A Smidlap Christmas 2020
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
Welcome to A Smidlap Christmas 2020. In our house we don't celebrate Christmas in a church-y or bible-y kind of way but we still manage to enjoy the season. For me Christmas is simply the name of the season with some pleasant traditions and probably a beef rib roast. Whichever holiday you celebrate with or without religion this season I wish you all the best.
What are we doing this year?
We bought a Christmas tree this year for the first time in a few years. We got it right after Thanksgiving and have been enjoying that fire hazard for a month now. It seems in recent years we always had travel plans for the holidays and also just got a little lazy about fetching and paying 60 bucks for a tree. You know what? I really like having a tree in the house so I'll try to give a little more effort in the coming years.
Gifts
I really enjoy giving the occasional surprise gift to a friend or family member. We don't have any Little Smidlappers running around the house (probably best) so it's not an exceptionally big-gift-y time of year around here. Mrs. Smidlap and I got our fill of that growing up with the overboard Christmas days when we were kids. Really in my house it was just a bunch of stuff like clothing that a growing kid needed replaced saved up for one big day and I have to admit it was a lot of fun. Now we just buy what we want when we want/need it. About 12 years ago I found this Chico's Bail Bonds shirt online. It's from The Bad News Bears movie. For my money it's still the best sports movie of all time and a great story of the have's versus the have not's. Oh, I'm talking about the real movie from the 1970's starring Walter Matthau and Tatum O' Neal and not that cruddy Billy Bob Thornton rehash. Anyhow, I was buying one for myself so I decided to buy a couple of extra shirts for two of my buddies. I mailed them out as a surprise. I remember a couple of years ago I handed out a couple of FreddySmidlap.com shirts to friends and family we were visiting and those were pretty popular. They are high quality garments as well. The printed logo on mine has held up a couple of years now. This year's big gift find was a A Day at the Races in Saratoga t-shirt from 2003 for my mother-in-law. She is a helluva quilter and often gives those quilts to a charity auction in Saratoga Springs NY where horse racing reins supreme. She takes these old souvenir t-shirts from years past and makes quilts out of them and they fetch a pretty penny at auction for a good charitable cause. This year she really wanted to add the 2003 version featuring the horse Funny Cide who was based in Saratoga and won the Kentucky derby that year. I was able to score a couple of them from the eBay machine so I'm confident she will be happy with my little gift. You really can buy just about anything on eBay. I know because I've sold 'most everything under the sun on the machine.
we have one of those quilts not pictured because Mrs. Smidlap turned my camera to video mode and I can't figure out how to put it back! "To the moon, Alice!"
Hopefully we have some snow so ol' Banjo! can go and goof around The other end of the gift spectrum is the receiving and anyone who knows me realizes if they feel the must give me a gift (they don't), then a decent bottle of wine is the hot ticket. In fact the today's mail contained a lovely bottle of reserve port from my very generous brother and sister-in-laws. There are a couple of packages under the tree this past week that generally are bottle-shaped so I have high hopes that Santa brought something similar.
Activities
I made my annual batch of pecan pralines this past weekend. They really are terrific but a real pain in the gonads to make. You basically are making candy and have to stand there at the stove whisking constantly for about 40 straight minutes and hope to remove them from the heat at exactly 240 fahrenheit degrees. This year was a success, thankfully.
What we're celebrating at 2020 Smidlap Christmas
Well, we stayed Covid-free and so did extended family and a vaccine is around the corner for a lot of people. Sign me up for that shot when Big Brother offers it up. I also wrote last week about our huge stock market gains this year. I said at the time we would celebrate if our crazy unexpected returns for the year even touched 100% at any time. Well, guess what? We got there today! Wahoooo! I don't care if it falls back from there; this is very likely a once in a lifetime event so we'll celebrate it. I've been around long enough to have learned get my jollies when they present themselves. I'm also still basking in the glory of the World Series Championship for my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. The football season has been a lot of fun so far and it's a good week to be on vacation and taking in the college and NFL games. You know the best part of it all? I made the finals of my fantasy football league! Yep, The Muffuritos made it all the way to the final two. I have to play against my friend's kid who is no longer a kid. He was little in 2002 when we started this league but now is in his 20's and may even be getting married this year. Time flies and I'm wishing him well but want to kick his ass this weekend for the big prize. Entry fee for the league is $150 and I'm either going to win $425 for runner up of $750 for champion. I'm not sure if there is still a title belt floating around but I hope so. Here's hoping for a big week from Aaron Rodgers, Derek Henry and the rest of the Muffuritos squad. I know you people will pray for my success. In all 18 years of this fun league I've probably broken even on the money by finishing second 2-3 times but have never one. Somehow it seems like my year. It's a funny thing that it could be so meaningful, but somehow winning that $750 seems like better money than what is in my regular work paycheck. That's all I have for now everybody. I sure appreciate all you who read this regularly and especially the comment banter. Y'all are the best. Stay healthy and have fun. Have a healthy Smidlap Christmas 2020. p.s. we did fine being largely isolated this year. with that being said i look forward to seeing a lot more family and friends in 2021. besides, i have to head to d.c. at some point so the Accidental FIRE and i can run that 6:00 mile. gotta do it before we get old and the bodies give out!