Day 5: I...Love...Crêpes

--------
Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
--------

There's nothing like gathering a family around the warming glow of a fireplace...but in a pinch, a television will do. Back before it was shown in a 24-hour loop, my family watched A Christmas Story every year, usually just a few days before Christmas. We also had VHS recordings of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Frosty The Snowman," but those were more like OnDemand -- we kids could watch them whenever we wanted. All wholesome entertainment that the entire family could enjoy together, although as the years went by, we moved on to other things.

Several years ago, I arrived at the house in the early evening on Christmas Eve. Teddy, home from college, immediately asked me whether I had seen the South Park movie. I hadn't, and Teddy said we should go rent it. That night. So he and I watched the South Park movie on Christmas Eve. And then twice on Christmas Day. We even tried to get Mom to watch it one of those times, but she walked out about 10 minutes in, during "Uncle Fucker." Not quite the family film.

A couple years later, Teddy got Mom and Dad a DVD player with surround speakers. We got them a few DVDs as well, and on Christmas night, after Teddy set up the system, we all watched Spiderman. Maybe there's deeper symbolism here because Dad used to read Spiderman comics to us boys from the Marvel Masterworks reprint books, but let's just say that it was a good movie and we all watched it together.

Watching A Christmas Story was the closest thing we had to a family movie tradition, until a few years ago, in the aftermath of Anchorman. Teddy and Dad declared this the greatest movie ever; I first watched it when I was out at the house recovering from thoracic surgery. As in, chest and lungs, i.e., the exact part of your body that you wouldn't want to be in excruciating pain while watching Anchorman for the very first time. During the Sex Panther scene I had to dig my nails into my thigh, because that was less painful than my otherwise-uncontrollable laughing.

Anchorman begot Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby. The year it was released, Teddy announced that he was getting Talladega Nights from Netflix and we were watching it on Christmas night. And it had its moments. Last year, Teddy went with Semi Pro, which had fewer moments. And this year, we'll be watching Step Brothers. I could not have lower expectations for this movie. And yet, it's a holiday tradition, and I do look forward to it with excitement.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mom, Allison, and Tiffany have fantasies of hunting down Will Ferrell with a Red Ryder BB gun.

Day 4: Music Makes The People Come Together

--------
Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
--------

My parents' house -- which sits on a lovely corner property and is on the market -- has a few storage spaces that are more heavily camouflaged than Waldo in a candy cane factory. And once within, these storage spaces are such effective hiding places for presents that, on more than one occasion, Mom has given me a present that she originally hid so well, she couldn't find it at the time she intended to give it to me. Also, though, there's just a lot of stuff in there. My first grade class wrote a weekly newsletter using carbon paper, and I'll bet somewhere up there is a stack of every "Lovi Local" in which I was ever published. Four kids times a lot of years equals a whole lot of precious memories.

Somewhere, among those precious memories, is the program for a holiday recital that we four kids put together for Mom and Dad. Last weekend, before I told her I was writing these stories, I asked Mom if she knew where to find the program, because I really don't remember much about this concert. It was obviously centered around the piano, and I remember we put up a few decorations, but what else? Would I have tried to play a Christmas song on the oboe? Or the recorder? How old was I at the time anyway? Had I started taking blues piano lessons yet, so that I would have done an improvisational version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"?

What does seem to be well-known about this family concert is that Ben dressed up as Santa Claus, and Allison was terrified of him. No one really knows why Allison was so afraid of Santa, but it was pretty serious. When Allison was a few years old, and she realized that Santa was going to come into our house in the middle of the night to deliver the presents, she freaked out. She absolutely would not have it. Mom and Dad had to put a note on the outside door telling Santa to leave the presents in the garage.

++++

Every year during Thanksgiving weekend, I would inaugurate the Christmas season by putting on side B of Bing Crosby's White Christmas album and dancing to it. It's worth noting that my entire knowledge of dancing, at this young age, came from the "Zoot Cat" episode of Tom & Jerry, so I really hope there is no video of this. Once I became, you know, "grown up," I decided this tradition was no longer befitting of someone of my maturity. Once I became actually grown up, I decided I wanted to hear the album again, so I picked up the CD and brought it out to the house for Christmas.

I still can sing along with every word on side B of that album. I remember every musical cue, every harmony, even how long the pauses last between songs. I feel calm and happy when I listen to it. It says "Christmas" to me in a way that not even a clever closing sentence could.

Day 3: No F---ing S---, Lady

--------
Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
--------

When I was a kid, it was easy to delight me with presents. When I badly wanted something that I couldn't buy for myself, unwrapping a package and seeing the object of my desire within was as good as it gets. As I got older, in my teenage years, what I wanted for Christmas wasn't something you could wrap and put under a tree (or at least, from the shape of the package, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise). And as I continued to grow up, once I had the money to buy things for myself, it became harder to wow me with a present. Because I was more aware of the world, it also became more difficult to get me a present that I wasn't expecting. (Books don't count.)

In 1988, Dad first got me a calendar for Christmas. (This paragraph is still background.) It was a golf calendar -- I didn't have a calendar up in my room before then, so it was functional. The following year, Dad said, "Screw it, you're getting old enough, let's put some titties on that wall." Okay, I'm sure he didn't say that, but for the next several years, I found a swimsuit calendar under the Christmas tree. These were solid gifts, although back then I didn't have a lot of girls visiting my bedroom.

(Because I never tire of telling this story: I got a particular problem on the AP U.S. History exam correct because of Cindy Crawford. She once said that she was the second most famous thing to come out of DeKalb -- after barbed wire -- and this allowed me to rule out a possible answer on a multiple choice question, only because it involved DeKalb and would have been even more famous than barbed wire if correct. And I never would have carefully read every word of a Cindy Crawford interview if I hadn't gained a respectful admiration for her, due to her presence on my wall for all of 1993. Thanks, Dad!)

My sophomore year of college, I received a homemade gift to put on my wall. Even the wrapping paper was homemade, from several sheets of computer paper printed with images of Lego sets. Inside the box was a calendar, printed on the computer and then laminated. It had the usual layout to hang from a punched hole at the top, with the calendar for the month on the bottom page, but for the top page, each month's image was of a famous Lego set or a Lego theme.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this well enough. I had a Lego calendar!

Want pictures?


I had a calendar where October was Camouflaged Outpost!

Teddy and Allison helped my parents put these together (the initials are on the back are theirs). Ben got one, too -- his theme was movies, usually with a defining quote. Die Hard was on there with the Jon McClane quote, "NO FUCKING SHIT, LADY!" Intriguing selection -- "Yippie ki-yay" would have been the standard choice, but I think this has more punch. I'm sure Alien made an appearance, although there are so many quotes to choose from that I'm not sure which it would have been. "Game over, man!" "They mostly come out at night. Mostly." "Get away from her, you bitch!" Really, there's not a wrong choice in the bunch.

So...yeah. A Lego calendar!!! But to my chagrin, the year had to come to an end sooner or later. On to a more boring 1998, then, right?

Day 2: Come On Down

--------
Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
--------

For many years now, Santa Claus has left a present for each of us kids in our bedroom. Strangely, we wouldn't discover this present until the middle of the day, after all the other presents had been opened. This has even continued into recent years when we don't live at home -- apparently when Santa sees me when I'm sleeping, he thinks it's in the blue room. (Should that be capitalized?)

I thought it would be a nice treat to have Santa give my parents this same type of plus-one present. But seeing as how I couldn't get an appointment with the big man -- apparently "tall for an elf" is not a compliment -- I had to take matters into my own hands. And so it came to pass that last year, on Christmas afternoon, after all the other presents had been opened...Allison, Teddy, Tiffany, and I invited my parents to come on down:

"You're the next contestants on The Price Is Right!"

Our host was "Allison Bob Barker," Teddy was our prize model, Tiffany was our overenthusiastic third contestant -- she bid five hundred dollars on a six-pack of Dr. Brown's -- and I was the man behind the curtain, er, couch. Mom won the first pricing game, which earned her the chance to play the minigolf game Hole In One (Or Two)...or however many tries it actually ended up taking her; I blame the groundskeeper for leaving the carpet so long. Her winnings included some peppermint dipping spoons from Crate & Barrel; being a good son, I would later consume half of them.

[As I wrote this, it became obvious to me that the game we should have given Mom is Cliffhanger, with Teddy as the mountain climber.]

The item up for bid in the second pricing game was a large box of Mike & Ike's. Tiffany bid eight hundred ninety dollars. Dad, not surpringly, was closer without going over. And at this point we brought out...the Plinko board. Allison had constructed a ping pong ball Plinko board out of foam board and push pins, and mounted it on Ben's old tripod easel. There were only two landing zones at the bottom of the board, labeled 1 and 2 for the two different prizes available. Dad was given one ping pong ball to start, and he won a second by correctly guessing the price of one of those 99-cent cans of Arizona iced tea. You know, those cans that have 99¢ printed right on the side? Dad begrudgingly guessed 99 cents. So the intent was for Dad to use his two ping pong balls to win the two prizes. Out of solidarity with Mom, I'm sure it was, he needed more than two tries to do this. But eventually he claimed the two prizes, cashews and a bag of coal.

Day 1: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Legos

--------
Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
--------

One year in the mid-80's, I had my eye on Robot Command Center. While it's not like this was the coolest Lego set ever -- that was the earlier Galaxy Commander (drool...) -- it was still a big deal to me. I used to read Lego catalogs before going to sleep at night. Every night. And as I was just a kid, the only way I was getting my hands on this set was through the grace and will of Santa Claus. It was only that year, though, that I had learned the secret of Santa Claus (I think Just For Men names it "Jolly White"...and yes, this will be a recurring joke, where I mention the secret of Santa Claus and then make up something else in parentheses). As I was still flush with this knowledge, it was kind of obvious why our family drove to Toys 'R Us on an early December evening. And as I was also a know-it-all...

When we arrived at Toys-R, I probably did my usual thing -- walk down the long games aisle...look at a few things, especially the electronic chess sets behind the glass...and then book it across the back of the store to the last aisle on the far side of the store: the Lego aisle. I don't know how to describe the Lego aisle other than...well...it was kind of like the scene in Rush Hour 2 where they raise the curtain and Chris Tucker gets to choose from all the...well, let's just say that if Mom ever lost me in that store, she knew where to find me. So I spent my usual several minutes looking at the box for Robot Command Center, opening the front flap that revealed the pieces within and more alternate creations on the inside cover, and checking out a few other sets as well. Eventually my parents wandered over with my brothers and dragged me to other parts of the store. Later, as we're about ready to head toward the exit, I get smart-alecky and decide to prove that I know what's under Mom's coat at the bottom of the shopping cart. I reach in and move the coat, and sure enough, out peeks Robot Command Center. My parents, obviously annoyed at me, scold me and then take it back to the Lego aisle and leave it there. We go through the checkout without it, and we leave the store.

Holy crap, they're serious. Did I really just screw up Robot Command Center? But then, of course, before we can drive away, one of my parents "forgot something" in the store and goes back for it. And they deny, deny, deny, but something goes in the trunk of the car. And wouldn't you know it, on Christmas morning there's a present tucked toward the back of the pile that is of a suspiciously right size. The morning rolls along, the pile shrinks a bit, and I decide to make the move for my mystery box. I give it a little shake, and I hear that sound.

Know what Mom says? "Oh...it's not time for that one yet."

The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories

Each day between now and Christmas, I'll offer up some of my favorite memories from Christmases past with my parents, my brothers Ben and Teddy, my sister Allison, and recently Teddy's wife Tiffany. My siblings will help me out a bit, my hazy recollection will hinder me a bit, and somehow I'll embroider it all together. I'll strive to be somewhat poignant, somewhat funny, and somewhat concise, which should ensure that I achieve none of those three.

I think I'm writing this for my parents but not to my parents; I need to pretend my reader doesn't already know these stories, because otherwise it would feel like my parents are staring at me the whole time. Also, I'm totally going to link to this from Facebook.

These stories are in no particular order, except that on the first days I'll probably write the ones that seem the easiest to write. Feel free to heckle me as I go.

--------
Day 1: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Legos
Day 2: Come On Down
Day 3: No F---ing S---, Lady
Day 4: Music Makes The People Come Together
Day 5: I...Love...Crêpes
Day 6: 'Tis Better To Give
Day 7: You Will Eat Way Too Much Food...In Bed
Day 8: Whose Turn Is It?
Day 9: Early To Bed And Early To Rise
Day 10: While You Were Sleeping
Day 11: The Snapparellas
Day 12: The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Done
In Closing: Fah Who For-aze, Dah Who Dor-aze
--------

Deadspin Commenter Nickname of the Week

Another in the short list of "things that I won't stick with long enough to be funny" -- my first ever Deadspin Commenter Nickname of the Week. No one has created this user nickname yet, as far as I know, but it passes both tests: funny (you did watch it, didn't you?) and staying power (Heather Mitts...nuff said).

Rob Stone's Pimp Hand

With a nod to FH's Dave Warner for the phrase and a huge "we're better off for having known you" to Awful Announcing for the video.

Adrian Peterson, a fantasy keeper league steal

I base this on less than one half of a preseason game against the Jets, but Adrian Peterson is going to be phenomenal in Minnesota. I rarely watched him in college because, you know, fuck the Sooners. But against New York, Peterson could not be tackled by just one defender. He gained most of his yards after contact. He used the Madden juke move to hit the hole behind left tackle with no loss of speed. I would be scared...but the Vikings' passing game instills so little confidence that I'm willing to bet Minnesota will complete no passes farther than 10 yards downfield during the game in Chicago. Every team the Vikings face is going to put eight in the box and let Tavaris Jackson pretend like he's going to throw downfield. Peterson is still going to get plenty of yards -- and unless this preseason game is grossly misrepresentative of running ability, AP will be starting by October -- but the Vikes should have sent their QBs to Rex Grossman's Sex Cannon Training Camp in the offseason. There's only so much enjoyment you can get out of a 6-10 season that hits the under 12 times.

One area in which ESPN is still miles ahead of its competition: highlights background music. Fox's music tries too hard. One area in which Fox has the chance to separate itself from its competition: getting Pam Oliver more quality reps during the regular season. Pam has looked like an all-star on the sidelines during the preseason. I'd like to see Fox given the opportunity to have Pam interview the players that just sit on the bench when their unit is off the field, as well as starters that have been pulled late in blowouts.

Rui Costa 2, Copenhagen 1

Thanks to the liveblog at Portugoal, I got to witness (sort of) Freddy Adu's debut for Benfica. Adu came on as a sub in the 36th minute after Luisao was injured (not totally unrelated to Copenhagen's goal, I gather). Fortunately for Benfica, Rui Costa dominated the game, scoring both of his team's goals in the 2-1 victory. Unfortunately for Adu, Rui Costa plays Adu's favorite position, central attacking midfielder. It's great that Adu is playing in Europe, and in a Champion's League qualifier, but I'm guessing he played as a wing forward today. Seems like he had one somewhat dangerous flick header, one overly ambitious bicycle kick, and little else of note. Quite the unconvincing team effort today, it seems

In other UCL qualifying/USA news, it was DaMarcus Beasley's sub that scored the late winner as Rangers edged Red Star Crvena Zvezda (should I have heard of them before?).

Premier League Week 1: West Ham - Man City

The Premier League is underway! Who knows how long I'll keep this up, but Week 1 is like the first day of school -- I arrive way early, drenched with enthusiasm, trying to do every last thing I think I want to do. Eventually, I just do what I have to do. So we'll see.

Breakfast: Three-egg omelet with dill, prepackaged ham slices, orange bell pepper, and organic tomatoes. I'm learning as I go -- eggs by themselves should be cooked over low heat, but I think omelets demand higher heat because the rest of the ingredients are cold, and it would take for-freaking-ever over low heat. With kickoff less than five minutes away, up goes the heat, baby. Oh, and Twinings English Breakfast tea.

First Half

City starts out dominating the midfield. While I detest the lack of attacking possibilities that a lone striker offers -- think France playing two holding midfielders at last year's World Cup -- playing five in midfield when your opponent insists on four is a sure way to control possession. West Ham plays rather carelessly, giving away the ball at seemingly every opportunity. Petrov takes several shots from distance, and they're not bad shots, they're just not on goal. I'm impressed by how well-timed almost every challenge is and by how dangerous almost every cross is -- the Gold Cup and MLS have lowered my expectations. After a well-timed tackle on Boa Morte, the ball pops straight to Hamann, who releases Elano down the middle of the pitch with space to run at the West Ham defense. Elano directs Bianchi to his left, then simply runs around the defense to the right, plays a firm, curving ball perfectly back across between the keeper and Ferdinand for Bianchi to slide home from three yards out. 1-0 City. A rather simple goal, and poor defending by Upton to let Elano get around him, but watching Elano on the ball here was like watching Jason Kidd run a fast break.

West Ham looks to have settled. Bellamy is spending way too much time on the left wing, and any advantage he may have over Corluka in speed is more than compensated for by the Croatian's size. I used to think Bellamy was tall, but that could be because he's just insane. Bianchi clearly doesn't speak any English, and I have to wonder how team chemistry overcomes a language barrier. I can't think of an office job in which fluency with the predominant language isn't absolutely required, so I really don't know what it's like to be able to do your job without perfectly understanding your coworkers. Some chances for West Ham, some nice dancing in the box by Boa Morte, but it must be frustrating for the West Ham supporters to watch each attack wasted without a quality attempt at goal. Surely enough, they boo at the halftime whistle.

Halftime beer: St. Peter's English Ale. I'm a huge fan of St. Peter's Cream Stout, but in keeping with today's theme, I'm going with this English pale ale. My first thought was, "This smells like MGD." Seriously, this is a beer that should not be served directly out of the refrigerator. Much better aroma after it warms up a bit and other flavors have a chance to contribute. Decent beer, but I'm not spending $3.49 a pint to drink decent, so no repeat purchase on the horizon here.

Second Half

Live-blogging takes commitment. This is in no way live blogging. Beer + open laptop = less attention on a not-totally-enthralling game. West Ham uses all three subs at the break, and creates better chances in this half, including a great diagonal, lofted pass to the endline by Zamora to...some guy...who rifles the ball across the face of goal, just missing Ljungberg, who really just had his weight on the wrong foot to be able to react in time. City get a second goal after some great work by Onuoha sets up Giovanni in the right side of the box to bury a low shot inside the far-post. Wow, I have no tolerance. This is ridiculous. Cheaper this way, but still ridiculous.

Checking other scores...whoa, Spurs lose late at Sunderland. Hey, it's Week 1, I'm motivated, I'll stick around for the highlights. And Derby gets a point! At home, but still, it's Pompey, so not bad. Ohhhhhh...Tottenham, that is a weak goal. Four minutes into stoppage time. Way not to mark the guy right in the middle of the box.

Well, fun start to the Premiership. It's a rare Saturday that I've had a good breakfast and gotten tipsy before 11:00a.m. We'll see how long I can keep this up.