L is for Late Christmas Article

(Alternately titled: L is for Lights)
by Citizen L

A note to the readers of this article:
This was written two nights after the "christmas" event, however I never really got around to editing or anything and that's why you're reading this super late. Of course you can always not read on and save reading of this article until next christmas if it would make you feel better!



Rituals -- aside from the obvious -- on Christmas (day or eve, take your pick) are something kids have learned to deal with for generations. Maybe daddy likes to gather everyone under a pretty scene while wearing the "good clothes," or maybe mommy bakes up some holiday cookies and the family sits around saying grace and thanking the lord for how happy they are, some families go caroling, play in the snow, or sit inside sipping cocoa and egg-nog getting lightly toasted.
… My family likes to get in a car and drive around looking at Christmas lights.

(It should be noted that such rituals can take place on Chanukah, quanza (dunno how to spell this one and my spell checker doesn't either), or many other religious holidays- but I celebrate Christmas, so for the purpose of this article they don't)

No Christmas for my family would be complete without the standard "drive by pretty lights and stare." As simplistic as it sounds aesthetics prove a great joy to my entire family… except of course myself. Sitting backwards in a lawn chair MacGuyver-rigged to "stay put" in the back of a curiously modified van I found myself surrounded by my over excitable mom, my sarcastic dad, my grandpa who despite a broken hip and other health problems too numerous to count manages to consider himself unbreakable, one grandma who probably wouldn't mind if slavery was never abolished, and another grandma who is as close to being in a coma as you can get without actually being on life support. Between listening to one grandma tell me about how "back in the day we had a phrase for that, we'd say; there's a nigger in the wood pile" and my other grandma speaking incoherently I found the fact that I was facing an opposite direction than everyone else in the car rather symbolic. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I hate my family; but when writing in a forum as sophisticated as Vocephus.com, I feel teenage-angst will be well received.

The highlight of the night was when the "hook" keeping my near-coma-grandmother's wheelchair locked into the passenger seat came lose. Her chair went careening back straight towards my other grandmother; obviously I caught the chair in time but it certainly got me thinking. Grandma Wars- what if Grandmotherly-fights were the norm? Wheelchair joust (which is trite by now, but I feel the need to mention it anyway), violent knitting contests, and maybe some dry-old-candy wrestling. Maybe even exhibition matches between professional wrestlers and professional grandmas, "Do you smellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll what the grandma is cooking… That's right it's a potato chip casserole"

…Looking back on that last paragraph I think I'll just continue writing as if it never existed…
Before all the light looking began we went to the house of my grandpa and grandma (the coma grandma, or CG as she shall herein be referred to in this document). CG was in bed and my grandpa was feeding her, we arrived and thus began the CG Wheelchair Docking Procedure. A small dog (looks like a Pomeranian but I have no idea what it was) named Puff ran epileptically-around the room keeping me entertained in the moments before we lifted CG from her Bed-Fortress and onto her Chair of Doom. Immediately upon being placed within the chair Puff jumped onto her lap…
This dog was amazing, I could pet it all night, my dad could pet it all night, and my mom could feed him gourmet meals- but still somehow it knew that the person who would appreciate it most would be CG. Anyone who doubts a dog's ability to sense need or love in a person needs to witness this (note: my grandma only manages to smile when the dog gets in her lap [where the dog stayed the rest of the evening, even in the car] - never did she pet the dog, or say "oooh good doggy" in one of those voices you use to talk to dogs - this dog isn't one of those trained dogs who gives sympathy to sick kids either, it's just a normal dog… I salute this dog). We drove through a few little neighborhoods and finally up Mt. Soledad, never finding the holy-grail of Christmas lights but always subject to entertainment from the many different people in the car. I even decided I'd take notes on the evening on my trusty Blizzard Entertainment note-pad. The only really note that was worth writing down was the "nigger" one, but the rest are there cause I was stretching looking for stuff to write on. (It should be noted I took the notes in basically complete darkness, so that should explain my bad writing- that, and the small brain tumor on my frontal lobe).

All in all the night I'd say was rather common as far as events like this go. Nothing especially special went on, which totally explains any "sucky aura" about this article you may be noticing. There really is no natural way to end this article, so I think I'll maybe end it in the middle of a word or even sente