Author: Steve Cavers

Christmas is a time for celebration and sharing with loved ones. You can spice up your holiday with these festive tips for Christmas this year:

• When giving a pet as a gift, wrap it at least a week before Christmas so that it has time to get used to the box. You don’t want it to shuffle around and spoil the surprise.
• Try drinking the water at the base of the tree — it looks and tastes just like beer.
• If you want to try something trendy, turkey sushi is an excellent idea.
• If some worrier grumbles about salmonella, just be firm and tell them you’re not serving sea food.
• You can give your mulled wine an extra kick with a liter of grain alcohol.
• If you’ve reached your fifth glass of eggnog, you haven’t had enough that you can’t count.
• If you’re sitting near someone who’s on their fifth eggnog, wear a waterproof coat and tickle them. It’s hilarious.
• Christmas lights look like candy, and taste like it too!
• If you discover that you suddenly have more guests than your turkey will feed, have a quick check for the family pet.
• Cranberry sauce covers the taste of anything — even most varieties of mould and fungus.
• All dropped food has a “5 second rule”, even the turkey gravy.
• That CD of bagpipes and tribal drumming makes good background music during dinner.

(I’ll continue this list as I think of more. Suggestions are welcome.)

As the month of December creeps relentlessly forward towards the 25th, I can’t help feeling that I’m edging towards a precipice, and I’m about to topple over it. I suppose that’s not in keeping with the Christmas spirit, but I’ve always been a procrastinator whenever the season to be jolly approaches. Maybe I need to take a night course in jollyness training.

I’ll catch the contagious mood eventually. How can I help it? Who could possibly resist the charms of “Jingle Bell Rock” played on synth strings at every mall, bank, restaurant, and supermarket? Before long, I’ll be imagining the uplifting, deeply spiritual moments of the First Noel. Wasn’t that Noel Coward? If not, he’s certainly the most famous Noel that I know of. Anyway, I’ll fall deeply into the spirit of Noel, humming “You’re the Tops”, “Anything Goes”, or “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”, and in this way I’ll help pass along some of the jollyness of the season to others.

But behind that, there’s still a certain amount of anxiety. I mean, don’t I have to buy gifts or something? I like to of course, but every time I search my brain for gift ideas, I draw a blank. It’s like writer’s block, but with gifts. Gifter’s block.

I try the usual techniques that help break writer’s block, like random words to start the creative juices flowing. But that usually goes something like this: Sandwiches? No. Aardvarks? No. Onomatopeoia? No!

It’s difficult. I’ll get it figured out in the end, usually in a last-minute panic on Christmas Eve. In the meantime, I’ll occupy myself with putting up lights, munching on Christmas baked goods, and searching the adult learning catalog for Jollyness 101.

I’m writing to you from my dad’s computer in sunny Steveston, BC. It seems that I’ll be stuck here for a little bit, because my car encountered a small mechanical problem on the way here. Specifically, the brakes stopped working.

I’ve had nightmares like this — the brake pedal went right to the floor without slowing the car at all. Fortunately, when I tried again, they worked, so I didn’t have to plough through assorted cars, fences, pedestrians, and small children. That’s always so embarrassing when that happens, and it’s an extremely inefficient way to stop a car.

Edit (12/09/04): The garage just phoned me with the news. The brakes, plus the vital repairs that I’ve been putting off for months will cost me over a thousand smackers. (*swoon*)

Yesterday, I was thrilled when several disparate story elements came together, and I forged ahead with about 1600 words. Today… well today wasn’t nearly as productive. In fact, so far this morning I’ve deleted about 6 words. Can’t seem to focus today, for some reason.

I think I’ll go look at seagulls. That usually helps.