We all know the old saying surrounding Christmas: "It's better to give than to receive."  However true that saying may be, there is a part of me that craves Christmas presents.  I always love getting "toys" be it electronics, tools, stuff for my car, movies, music, books, or actual toys.  Then there are they things I don't care for such as school supplies, clothes, socks (although this year my parents found me some thermal socks in my size so I am pleased), and ties.  One year of teaching at Christmas, I received 25+ ties from my students. 

I was watching A Christmas Story yesterday morning and the scene that always makes me laugh no matter how many hundreds of times that I have seen it is when Ralph receives the bunny suit from his aunt.  He then is forced by his mother to don this pink outfit and model it for the family. 

This scene always reminds me of the one gift I received that still makes me cringe.  When I was about ten, I had just gotten a pet cat.  For some reason one of my aunts thought I had a pet dog.  She usually sent me the coolest presents but this year she tried something different.  She was going through a phase of making her own clothing or buying clothes and "bedazzling" them but necessarily with rhinestones.  I was set to receive one of her projects.

Christmas Day morning comes and I run for the Christmas tree to see all the wonderful presents that Santa brought.  Yes, Santa.  I knew better but every year my mom hides the presents and labels everything I receive from her and my dad as being from Santa or my cats.  The tradition was that I opened the presents from my family first.  So I am clamoring for my one aunt's present because they were always the coolest.  My dad fishes out the present and hands it to me.  I rip away the paper at light speed and undid the tape holding the box shut.  Then...my heart sank.

I looked inside the box.  A sweatshirt?  Was this some sort of sick joke?  I hold it up and shake it hoping something cool would fall out.  No such luck.  My mom looks at it..."A SWEATSHIRT!  WOW!"  The front was facing me.  My mom asks, "Is there anything on the front?"  I am shocked and my Christmas is falling down around me.  I look in horror at the front.  I turn it around to reveal the front to my parents. "OOOOOHHHH!!!! A Scottie dog!  How cute!"  I am near tears.  My dad says, "Go try it on." 

I walk to the bathroom in disbelief.  I hear my parents talking about how lucky I am to get such a pretty sweatshirt.  I look in the mirror and I am in this walking comatose state.  I look at the front.  The Scottie dog was mocking me.  It was sewn on by hand.  My aunt couldn't have just sent me a nice blue sweatshirt, NO, she had to sew on a fuzzy Scottie dog.  It just looked at me and laughed at me for expecting a cool present.  A fuzzy Scottie dog.  How is that possible when we told her repeatedly that we just got a cat? 

Like a trooper I put on the sweatshirt.  I walked out and showed off the sweatshirt along with my utter contempt for this horrible present.  My mom is squealing about how cute it looks on me and my dad is talking about with such a great sweatshirt like that, he will be able to keep the furnace turned down the rest of the winter.  Tears start flowing out of my eyes and I collapse.  A panic attack or maybe it was just an overload of contempt.

I took off the sweatshirt and threw it under the tree and then proceeded to open my cool presents.  After all the presents were opened and I was in a state of orgasmic bliss from my new MASK, Ghostbusters, and G.I. Joe toys, my mom told me that I should call my aunt to thank her for the sweatshirt.  Knives through my heart.  I made the call and I should have been nominated for an Academy Award for saying how much I loved the sweatshirt and how much I loved Scottie dogs.  I hung up and thought that I would never have to worry about that sweatshirt ever again.

A few days pass and it's time for school to resume.  My dad asks if I want to wear my new sweatshirt to school.  I say, "No, I don't want to ruin it and we have spaghetti for hot lunch so I don't want to stain it."  So I wear my regular school clothes.  School went by and we all had fun talking about all the new toys we received.  I got home that night and all hell broke loose.  My mom was screaming about how I didn't wear my new sweatshirt to school.  I said it wasn't cool and Scottie dogs were for "fags" (little did I know what that word meant in third grade).  My mom said I was wrong.  She made me wear it for that evening's activities, Lutheran Pioneers.  Lutheran Pioneers is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's version of Boy Scouts.  See, our church is against the Boy Scouts because of their policy on believing in a "god".  Please don't comment about that.  I was just a little part German boy following orders.

For being a Lutheran organization, you wouldn't expect kids to make fun of you for a sweatshirt, but they did.  I walk down with the pastor's son and he ran away from me to get to a table of our classmates and the pointing and laughing began.  Scottie dog sweatshirt!  HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????????  I tried to tune it all out but it was horrible.  We had our devotion which gave me a brief respite from the ridicule of this ridiculous sweatshirt.  Then we had to walk past the Girl Pioneers and the laughter was worse.  No more kissing underneath the jungle gym for me all because of a stupid sweatshirt.  After two hours the ordeal was over and on the ride home I was crying and thinking the world hated me and that the only way I could continue life without dying was to transfer to a new school. 

The next day at school my friends greeted me with, "Hey, did you walk your dog last night when you got home?  What do you feed it?  Did you name it?"  I screamed an obscenity I learned from my father and threw a Bible at one classmate.  The teacher took me to the principal's office where I had to explain myself as the principal who sat there behind his desk smoking his pipe and as I suspected was trying to hold back the laughter at my Scottie dog sweatshirt.  The only advice he gave me was to never throw a Bible at someone.  He called my mom and she came and got me.  I told her how everyone hated me now because of that stupid sweatshirt.  She then said that I wouldn't have to wear it outside of the house.  I buried it in my closet not to see it until 8 years later when my parents moved.

So this brings me to my question:  What is the worst Christmas present you have ever received?

I want to do a random photo post so here is a random photo post.

This is essential for the winters up here.  Now if only I could knit.  I would wear that all the time, even when I went to the bank.  I have this major question and I don't know anyone who works at a bank.  Could you walk into a bank in the winter wearing a ski mask and they wouldn't call the police?  This would be perfect for a bank robbery because they would think you had massive amounts of facial hair unless you are a lady but then I have seen a fair share of lady mustaches in my day. 

Someone was talking about buying one of these for Christmas.  Hope that worked out for you.

Him no eat cookies no more.  I was at the Walmart a while back and came across old school Sesame Street.  It has parental warnings.  Mostly because kids talk with strangers and cookie monster has an eating disorder.  WTF?  He never managed to get any cookies in his mouth.  If a kid overeats because of a TV show then that kid's parents should be imprisoned.

Well...I think we have found Chris Hansen's favorite restaurant.

Jokes at the expense of Hilary Clinton will never get old.

So I was rereading my post about smoking and then I started to get cravings.  I started looking up hookahs because I have always wanted one of those.  Then I came across bongs for tobacco purposes only.   Yeah, actually I found that awhile back but the site I went to had these in many shapes and sizes and colors.  Why would they sell those that curve?  Realism?

While on the subject of penises...here is a promo for the new HBO series, Hung.  Actually HBO is going to air a series called Hung and the premise is that a high school basketball coach has a massive wiener and he uses it to get ahead...yes, ahead...as ahead in life.  Get your minds out of the gutter.

Sack race?

Really?  Who doesn't?

I guess when life shoves a lemon up your ass, you make lemonade.

If you are Catholic and easily offended don't look down.

Did you listen?

OK this is that controversial Playboy cover that was condemned earlier this month.
 

Well I hope you enjoyed my random photos.

I hope all had a wonderful holiday escape.

Have you ever wanted to make a witty insult after someone said something to you but you couldn't come up with the proper words and ended up telling them to go perform a sexual act on themselves?  The French had a phrase to describe that but I don't speak French.  Instead I will let you study the 10 most devastating insults of all time. 

I bet some of you have done some air travel in the past year and some of you have plans in the upcoming months to fly the friendly skies.  I have heard that in the post 9/11 world the worst part of flying is the security.  Well here is a list of the seven dumbest things that airport security has done.

I post a lot of fun pictures on this site.  Well here are 7 images that are pretty badass.  Well it was just last week that #2 made my blog. 

I should have posted this link sooner but I just found it a day or so ago.  I think this classifies as one of those gifts for the person that is hard to shop for.  I would simply hand it back and say, "Refund!" 

The Smoking Gun has the 20 best mug shots of 2008 up on their site.  My favorite is #2 but I think that is because I am biased and from Wisconsin.  The funny thing about that arrest is that the costume was functioning and she was spraying people with bodily fluids.

I never knew bears were so complex.

Here's another site that I should have posted earlier.  When I was teaching middle school aged children, I came to detest Christmas because all day I was regaled with stories of what wonderful toys and electronic devices the children were expecting their parents to buy them.  One 5th grader received 2 ipods on Christmas, one from mom and one from dad.  It made me want to celebrate Festivus. 

I read this blog and it made me sick.  This is what is wrong with our government.  Hopefully it works for me.

Did you want a drum kit for Christmas and Santa didn't bring it for you?  Well here is your very own online drum kit.  Don't say I never bought you anything. 

My dad was telling me that his Christmas party isn't until the middle of January.  Well if any of you have upcoming Christmas parties and you are looking for the perfect drink, here's a list of Christmas inspired alcohol drinks.

My neighbors once pulled this with me.  They told me they were having a party and it was going to take up the driveway and block my garage and then they would also use my backyard.  So I said, "OK.  Do I need to bring anything?"  They looked at each other nervously and laughed and said I was funny.  A little piece of me died that day.

Bookmark this website because what this guy plans on doing sounds like one of the most clever things ever. 

Have you ever wondered how your salary compares with that of one of the players for the Cleveland Cavaliers?  Well now you can figure that out.  I really need to move to Cleveland and apply to play basketball.   

This website only works once a year.(Read the url first)

If your children ever ask you if The Simpson were funny, the blog gives you photographic proof that once upon a time, like 9 years ago, The Simpsons were in fact funny.

Well that is it for this week.  Hope you enjoyed.