Saturday, November 3, 2007

Eat My Road Grit Liver Lips

Eddie: If you scratch his belly Clark, he will love you till the day you die.
Clark: I really shouldn't Eddie my hands are all chapped.

Those of you who are reading this might be saying to yourself, "Charlie, isn't it a little early for Christmas quotes. I mean its not even the Christmas season yet. And you might ask yourself "How does one decide when Christmas time is officially here?" Some people say you have to wait until after Thanksgiving other people not until December 1st. Here are just a few ways that I make that call.

Wal-Mart - Wal-Mart can be helpful and deceiving in deciding when to be officially ready for the Christmas season. Once the garden center has been completely transformed from its summer self into Santa's Workshop, and all the Halloween decor is gone, you can easily begin to shift gears into Christmas Season. Of course that's what they want you to do because the longer Christmas is the more you will buy. So its a tough call. But you can't base it on that alone.

Mall Decor - You have to take in consideration the mall decor as well. Like Wal-Mart they want to prolong Christmas as much as possible but the real good decorations don't make their way out until the end of November. But by the start of November they are definitely making their Christmas presence known. But again you can't base it on that alone.

Party Plans - Setting up dates and times for parties, switching names for "Dirty Santa's," and making Christmas wish-lists for family members to blouse through-browse through is definitely a good sign that the holidays are rapidly approaching. But again you can't base it on that alone.

Christmas Lights - This is most always an easy way to decide when the Christmas season has arrived except in the rare case of "That Family." You know this family. This is the family that has their Christmas lights up the day after Halloween and doesn't take them down until moments before sunrise service Easter morning. Don't be fooled by "That Family's" love of the Holidays. I appreciate their zeal but follow the 60% rule. When 60% of the houses have their Christmas lights up you can flip that switch into Christmas mode. But again you can't base it on that alone.

The Bells - For me the one thing I can always fall back on as an easy rule of thumb is the Salvation Army. When the Salvation Army recruits all my Wheeler Mission friends to ring the bells in front of Target, Wal-Mart and the local malls. I can easily flip that switch.

The reason I bring all this up is because I have flipped the switch earlier than I ever have this year. I flipped it yesterday when I finished Katie's Christmas shopping and wrapped her presents. I am definitely in the Christmas mode today as I will go to Goodwill in search of finding the outfit I will wear for my Christmas Card picture this year. (See Above-Last Years Christmas Card) Upon doing that I will head out to the mall again to snag a couple more Christmas gifts that I am 100% on.

I think the cause of all this is my wedding. Most of you know but I got engaged August 1st and have planned a December 15th wedding. Having roughly fourth months to plan a wedding is not a lot of time, but for Katie and her Mom I have the utmost confidence. They are superheros! No really, they are! The efficiency equally matched with their relaxed "lets get it done" attitude is awesome. They are the opposite of high maintenance and things are getting crossed off the list in record time. I can't say enough about my Mom too. She has been incredible and she is in the same boat as Katie and her Mom.

So for me Christmas means getting married to Katie. So please forgive me all of you who think I am jumping the gun on starting the Christmas season now, but I am real excited. Soon I will do a post about Katie so all of you can get a glimpse of what an awesome person she is. But for now I leave you with this quote:

Clark: It's a years subscription to the jelly of the month club. (Gasps and sighs)
Eddie: Clark, that's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year through.
Clark: That it is Edward, that it is.


4 comments:

Keeerah said...

Chuck! First of all that pic is hilarious! And I'm so excited to hear about Katie. I'm sad I won't be there to make it to your wedding. Yay! You're getting married. Hope things continue to go smoothly and this next month is filled with crazy excitement. All my fountains.

Denise said...

Boo Boo!
Gobble Gobble!
Ding Dong!
Ho Ho!
Happy New Year!!
Denise :)

Bethany Zumba said...

um, maybe now that you've gotten us all excited about your blog...you should update.

Going Weston said...

All of your signs are up in Virginia. So apparently no one cares about Thanksgiving anymore. It's okay, I will welcome Christmas sooner this year. It just means I get to see you sooner.


Remember that time when you had a blog, and everyone thought you'd keep up with it and we all got really excited? yeah, that was awesome...