Tag: Holidays

Christmas: The To Don’t List

Christmas is not only the biggest holiday in North America; it’s also the most complicated.  The logistics of pulling off a flawless modern Christmas can be so daunting even Martha Stewart sometimes makes a run for the eggnog.  However, just because you want a nice Christmas doesn’t mean you have to turn into the person you most hate.  You know the type.  They’re those smarmy, organized buggers who made a Xmas To Do List, back in September (on their iPad) and wander around most of December looking smug and checking things off their comprehensive list – from their phone.  They’re the ones who have the perfect tree, the matching cedar wreath and lights just the right length to go exactly around the winter scene window.  Their placemats are Egyptian linen, their tinsel is biodegradable and their dog is never sick. They always find those great esoterically appropriate gifts which you know you could have found, too — if you had more time.  And they always seem to have enough time left over to show up at your house with handmade candy canes.  These people were put on Earth to vex the rest of us who do Christmas like a hamster running on a wheel, and despite moments of envy, nobody wants to be like them.  Yet, in order to at least get into the neighbourhood of a stressless Christmas, we all need a little guidance.  I’ve devised a generic Christmas To Don’t List, just to help you along.  Some people might not need all of the items but everybody is going to need at least one.

1 – Don’t fight with your family.  It’s only a couple of days, for God’s sake  Be nice.  Yes, the conditions are just right for a good old-fashioned family flare-up: you can’t get away; you’re bored out of your skull; Ray’s wife is still the bitch she always was; and if you hear one more of Uncle Eddie’s long-winded, go-nowhere stories, you’re going to hang yourself in the garage.  But that’s not the point.  Remember, Ray might divorce what’s-her-name and marry somebody way worse.  Uncle Eddie’s might die and you’d be saddled with Aunt Louise for all eternity, and maybe some of the family think you’re the one who’s the jerk.  If you want to, you can change your friends like long distance runners change their socks, but this is the only family you’re ever going to have: make the best of it.

2 – Despite the need to control the urges of To Don’t #1, don’t tie into the adult beverages like it’s the end of prohibition.  This includes the Office Party, the neighbours’ Open House and Christmas Dinner itself.  Nobody’s going to take the booze away; pace yourself.  If you don’t, you run the risk of putting Bob from shipping in a total body lock with plenty of tongue, underneath what never was the mistletoe; or telling Bashir, man-to-man, that you think his wife’s really hot, especially in those shorts she wore last summer; or worse yet, explaining to your nieces that their mother got married in high school to a juggler but the grandparents had it annulled.   None of these things is going to make for a very holly jolly Christmas the day after, and they can all be easily avoided.  So tip the jug in moderation.  Besides, if you do, you’re not going to suffer a head the size of a buffalo the next morning when Cousin Amy’s kids need to practice their drum and trombone duet.

3 – Do not get carried away.  Just because the Three Wise Men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh (what the hell is myrrh, anyway?) as gifts doesn’t mean you have to.  Those credit cards are not a license to go bankrupt.  Use your head: January’s coming.

4 – Don’t deck the halls like Clark W. Griswold/Fa la la la la la la la la.  It sounds like a good idea to get the house all festive, but think about it … First of all, it’s a lot of work.  Secondly, they’re going to look like crap in February when you didn’t take them down ‘cause you’re too busy and it’s been minus 15 degrees since New Year’s.  Finally, remember how you’re always laughing at those idiots on the morning news whose house looks like it was donated by a nuclear power plant?  You don’t want to be that guy.  One, at the most, two strings of lights, carefully placed, can say Christmas a lot brighter than trying to out-Vegas, Vegas.  Use discretion.  (And leave the plastic Santa with the paint peeling off his hat in the garage.)

5 – Don’t eat so damn much!  You’re going to regret it when you get down to that all-inclusive Mexican vacation in January, slip on the Speedo™ and it disappears.  Nobody likes to look like a volleyball on legs — especially at a resort where the bikini is considered formal wear.

6 – Do not watch more than a couple of feel good holiday movies.  Too much sugar is bad for you, and in an hour or two, when your blood sugar drops like a stone, your perfectly good Christmas is going to appear cheap and tawdry compared to Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye’s or the Miracle on 34th Street.   Space them out, and if you’re exposed to It’s a Wonderful Life or A Very Brady Christmas, either shoot yourself in the head or get a complete brain transplant: you don’t want those kinds of memories.

7 – Do not ever say “Christmas is getting too commercialized.”  You just sound like a middle class cliché.

8 — Don’t ever forget Christmas is about loot; the presents you get and the presents you give.  Really think about what you want for Christmas and what you’re going to give other people.  And remember the most precious thing you have to give or ever want to receive is time.

April Fool’s Day Quiz

April Fool’s Day is one of our unofficial holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day and Mother’s Day.  The origins of the holiday are obscured by history although it is mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392.)  Recently, however, an early reference to April “fools” was discovered in the archives of the ruined abbey of Saint Bartholomew in Newcastle.  The National Trust is currently translating what is believed to be the original manuscripts of the Norse saga Sven Spiser Sin Frokost.   The parchments, of course, are incomplete, but one section tells of a maiden named Margrathe who is visited by Norse raiders, led by a northern Dane called Svendalcus.  They threaten her with rape and murder, but she tells them if they leave her unmolested, she will cook them a glorious meal of a wonderful fish.  Margrathe, somehow manages to lure Svendalcus into the forest where she kills him, chops him into bite-size pieces, makes a stew and feeds him to his men.  The chronicler then has a little bit of medieval fun, calling the Vikings “April Fools” because they can’t tell the difference between fish (fisk, in ancient Norse) and people (folk.)  There is some speculation that this may also be the earliest reference to those hideous British traditions: the pun and the practical joke.  Seriously, scholars have determined there is a connection between Sven Spiser Sin Frokost and the French version of April Fools called Poisson d’Avril through the Norse conquest of the French coast known as Normandy.  Either way, the translation, although still incomplete, is available online at the National Trust.

In honour of the day, I’ve collected a few questions that are prankish in their subtlety.  Try to answer as many as you can without using Google.  Good luck!

On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union invented the Space Age when they launched Sputnik I into orbit.  Sputnik was shaped like a lopsided basketball.  It was approximately 60 cm (2 feet) in diameter and weighed about 84 kilograms (185 lbs.)  In space, of course, it was weightless.  Sputnik stayed in orbit around the Earth for three months and burned up completely when it re-entered the atmosphere.  Since then various countries have launched just about 8,000 objects into space — everything from tiny communication satellites to huge sections of the International Space Station.  Currently, what is the Earth’s largest satellite?

How long was the 100 Years War?

It’s generally accepted that an antique is an object which is at least 100 years old and represents a different time period.  After that, there’s really no limit.  Antiques can be as small as a set of Louis XIV thimbles or as large as the Bayeux Tapestries.  Their prices fluctuate wildly and are entirely dictated by current taste and public demand.  For example, King Tutankhamen’s solid gold coffin, which weights approximately 110 kilograms (240 lbs.) is worth around 5 and a half million dollars as a golden object, but as Tut’s Tomb, its actual value is priceless.  So, strictly in terms of size (and not price) what is the largest antique ever sold?

Americans honour their past presidents.  They build them libraries and give them museums.  They put them on stamps and on money.  They carve their faces into mountains.  They bury them with pomp and ceremony and their graves become national shrines.  But how many US Presidents are not buried in America?  Can you name them?

Speaking of presidents, who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?

Ty Cobb was one of the greatest baseball players of all time.  “The Georgia Peach,” as he was called, played 22 seasons with the Detroit Tigers.  He set 90 major league records.  He had 4,191 major league hits, a record that lasted until 1985 when it was finally broken by (disgraced) Cincinnati Reds outfielder Pete Rose.  Cobb still holds the record for the highest career batting average and most career batting titles.  However, unlike Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Mickey Mantle and many, many other great players of the game, no team has ever retired Ty Cobb’s number.  Why?

You’re standing on the south side of a river — with a tiger, a goat and a bale of hay.  Your mission is to get all three safely across to the north side of the river.  The current is too strong to swim.  You have a boat but it can only carry you and one other item.  If you leave the tiger unattended with the goat he will eat him; similarly, if you leave the goat unattended with the bale of hay, he will eat that.  How do you accomplish your mission?  (Here’s a hint: don’t think outside the boat.)

It’s spring, and the fashion houses of Paris, New York and Milan are about to unveil their new spring clothing lines.  Yves St Laurent, Gucci, DKNY and everybody else on the planet are introducing the new must-have what-to-wear fashions for women all over the world.  At every retail outlet from Mumbai to Maine, last year’s styles are going on sale to make room for the new stuff.  With all this going on, who is the largest designer and manufacturer of female apparel in the world?  (Here’s a hint: it’s not WalMart.)

Jimmy’s father has five sons named Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty and … What’s the fifth son’s name?

Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to circumnavigate the globe.  His expedition set out in 1519, and the voyage took 3 years.  Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.  He left England in 1577, and it also took him 3 years.  Two hundred years later, Captain James Cook was the greatest navigator and explorer of his age.  In all, he led three expeditions to circumnavigate the globe — in 1766, 1772 and 1776, but which one didn’t he finish?

What normal attribute of the human body makes the vast majority of people on Earth better than average?

Finally, which of these is a practical joke?
(Look for the answers next week in “All the Answers”)

St. Patrick’s Day Trivia

There is no true story about Saint Patrick’s Day.  The great storytellers of Ireland have changed the tale around so many times over the years that fact, legend and “that sounds good” are now inextricably woven together.  St. Patrick himself was probably English (but don’t say that too loud.)  He likely learned his trade in France and showed up in Ireland when the whole place was covered in heathens.  When you’re starting with that kind of raw material, you’re going to have a certain level of success in the converting business.  There’s also no evidence that he drove the snakes out of Ireland, but, as any Irishmen will tell you, there’s no evidence that he didn’t.  This, of course, calls up the annoying habit the Irish have of answering a question with another question.  For example, “Are you a carpenter?”  “What if I am?”

In actual fact, the St. Patrick’s Day we know and love was started by the people of New York City (Boston claims they started it, the lying buggers) where there are just about as many people of Irish descent as there are in Ireland.  The Irish in Ireland don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with drunken parties the way we do in North America – although that’s changing – and most true Irish call St. Patrick’s Day Amateur Night.  They watch the North American parades and revelry on TV.

However, if you’re going to get after the Guinness on March 17th, here are a few tidy bits of trivia that you can throw into the mix somewhere between the first “wee touch of Bushmill’s” and “Come out and fight, ye Black and Tans!”  Sprinkle these around, and you will amaze your friends and confound your enemies.  And if that isn’t Irish, I don’t know what is!

Ireland has produced more Nobel Prizes in Literature per capita than any other country in the world.  They have four: Seamus Heaney, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats.

If you want to be part of the literary scene in Dublin, go to Glasnevin Cemetery and leave a pint of Guinness on Brendan Behan’s grave – everybody else does.

Riverdance actually happens quite a bit in Irish pubs.  Overcome by the music, ordinary patrons will get up and dance.   Here’s just a word of caution, though: leave it to the locals — it’s their pub.

Ireland is the only place in the world where windmills turn clockwise.  Mention this after a couple of adult beverages and then shrug your shoulders and say, “Nobody knows why.“  (Actually, it has something to do with the gearing mechanism, but don’t tell your friends that.) 

The Guinness Book of World Records was started by Norris and Ross McWhirter, in 1954, as a handy reference book to settle arguments in pubs.  Originally, one thousand copies were printed and given away as a Guinness advertising promotion.

The O’Connell Bridge in Dublin is the only bridge in Europe that’s wider than it is long.

Although he’s no longer qualified to be a saint, you can find the remains of Saint Valentine in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin.

An Irish toast: “May you live one hundred years and then one year more — to repent.”

On average, between 6:00 pm on Friday and 3:00 am on Monday, the city of Dublin consumes 9,800 pints of beer – every hour.

An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman were drinking one night when the conversation turned to death and funerals.  The Englishman said, “At my funeral, I want them to say that I was a fine family man, and tell all the people that I was a good husband and father.”  The Scotsman said, “At my funeral, I want people to talk about what a good friend I was, loyal and trustworthy.”  The Irishman thought about it for a moment and said, “At my funeral I want somebody to say, ‘Look, he’s moving!’”

Irish Proverb: You’ve got to do your own growing — no matter how tall your grandfather was.

There are hundreds of statues in Dublin, and the locals refer to them affectionately and often.  For example, the statue of Molly Malone on Grafton Street is called “The Tart with the Cart,” the Two Women by Ha’Penny Bridge are called “The Hags with the Bags” and the water statue of Anna Livia is “The Floozy in the Jacuzzi.”  Without using Google, can you guess what Dubliners call the statues of James Joyce and Oscar Wilde?

The Guinness Book of World Records holds the Guinness World Record as the book most often stolen from public libraries.

Speaking of Guinness, Arthur Guinness started brewing his famous beer at the St James Brewery in Dublin in 1759.  He was so confident that he would be successful at making beer that he signed a 9,000 year lease on the property.  Currently, Guinness pays approximately $60.00 rent every year for the enormous facility.

An Irish curse: “May the curse of Molly Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope!”

It rains every day in Ireland.  They don’t call it the Emerald Isle for nothing.  If you don’t believe me, show up without an umbrella.

Legend has it that the Irish monk Saint Brendan was the first European tourist to visit the Americas — over five hundred years before Christopher Columbus.

And finally, when asked about the Irish, Sigmund Freud once said, “This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.”

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody!