the home offices of the Cameron 
Column for a safe and prosperous New Year. 

Bruce 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Christmas with Mom 

I am a firm believer in the old adage that doing the same thing over 
and over again and expecting different results each time is the 
definition of my mother. 

At Christmas my mother always expected that if she prepared carefully 
enough, every single aspect of the holiday would turn out to be 
perfect, despite ample evidence that the closest my dad could come to 
"perfect" was "incompetent."  It started with the tree, which by 
tradition my father purchased from a place that seemed to specialize 
in arboreal deformities. 

"Only six bucks!" he would beam, showing us the twisted, bent trunk, 
thin branches poking out like broken fingers.  We'd do our best to fix 
it up with handfuls of tinsel and ornaments, but when we were done the 
thing always looked to me less like a Christmas tree than some kind of 
military weather station.  The only family member who seemed delighted 
with the tree was the dog; finally it, too, had a bathroom in the 
house. 

Then there were the presents, which my mother wrapped with 
painstaking attention to sharp edges and crisp bows and my father put 
together by slapping on tape like it was a coat of paint.  Often when 
he did this the tape became twisted during its application, which 
meant his gifts came coated with a festive film of carpet lint.  Pick 
up a present from my father and you'd have a tough time setting it 
back down without losing a layer of skin. 

Dad was also responsible for putting up the outside decorations, 
something the kids wanted done the day after Thanksgiving and he 
preferred to do never.  Nothing could make him more grumpy than when 
the string of lights became tangled, and at some point he always lost 
patience and just threw the whole mess on the roof, so that our house 
was entirely dark except for one blazing clump over the door. 

"It's the Christmas supernova," he explained to anyone who asked. 

Our yard display consisted of a plastic snowman whose illuminated 
interior had become stained from a year in a leaky basement, so it 
appeared that his white skin was covered with prison tattoos.  Next to 
him stood Rudolph the Headless Reindeer, who despite his mysterious 
decapitation still possessed a working nose bulb.  It dangled from his 
neck stump like a glowing eye socket, which gave me nightmares for 
years.  When my mother saw the ghoulish display she always went to bed 
with a migraine. 

Christmas morning my mother orchestrated so as to end in a climactic 
crescendo, each gift more treasured than the last until the final, 
"big" gift of the morning, which didn't always work out. 

Me: This is nice, but why do I need film?  I don't have a camera. 

Mom: It's always a good idea to have film around, even if you don't 
own a camera. 

Dad: Maybe some day really, really soon, like, later this morning, 
you'll have a use for that film. 

At this point my mother would whirl on my father and hiss "You're 
ruining Christmas!" 

Sometimes the gifts got out of sequence, which meant one of us would 
be unwrapping when my mother would suddenly lunge and snatch it out of 
our hands.  This always made my baby sister cry. 

Because it's so difficult to figure out what's in a box when it's all 
wrapped, my mother always wrote little codes on the wrapping of each 
present, which she read aloud with a bewildered look on her face, 
unable to figure out her own cipher. 

Mom: 'BBG'?  What could 'BBG' stand for? 

Dad: Baseball glove? 

Mom:  You're ruining Christmas! 

Later, my parents, nerves frazzled from listening to their children 
destroy toys all afternoon, would serve a huge turkey.  My dad would 
slice the big bird and make the same comment every year:  "Looks 
overdone."  He would have said this even if my mom had served turkey 
sushi.  My mother would throw down her napkin and storm off, my dad 
following and apologizing for ruining Christmas. 

I've always said my mother believed that the lesson of Christmas is 
that when things go wrong, they go wrong for a reason--and that reason 
is my father. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
For reprint permission, including web sites, please write me at 
Bruce at wbrucecameron.com 

This newsletter may be distributed freely via e-mail but you MUST 
include the following subscription and copyright information: 

The Cameron Column, A Free Internet Newsletter 
Copyright W. Bruce Cameron 2007 http://www.wbrucecameron.com/ 

Yes we want more subscribers!  Please tell your friends about the 
Cameron Column.  

If you want to unsubscribe, write 
TheCameronColumn-off at letters.webvalence.com 


To subscribe to this list, please send an e-mail message to: 
TheCameronColumn-On at letters.webvalence.com 

To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to: 
TheCameronColumn-Off at letters.webvalence.com 


W. Bruce Cameron 
C/O Lloyd Entertainment 
610 S Main Street, Loft #513 
Los Angeles, CA 
90014 

-- 
Peter SJF Bance
http://www.minstrel.org.uk/
XMPP: GreyMinstrel at jabber.org | AIM: GreyMinstrel
MSN: Minstrel at minstrel.org.uk | ICQ: 254652398