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Merry Christmas everyone!

 

For many families it’s a tradition to read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, or to watch one or more of the excellent screenplay adaptations. My favorite is the 1951 British production with Alistair Sims. For some, another favorite is It’s a Wonderful Life

 

For the members and guests on Web2.0calc there is a Christmas Story on here that since become a tradition for me when it was posted 5 years ago today. This story is about a boy –a young man and his little sister, and mum and dad too. This delightfully funny Christmas Story was written by 14-year-old Dragonlance and posted on Christmas day 2015. 

 

Christmas is about spending time with family and friends, and that’s what Lance does. There are no ghosts in this story; Lance saved them for A Ouija board story. Halloween eve 2014.  Both of these are a wonderful treats for those who’d like to read a good Christmas and Halloween story.

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

 

Dragonlance was one of the young wonders on this forum during its golden age.  Along with his Halloween and Christmas stories, the latter thread has an encore, Santa Clause is coming to the Manger, and he alludes to several other stories in this thread and in other posts.  Really I have two more. The other one is from last year and is partly Marisol’s birthday and partly Christmas time stories.”

 

Then there was: Yes I do but I not the type who kiss and tell. This was DL’s truly brilliant and funny reply after I asked him, How many journal stories do you have? Do you have one about your first kiss?

 

This post is a spontaneous narrative from Dragonlance. It should be noted here that this narrative had one rewrite and was posted six weeks before he posted his journal stories, the stories were a year old with several re-writes.   Lance’s natural writing talent is amazing. 

 

The thread starts with CPhill using logic to solve a math problem, which would work if the length of a meter were not so well defined in this universe.  Lance offers a challenge, and interprets the logic as a “joke,” perhaps from an alternate universe –the idea of which is subtly and humorously introduced by CPhill with his Magic, Dragonlance, Magic.......!!!!! 

 

Lance takes the magic and introduces his spontaneous narrative of significant current events in his life about his sister’s birthday and his teacher wanting a conference with his parents because she is so amazed by his writing. Lance concludes this narrative with heart-felt kudos, accolades, and gratitude for the forum’s principle teacher/tutors, Melody, CPhill, and Alan, and then for his forum friends, Rosala, Eloise, and 7UP.

 

Dragonlance is among the most amazing and unique of the few young persons who I’ve met and talked to online.  (SevenUP ranks up there too.) 

 

Merry Christmas Dragonlance ...wherever you are.

 

GA Merry Christmas

 Dec 25, 2020
edited by GingerAle  Dec 25, 2020
edited by GingerAle  Dec 25, 2020
 #1
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Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks to all the great users of the forum that make the forum a better place!

Hope you alll have a great Christmas! 

- Grace

 Dec 25, 2020
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Merry Christmas, Ginger.  Thank you for this wonderful post, and all your other posts.  I wish you contentment in the coming year, and all years after that.  Goodnight, Gracie.  ~Ron 

.

 Dec 25, 2020
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I agree! and who is Gracie?

-Grace

Guest Dec 25, 2020
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It's a joke between Ginger and me.  There was a comedy duo called George Burns and Gracie Allen.  She played a wacky blonde.  He was the sedate, level-headed one.  At the end of their weekly show, they'd talk to the audience for a few moments, and they'd always close out by George telling Gracie to say goodnight.  He'd tell her "Say goodnight, Gracie."  She'd say "Goodnight, Gracie." 

.

Guest Dec 25, 2020
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LOL, i did not know that.... i was just curious when you said good night gracie, and i was not sure if you where talking to me :P LOL

-Grace

Guest Jan 7, 2021
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Happy New Year and Merry Eastern Orthodox Christmas, Ron

 

Your Christmas wish and New Year’s blessing are really nice. Thank you.

 

GA Merry EO Christmas

GingerAle  Jan 7, 2021
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Ah.....the Golden Age of the Forum....I remember it well.....

 

Yep.....we have had some outstanding younger members  (DL included)

 

Merry Christmas to GA and all the others  on here that  make this thing somewhat legitimate (too numerous to name )

 

In honor of GA :

 

 

 

 

cool cool cool 

 Dec 25, 2020
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Happy New Year and Merry Eastern Orthodox Christmas, CPhill

 

I love this chimp. He reminds me of a chimp named Harvey.

I have a memoir about him...

 

 

GAMerry EO Christmas

GingerAle  Jan 7, 2021
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Hi Ginger,

I have just been reading through those old posts.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane  :))

 Dec 26, 2020
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Happy New Year and Merry Eastern Orthodox Christmas, Melody

 

There are some truly wondrous posts on memory lane.  

 

GAMerry EO Christmas

GingerAle  Jan 7, 2021
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Happy Christmas

 

Ginger, you should post one of your memoirs.  The Christmas memoir you sent me a few years ago will fit the theme of your post. It too is delightfully funny, and it’s now a Christmas tradition for me to read it every year to my grandchildren.  I’d bet others would like to read it, and it might become a Christmas tradition for them too. 

 

I will forever and always enjoy reading:

 

Your narratives, particularly when they have artwork, and the artwork has particular pitchforks with errant math.

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/projectile-problem#r10  

 

Your satire, particularly when I post it for you.

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/dice-help#r4

 

Your satire, particularly when I repost it,

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/who-noticed-this-post-by-admin#r2

 

Your troll posts, particularly when you troll the Blarney Banker, and you troll the particular Top Banana, Lancelot Link.  

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/a-farmer-s-dilemma#r3

 

Your troll posts, particularly your multi-vectored troll posts, where you take on a BB and the whining snowflake Blarney Master, and then add a particular memoir narrative that causes me to laugh so hard I have to take extra tranquilizers to keep from stroking.

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/hallppp-3-questions#r8

 

Your math posts, particularly when you troll yourself.

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/tricky-probability-hints#r13

 

Your tribute posts, particularly your eloquent tribute posts, requiring anti-nausea medicine after posting.

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/does-anyone-know-what-happened-to-rom#r5

 

Your Season’s Greets, particularly troll greets for the BBs, where you

Deck the halls with boughs of BLARNEY (and) Troll-la-Troll-la-Troll, la-Troll-Troll, Troll

https://web2.0calc.com/questions/help_62316#r3

 

Your Thanksgiving posts, particularly when you lay a big, fat turkey egg; hatch it by Christmas, and have a Genetically Enhanced Turkey for Science, Mathematics, and Research Training ready to start his career by Eastern Orthodox Christmas.   

 https://web2.0calc.com/questions/an-eastern-orthodox-christmas-turkey

 

 

The only thing particularly missing at this particular time is your particular Christmas memoir.

 

I wish you a particularly Merry New Year and a particularly Happy Eastern Orthodox Christmas.

 

 

.

 Dec 28, 2020
edited by JacobBernoulli  Dec 28, 2020
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Happy New Year and Merry Eastern Orthodox Christmas, JB

 

Your particularly particular post presents as particularly peculiar. Where you enjoying a particularly potent Port?

In keeping with the particular tradition, I am posting the particular Christmas memoir on Eastern Orthodox Christmas Day.

 

GAMerry EO Christmas

GingerAle  Jan 7, 2021
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Ginger’s Journal Memoir

Spying on Father Christmas, Horse Pìss, My First Brandy, Fire-Water from HeII, (Ages 5, 6, 12)

 

To this day, my father still won’t admit Father Christmas (St. Nicolas) is only a legend. My mum and dad still get gifts from him every Christmas. I usually do too. Around Christmas time when I was five, I asked my father if Father Christmas was real.  My father’s affirmative reply was:  “Of course he’s real! You won’t get gifts from him if you don’t believe in him. You do want his gifts, don’t you?” I remember saying that I did, but I wasn’t really concerned about it, I was much more concerned about hurting his feelings for doubting his existence. 

 

I resolved to watch Father Christmas come down our chimney. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to greet him, but I wanted to watch him set up the Christmas tree, hang the stockings, and lay out the presents—all in a magical blink of an eye. Oh, and after he finished, I wanted to watch him drink his brandy, too.  “No milk and cookies for Father Christmas; no sir! It’s a brandy to warm the bones of an old saint who works hard in the freezing cold of Christmas Eve.” My father always said.   I slept through it that year, but I did complete my spy mission when I was six.

 

Sometime during Christmas day, I proudly confronted my father with my eye-witness observations.  I carefully described how he and my mother with the help of my sister, setup and decorated the tree, neatly laid the gifts around the tree, loaded up the stockings and hung them on the mantel, all while he sipped on St. Nicholas’ brandy.  So There!

 

My father started to laugh. He laughed just like jolly ole St Nick would laugh. He kept it up for a long time. It was contagious and I laughed too. So did my mum. Not my sister though, she never laughs.   Then he suddenly quit laughing and said, “So that explains it! For over sixty years Father Christmas has come to my home, setting up and decorating the Christmas tree, laying out the presents and hanging the stockings, drinking me brandy and giving his blessing, but this year he couldn’t do it. “St. Nicholas’ stopped by early and dumped everything off, telling me I have to tend to the details meself because he can’t.

 

“I thought it was because he was too busy this year, but it was because he knew you’d be spying on him. My god, your mum and sister and I did all this so you wouldn’t know, and here you be the cause of it all.  I hope he comes next year, I hope we haven’t pìssed him off.  You don’t want to get on the bad side of a powerful saint like St Nicholas!  Now go do penance—pray the rosary for an hour.” 

 

This was the worst bloody Christmas ever!  I stormed off crying my eyes out. I was terrified that I’d pìssed off, beyond forgiveness, the most benevolent saint to children in all of Christendom.  Halfway through the rosary, I’d calmed down enough to begin wondering why watching Father Christmas do his thing would make him so angry. It had to be something other than that; but what?

 

It seemed that St Nicholas was telling me to ask my father if this could be so. I went to ask my father as much. Rather than giving me the business, he responded logically. “Well maybe you are right, let’s see if we can figure it out.” He asked me, “What was different this Christmas compared to last Christmas?” He also answered it for me: “Maybe it was Ginger trying to spy on him.”

 

I reminded him that I was going to do that last year but I didn’t wake up in time. “He knew you weren’t going to wake up, so he came and blessed us all the same.” 

 

“Well, if it’s so important for us to be asleep when he comes why doesn’t he make us fall asleep? He can do all these things why not that one?” I asked.

 

“I don’t know,” he said, “maybe only God can cause people to fall asleep, not saints.  Besides we need to be responsible for some things.”  While he was explaining this to me I noticed the empty brandy snifter on the coffee table.  After he was finished, I walked over to it and picked it up and swirled the few drops that remained. “Maybe it’s this,” I suggested.

 

“What? The brandy I set out for St. Nicholas. What’s a matter with it? He asked. 

 

“Maybe he doesn’t like the horse piss you call brandy.” I said, as I drained the few drops that would come out. “Yep, horse pìss!” I repeated, after smacking my lips. “... From a swayback headed to the glue factory.” 

 

My father stood there motionless for a few moments and then his countenance changed. It’s the kind of look people have when their brain sends signals to their bodies to prepare for long bouts of laughter and not much breathing.   In my mum’s case it included the instruction to expel the coffee, that she was in the midst of drinking, through her nose.  So my mum and dad began to laugh and they cackled like hens trying to lay oversized eggs. Not my sister though, she never laughs. 

 

 After five minutes or so, they took a break only to start again.  I was doing my best to remain serious and stoical. My best wasn’t very good. Though I thought it was funny too, I wasn’t in the mood to laugh, so I said, “I’m going back to my room to finish my penance.”

           

 “No. Wait!” my father said.  After three rounds of cackling my dad regained his strength and picked me up and hugged me like a child would hug her doll. As the remnants of his laughter subsided, he said “You know, I was thinking in me head, that your mum and me kind of like decorating the Christmas tree.” 

 

“You do?” I asked.

 

“Yes we do,” he affirmed. “Your sister does too. At least, I think she does –it be hard to tell with her....” My father added as he momentarily drifted off.  “So,” he continued, “from now on, we will all be decorating the tree together. Father Christmas can just bring his gifts, and I’ll set brandy out and he can drink it or not. If he wont to be a bastard, then I be happy to oblige and drink it for him.  He can leave me a note if he wants something different.”

 

 After that, that was the way it was—and still is. Decorating the tree was a lot of fun, and for me the happiest part of Christmas time.  I still do that with them every Christmas. My father still has his snifter of brandy, and after I was old enough, he’d pour one for me—a short one, lest I not be able to trim the tree properly.

 

During Christmas time, when I was 12, I asked if I could have some of his brandy. “Aye, you can, my child.”   There were about two ounces remaining in his snifter, and I downed it like it was soda. “Gorblimey me, child! I thought you were to have a have a wee sip, not down it like an old sot! Now sit your arse on the settee, before your boots become wobbly.”

 

I wasn’t in any condition to argue. My mouth and throat were on fire. It was hard to take a breath, and the alcohol fumes were burning my throat and lungs when I did.  I did as I was told, remaining stoical, tiring to act like I didn’t just drink fire-water from heII. I continuously cleared my throat to keep from coughing.  Despite my stoicism, my watering eyes might have given me away.  After a few minutes I recovered, and my father asked, “How be ye? And what think ye of the brandy?

 

 “I be fine, father.  And your brandy still be horse piss.”

 

“Aye, from a swayback headed to the glue factory,” my father added, followed by a long belly laugh. 

 

-----

 

Notes:  While the above anecdotes are true, some of the dialogue is greatly embellished and trimmed for dramatic and humorous effect –especially the dialogue from my six-year-old self. One exception is the “horse pìss, swayback ...  glue factory” comments, which are verbatim as best I know.  My father has repeated this anecdote countless times.  As a child, I often overheard my father commenting on the quality of liquor served by his poker buddies.   “Horse piss” was by far his most common adjective. “Clyde be an eejit for thinking we’re fooled by mankey horse piss he serves from fine bottles of yesterday” If my father lost a bet on a horse race: “The bloody capall went to the glue factory!” I heard this and similar comments from my great uncles too.

 

 

GA

 Jan 7, 2021
edited by GingerAle  Jan 7, 2021
 #14
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WOW Ginger, that was a great story! 

-Grace

 Jan 9, 2021
 #16
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Ginger does write great stories and memoirs. You’d like them all. Most of them I’ve read to my youngest granddaughter, Melody Marie, who is about your age.  Ginger sent me several of her writings, including a few excerpts from the memoir she mentions to CPhill, about a chimp named Harvey. This chimp and his twin brother, Harold, jump into Ginger’s arms when she sings to them.

 

Many years ago, in college, I majored in journalism, but I never kept a personal journal.  I do have two memoir-like narratives on here, if you would like to read them. https://web2.0calc.com/questions/the-search-function-really-sucks#r4 and https://web2.0calc.com/questions/topic-of-the-day_8#r4

JacobBernoulli  Jan 14, 2021
 #15
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Ginger ale your father seems abusive for yelling at a six-year old for discovering that Santa Clause isn’t real. Most fathers would be proud when their children discover and learn things. Was your father an alcoholic? How old was you suster? Is this abusive behavior why your sister never laughs?

 Jan 13, 2021
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You are going to get a face full of radioactive GingerAle!

That will be a good read too!

JacobBernoulli  Jan 14, 2021

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