“I suppose you hear the joke about flushing money down the toilet all the time,” I said, signing a repair order that would cost several – as in many, as in a lot of – thousand dollars. The sewer repairman nodded and said that he did. I should probably apologize, since that does demean what he does. He performs a valuable service. Otherwise we’re right back into pre-Roman times, without plumbing. But the Romans didn’t have fancy cameras that could snake down the pipes and show you where the roots came in, and the pipes broke, and the 95-year-old infrastructure finally gave way to the shifting moods of the earth. They’d send a slave down.
At least I hope that was a camera picture I saw; it’s possible they just bring a tape deck that shows the same movie to everyone. But I doubt it. The amazing part: the camera sends out a signal that can be read by a hand-held location device. The technician walks around until he gets a fix, and that’s where he drills. So. Fun. Tomorrow they trench. Whether they find something else that will require more expenditures, I don’t know. As I said yesterday, glad we’re having a frugal Christmas.
“That’s what you get for buying an old house!” said my Dad, content in his late-model suburban home in Fargo. Thanks, Dad.
Well, I’d intended more tonight, but a few things intervened: family! Life! Things like “conversation” and “sharing.” Also, had to write a column. It’s now after midnight, and frankly I’m just in the mood to let everything that’s not specifically work related hang fire for a while, but that will come Thursday night. Christmas Eve Eve. I’m still surprised that’s not a holiday in its own right, complete with an animated special and a manufactured mythology. It’s a big gaping marketing niche. Christmas Eve Eve has the momentum of the season with emanations of the penumbra of the Big Day; after Christmas, it’s all crass activity, mall markdowns, leftovers, the bare basement of the tree. At some point the idea of the night before Christmas, or Twasmas, leached the power of the day itself, and for many Christmas Eve is coequal to the main event. If that’s so, give Christmas Eve Eve some love.
As I may have noted, we switched to Christmas Morning present opening, an act of fatherly fiat based in my own experience. Christmas Eve was great, but it made the day itself a strange flat event, and concentrated your excitement on a narrow post-supper window. It was marvelous fun, but there’s something about Christmas Morning, isn’t there? Everyone in their flannels, pancakes, children fizzy with imminent thrills. We go to church on Christmas Eve – always have – and there’s something about the intellectual and emotional state of leaving church at 5:30 and heading home for supper I want to resound for the rest of the evening. But that’s me, a Lutheran Deist. Quietude and awe. Mystery and whiskey. By which I mean: after everyone’s gone to bed, I stay up and wrap presents and watch “A Christmas Carol,” marinate in the ectoplasmic Victoriana, and resolve to throw off the bedsheets like Scrooge himself and exult in the second chance. Every day it should be so. You end every day as an Ebenezer. You begin every day as someone who could, conceivably, toss a coin to an urchin, beseech him to fetch the big goose, and remark on the same daily truth we manage to forget. Oh, it’s not too late. It’s not.
A few more Christmas items – I’m saving all the big hits for tomorrow, including of course the second part of the Christmas Diner. That one may go long.
A card from the 40s, sent by relations. Some day these will be as peculiar as telegrams. I suspect the post office will cease delivery of physical items before people stop sending Christmas cards.
As basic as it gets. Nice font. Scotty-dogs. 1941, says the postmark. But there was another side to 1941, as we’ll see tomorrow. But I’ll leave you with this: I had to call the bank today because the mortgage bill didn’t come in the mail. (We got a new mortgage, haven’t set up direct withdrawal yet.) The nice young lady was nice and helpful, and at the end of the call she wished me a Merry Christmas. First time a stranger in a commercial transaction had done so in years.
Tomorrow: the Christmas men of 1941; charity stamps; cigarette penguins; an enormous Gallery addition; your host as a Christmas card; a Diner. And perhaps a plea. See you then!
Oh, we can do some stamps.
More tomorrow! And man, if that doesn’t keep you coming back day after day, nothing will.
Pass it along, if you wish
86 Responses to Christmas Eve Eve
Host with the Most
..the night before Christmas, or Twasmas…
That is just genius. Am still chuckling over that one. I am so going to steal it.
_@_v – well the weather outside is frightful… but my shell is so delightful… as long as you’re es-car-got… let it snail, let it snail, let it snail…
http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1366.snc4/163827_1484197433969_1504867971_31107443_3152959_n.jpg
Until recently, wishing someone Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas was unremarkable. Due to the deliberate misinterpretation of the intent of the Founders’ prohibition on the establishment of a State religion, Merry Christmas became politically incorrect. The war began when people (including me) were told they would be punished for saying Marry Christmas. The push back against secularism seems to be gaining steam, thank God.
And so, may God, the Great Mystery, bless you all.
I just read that a sewage spill has closed Kailua beach (where the Obama’s are vacationing). At least he doesn’t have to pay for it. (the vacation and the sewage spill)
I too once had a broken sewer pipe. I had no money so I decided to dig it up and fix it myself. After about 3 days of digging I reached the sewer level and found the broken pipe was under the garage floor. The garage had been expanded at some time in the distant past. I decided to not tear down the garage. I called a contractor friend and a couple of his employees came over with a backhoe on a weekend and quickly re-routed the sewer around the garage. They charged $300. I had to do the restoration of the yard but was happy to do so. I don’t think trenchless technology works on broken pipes that have moved and can’t be roto-rooted.
merry Christmas all.
Growing up, Christmas Eve was where I was allowed to open one, small(ish) present, and Christmas Day saw the rest of them being opened. I remember one year wanting to open the smallest present under the tree, but my parents stopped me, since it was an accessory to another present. It ended up being a charger for an RC car. Some Service Merchandise model, IIRC (oops there goes my age again).
fizzbin:
If you enjoy celebrating Christmas then remember to thank God for our secular government. The only time Christmas has truly been under attack in this country is when the Puritans banded it’s celebration.
Keeping the church out the the government and the government out of the church has been beneficial to both. The (in my opinion good) fact that America has one the highest participation rates in religion is immensely helped by the fact that
Americans are religious because they want to be not because they are induced by any government support.
Funimation Channel (the 24-hour anime network) has been putting up a commercial break ID for the last few days that actually says “Merry Christmas”. I was slightly disappointed that it didn’t also say ?????????, but it’s an improvement.
Hmm, katakana doesn’t work on the comment page, eh? So much for my clever bilingual observation.
In the midst of a deadly-dull workday, iTunes served up “We Three Kings.” The version from the 1965 Goodyear compilation; Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra with the throttles set at full war emergency power. The phrase “overpowering majesty” comes to mind.
Merry Christmas to all Bleatniks, and to Our Genial Host.
Mr. Manager,
The government for the most part is not engaged in this war so no thanks are necessary for having failed to participate. You may be forgetting that the Puritans had only a small part of the real estate of a very few of the original 13 COLONIES in North America which were in point of fact still part of Merrie Olde Englande. It wasn’t this country quite yet. The Puritans could only say grace (you should forgive the expression) over parts of New England and even there not all of it. The southern colonies went in for Christmas full bore.
Good attempt at a recovery at the end though. The intent of the operative portions of the Bill Of Rights were to keep government out of religion. Even Ben Franklin (who came closest to in fact being a Deist) believed however, that a democratic government containing a populace without benefit of religious principles could not succeed. Just take a look at well how post-revolutionary France did before Napoleon got them harnessed into a new kind of tyranny.
@J.Paul
The Japanese love Christmas, but to the non-Christian Japanese (most of them) it’s a romantic holiday, not unlike Valentine’s Day (which they love, too).
Interesting Japanese culture trivia for Natalie (if she doesn’t already know this): On Valentine’s Day, women give chocolate to men. If it’s to a boss or co-worker, it’s called giri-choco (obligation chocolate). If to someone they like like, it’s honmei-choco (prospective winner chocolate). When female friends give it to each other (did I mention that this tradition was started by chocolate companies?) it’s called tomo-choco (friend chocolate).
Chocolate for everybody! Nothing wrong with that.
Ah the tribulations of an old house. Like some gummer worried about those new-fangled ee-lectronical things, we pay a monthly blackmail, er, insurance fee to the gas company in case the water, gas, or sewer lines decide to cease servicing our 88-year-old house. But, it’s never enough. We had a plumber out for an estimate for some remodeling and he said our waste stack was on its last legs. All it would entail to fix it would be to tear a two-foot opening in all of the walls from the basement to the roof. That’s all. I guess we’ll wait until human effluvium starts filling the basement before we begin that adventure.
The wife’s family used to open presents on Christmas Eve but I had to nip that one in the bud after we were married. Christmas Eve is for church, Christmas morning is for Santa. So this year it will be church, dinner with some long-time friends and then after the family has gone to bed, A Christmas Carol (I think I DVR’d the Alistar Sims version) and a couple of bottles of Christmas Ale–likely Anchor Christmas and a Rahr Winter Warmer this year.
The Iranian salesman at the oriental rug place I just bought a rug from wished me a Merry Christmas.
(no I did not get a Persian rug, I am not even “Obama rich”. I bought a nice little Indian made rug).
A friend of mine who does video editing created The Ultimate Christmas Carol – he assembled all the best sequences and musical numbers from nearly every version of the story available, so Scrooge is Alistair Sim one minute, then Mr. Magoo, then George C. Scott, or Rich Little as W.C. Fields, or Reginald Owen, or Jack Palance, or Henry Winkler, or Bill Murray, or Patrick Stewart (“I’m going to… RAISE YOUR SALARY – A-HA!!!”). Amazingly it works beautifully which says a lot for the original story as well as my friend’s editing prowess.
Happy Yule, all!
Gimme that old time religion!
@Dr. Spin: horse hockey! oh, you’re going to have to make a bunch of big holes, no question. but not all the way up and down. primarily from the floorboards up to where the sinks/tubs are serviced.
depends on how agile one is, I suppose, and whether or not your DWV stack is old heavy hubbed cast iron.
and depends on whether there is a jog in it anyplace, like (shudder) the folks had.
otherwise, you play with it. cut out the basement section, put a plug on it. open the floor brace’s screws so the pipe can slip, cut under the sanitary tees with a wheelbarrow or porta-dumpster over the capped floor pipe, stand back. cut the pipes going into the sanitary tees, lift them out of the hole.
repeat until injury stops, or the old stack is out to the rafters. remove old expansion section in roof and the last of the old stack, hand it down the attic hatch.
pass up PVC or ABS and fittings, according to local code, cut, glue, replace as needed. join to old feed lines in good condition with rubber sleeve connectors.
that’s what the plumber has to do… and it is permit work. if you can find one who will let you assist, it will cut the bill some. if you have a buddy who is a plumber and who can look over your shoulder and cover the permit and inspections, even kewler. not likely the local yokels will let you run the main stack yourself, but you can ask. if so, it’s several days to a week of ugly work, plus patches afterwards, “but you know it’s done right.”
google that for the requisite joke, it’s pretty good.
@ Mark E Hurling, les Revolutioniers Francaises dans la street etait Catholiques, n’est pas? avec la hunger, la rage, et la crazy? Pas seculares … hungry, crazy, a la Darfur.
@ Mr Manager. Yes, during England’s Interregnum, Christmas was emblematic of all things Anglican, Papist, Arminian and moderate, and the abolition of Christmas emblematic of the new Godly England. Much bootleg wassail was consumed, no doubt, in Cavalier Speakeasies.
And yes, those much-vaunted Massachussetts Pilgrims fled England to escape all that mistletoe. They must have been green with envy when a bit later, Cromwell went ahead & built the very Grinch Utopia they hoped to build at Plymouth Rock. They were even more irked, no doubt, when those darn Anglicans, Papists, Arminians & moderates followed them west and the New World began resembling Whoville. Their defeat was complete, however, when Andy Williams married Claudine Longet and they sang “Silent Night” together.
@ RLR, yes, though I’ve no aversion to the C-word and say it often, my personal name for the season is “YOOL.” (It was good for the Druids, and it’s good enough for me.)
BUT to all friends here, I say a Happy *Christmas* to all. THAT’s what we call Dec 25th, and no other day … and it’s coming up fast.
In our house, Christmas Eve has always been the day for the big extended family Christmas party which features a number of religious and secular traditions. We do a big white elephant gift exchange on Christmas Eve, and may open a present or two, but most are left until Christmas day. Christmas Day itself is pretty much reserved for immediate family.
Oh, and my Dad has a birthday on Christmas Eve as well…
@James S: the Alistair Sim version is the only one for me. Something about it being black/white – wasn’t everything in London black or white then? – and having virtually no soundtrack behind the poignant scenes, makes it very real. And Sim, pranking the chambermaid for a split second after his transformation by madly rumpling his hair – comic delight.
James, no picture of the Christmas Elf? It’s become a Yultide ritual for your readers now. And the Yuletide only lasts until…um…well, I’m not sure how long Yuletide lasts. I guess until the moment the Yule hits the curb. But if the Elf doesn’t show up by the 25th, I’m chalking up another win for the other side in the War on Christmas.
I’m glad I don’t have an old house anymore. Now I have a new house, with polybutylene plumbing & masonite siding! Actually, HAD both of them, cost a mint to replace, did not get in on the class-action action.
God bless us, every one!
Sometime I wish there was a full version of Christmas Carol with Buddy Hacket as Scrooge, Jamie Farr as Bob Cratchit, and Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim. Might give Star Wars Christmas a challenge to the bottom.
@Wagner von: if they installed PEX plumbing, you might get in on the next suit
I still have my doubts about plastic pipe and squeeze-it connections, even though all the plumbers are saying “third try is the charm.”
silly Christmas carols time:
Root Canals for Christmas
I’ve had mine, have you?
madCanada — Grinch Utopia — love it!!!
My vote goes for the Alistair Sim version of Christmas Carol because Sim could make me see the hurt child buried inside the grim miser.
And I get an annual kick out of seeing the charwoman run screaming from his bedroom with the apron over her head (only to flip it up briefly so she could find the door).
Meanwhile, I await the annual catastrophe.
2008 — the refrigerator died on Christmas Eve. Thank the Lord I was not expected to produce a holiday meal, though the foxes out back inherited a banquet some thawed hamburger and some nasty looking rib steaks. I also lost all the soup I had put up that fall. (But the 5-year warranty paid for a new compressor.) That night, I cooked two gigundous chuck roasts. Well, they were thawed out, after all. Waste not, want not. Ate tasty roast beef chunks for weeks. Yum!
2009 — furnace went wacky — thermostat died and I got 85 degree heat regardless of how I worked the dial.
2010 — who knows? Though I did burn up the range hood two weeks ago — grease fire in cast iron pan. I was standing by with the lid, so I smothered the flames quickly. Still, the grease screen in the hood had enough bacon residue to go up most flamboyantly. No damage to anything but the hood. Lucky me. I hope that’s my annual catastrophe.
The fun never quits.
…there’s only about 3 million Lutherans left in the USA. My gf and I looked at each other in shock…
Really? When I left the US 20 years ago there were that many members of the ELCA alone, never mind the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods. I wonder what happened.
Mind, that’s still about 10% or so of the US population. Isn’t it?
Oops.
Decimal point error. Make that 1%.
Blame the decidedly fine Speyside malt.
“Saw a stat on TV that floored me: there’s only about 3 million Lutherans left in the USA. My gf and I looked at each other in shock, and I said no wonder the country is going to hell.”
Wonder what the two of you would think of Scotland: In this country of 5 million people, there is ONE Lutheran church, and it boasts about 40 members. . .
There is ONE Lutheran church, and it boasts about 40 members
That would be St Columba, in East Kilbride?
only three million Lutherans? yah, sure. then. Sven. you be pulling on my leg again, yah.
So they can’t sleeve it… oh, krep. Well, James, I tip my hat to you in gratitude: preserving your treasure of a house now includes the thankless task of restoring or updating the infrastructure that services it. May Jasperwood stand in untarnished beauty (and unobstructed flushes) for another 100 Christmases!
Regarding the 1946 Christmas stamp: I’m glad to see that even at an early age, Tammy Faye Bakker found modeling work.
I am late to this thread, so I hope that I am not repeating anything that was said before.
On the mainland US, and I imagine, most of Europe, the Romans are too much considered the fathers our American Civilization.
I blame this on the neo-classical architecture of the late 18th-19th-early 20th centuries.
In history there has been nothing like America. Might as well compare us to the Chinese.
@ Philip Scott Thomas
East Kilbride it is, though I don’t attend personally.Thought about becoming a Lutheran when I lived in the States, but now am glad I didn’t! Wonder what the rest of the Lutherans do here. . .
And save some of that malt for me!!
Swschrad, I googled “but you know it’s done right” and didn’t find anything worth chuckling over. In fact your comment above was the second one down (third one once I repeated with the omitted results included…)
“The nice young lady was nice and helpful, and at the end of the call she wished me a Merry Christmas. First time a stranger in a commercial transaction had done so in years.”
Yet another reminder that the South (I’m a MN transplant now in Louisiana) is very different. It took me a while to get used to people telling me to “have a blessed day” as well.