When God was handing out singing voices the Lennons were in line first and by the time He got through ALL of them—there was nothing left for Him to give the Dahlins. Plain and simple they could SING —the Dahlins—not so much. I am sorry to say that this is my attempt at trying to pull off my Dahlin parody of the 12 Days of Christmas.
PLEASE DON'T JUDGE.
After the video—later when I have time, I will type out the song and add it here for translation for those of you in other countries (or if you just cannot stand my amazing singing abilities), I will also include pictures along with the written version (and links to the corresponding post).
Christmas at our house was chaotic. We would walk home from Saint Mark's Church after midnight mass and round the corner at the Lennon Sister's house (the one pictured here with the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the front dining room window). My mother would shush us—hoping to hear some of the angelic voices of the Lennon Sisters as we passed by.
We would push and pull hair and step on the back of the shoes of the kid in front of us to give them a "flat tire."
When we got into the house mom (we called her H. Joan) would throw herself in front of the large double-sliding doors the led from the front entry into the huge living room with the $2.00 tree purchased from the Venice Boy Scout Troop 32 Christmas tree lot.
My dad was the treasurer of the Venice Boy Scout Troup (the year of this flyer...his handwritten accounting is in the back) and when it was all over we made a grand total of $148.00 (hey that was a lot of money back then).
The Blasers next door always bought a nice, expensive tree for $12.00 and in a good year we would buy two $2.00 trees and tie them together because they were so pathetically sparse (seriously the Charlie Brown tree had more foliage), then we'd cover it with tinsel—gobs and gobs of tinsel.
H. Joan (mom) wanted us to place each piece on tinsel on the tree one strand of tinsel at a time like the Blasers did, but we ended up throwing tinsel hand-grenades at the tree and just let it explode and coagulate where it landed in smothering clumps.
Anyway, back to the part where Mrs. D threw herself against the big heavy doors, mom would threaten us with her "the pain of mortal sin" speech not to dive into the presents like sharks on a whale carcass—she pleaded and begged us to be more like the Lennons and the Tripps and the Blasers.
She imaged how it might have been down at the corner at the Lennon house, we knew of the relative calm next door at the Blasers and she wanted us to open the presents one at a time for everyone to see the present, to know who it was from, and then to give a polite golf-clap of appreciation after each present.
She imaged how it might have been down at the corner at the Lennon house, we knew of the relative calm next door at the Blasers and she wanted us to open the presents one at a time for everyone to see the present, to know who it was from, and then to give a polite golf-clap of appreciation after each present.
After the stern warning and the threat to retreat upstairs if it got out of hand, she would open the doors and like little saints we walked into the living room, THEN flung ourselves on top of the pile of presents in a frenzy like blood-thirsty piranha—tossing presents and tearing into them that made a mountain of wrapping paper that filled the entire living room floor—presents were lost and sometimes so were kids and sometimes we didn't care.
During the bloodbath, Tony sneaked away and climb into one of the junk rooms up on the third floor to hunt for used stuff to give away and wrap it in the torn and discarded paper. I got the same rusted old Kline-Smith Chemistry sent from him for eight years in a row. None of the chemicals that you could mix to make an explosion were in the set—they had already been used up by about the time I was born (bummer).
I will leave out the part of the wrapping paper wars—the part where I try to clean things up and organized and where the older boys threw the wrapping paper out again behind my back. It was pathetic—torture—like the poor little dog endlessly running in circles trying to catch its tail.
Every year it was the same.
The same threats.
The same speech.
The same chaos.
The same fun...
The same fun...
...and always, the best Christmas ever!
Merry Christmas
P.S. and if you would like to buy my Book about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego... it is a short, fun read that does give the historical setting behind WHY there were Three Wise Men (Magi) in the East who anticipated the birth of baby Jesus... (here is the link if you are interested).
