Are Christmas Cards Obsolete?

As I peeled the Christmas cards from our fridge and placed them one by one in the garbage can, it occurred to me: Are Christmas cards out-dated? This is bound to offend someone, but I am sticking with it for a minute.

The first Christmas card was sent in the 1840’s in England. They were used to promote propaganda from the Royal Family. Businesses caught on years later and began sending cards to their customers to try to retain a contact. In the War Years, cards were used to promote patriotic feelings among those at home. Dwight D Eisenhower sent the first Christmas cards from the White House, 2000 of them. In 2005, this escalated to 1.4 million. Well, I’ve never received a card from the White House.... Anyway. This brief history was found on multiple websites.

My question for today: what's the point? With the internet and communication abilities now available, a Christmas Card seems a pointless waste of money to me, like buying a pack of baseball cards for the gum? No one does that anymore. (The gum tastes gross and stale anyway.) Christmas cards are not huge expenditures each year, but hanging them on the fridge or door for a few weeks before trashing them seems like an insult to those that spent so much time making them, addressing them, and sending them to everyone on the list. Then when you receive that card from a family or person that you forgot to include, and you hurry and send another card out and hope it gets there before Christmas so you look thoughtful. All this for what? Granted its nice to get a card from a long lost friend, or that person that for whatever reason your communication has decreased to a yearly Christmas card only. This still begs the question, “Why?” Does it ever really reconnect us to each other?

Am I alone in this? I also wonder, do people really care if they don’t get a Christmas card from a particular person? Do you feel slighted? Do you have a checklist of people that you must receive one from? I really want to know if I am alone in these thoughts. Don’t hate me and scratch me off your christmas card list or anything. I’m just saying.

Does anyone actually save these Christmas cards? I admit I have trimmed the family pictures off of a few over the years. Are there actual feelings of guilt when you consider throwing these in the trash? And how long does a christmas card need to be saved? Is there a guideline?

I don’t want to be all negative, I do enjoy the collage created by the mass of cards as we find spots for them on the fridge. It adds to the feelings and thoughts of the season. And perhaps that is the point after all?

I realize this makes me sound like the reincarnated Scrooge. I am not trying to be a bah humbug here by any means. Like I said, I’m just sayin’. Perhaps we send these seasons greeting because it represents tradition. A sense of Christmas duty. A chance for us to show off our good looking kids with a picture. Our Christmas cards the past two years have promoted Disneyland. We should be shareholders.

So are Christmas Cards out-dated? I submit to you, readers, they are.

A Post Without a Theme

Seriously, this post is going to be all over the place. Each paragraph could be a whole new topic. By the time you are finished you will have spun around twice, slipped like a grandma using a walker on an ice rink once, and probably felt somewhat nauseated (more than normal while reading my posts.) And if you think I go off on tangents on my other posts, then just brace yourselves, I feel this is the post of tangent posts. I have had some ideas stewing in my mind for a while now, and none of them have blossomed into their own post, so here we go.

First, an open letter to the texting generation:

I get the whole texting thing. I am a texter. I like it because it completely negates the need of the awkward phone call amongst men for a quick message. See, men differ from women in phone etiquette. Prior to texting, if I needed to make a quick call to find out if someone was showing up to the ball game or not, it would take a few minutes due to the obligatory small talk. You know, the how are you? What's up? And the person on the other end being required to ask the same thing... and on and on. Now a quick text handles that. I love it. Women have the ability to turn a quick call into 45 minutes, no matter why they call. Men lack that ability and that desire. If Darwin was right, we will start seeing female children born with phones on their ears. Was the bluetooth phone thing invented by a woman?

I am also okay with some of the shortened phrases. Yep, I'm talking the LOL, LMAO, WTF, BRB, ROFL, ROFLMAO, DYSTH (thanks Angie), ASL?, MMA, BTW, RUOK, RUFTT, BFF, BFFL, KMB (KMA), TTYL, and on and on. My personal favorite is WTF! It's like missionaries always saying "fetching" and feeling like it was okay. I think "fetching" is used more by 19-28 year old LDS men than anyone else on Earth. Even more than dog trainers. (All of this is based on factual information by the way, or BTW.) I understand that typing out many of these is long, and everybody that texts knows these or learns them fast. (If you need any acronym decoded, there are many websites devoted to this.) I implore all texters, however, to strike these immediately from your vocal language. Actually saying "L.O.L." while talking to someone face to face is the most ridiculous thing ever. And it annoys the crap out of me. This is a growing trend amongst the young, olympians of text. It has to stop. Don't make me start a coalition.

Second: An Open Letter about all Celebrities but mostly Tiger Woods:

I tried to avoid this topic, since it is probably the topic of every water cooler conversation worldwide. My only thoughts on this is that it seems no one could surprise me now. I do feel that celebrities do not have a right to privacy however. Let me explain: Celebrities want us to follow them when its the positive stuff. They put themselves in the limelight whether by starring in a movie, owning the PGA for years, whatever, and they want to be top of the charts at those times, asking us into their lives, and then expect privacy on matters like these? No way. Not gonna happen. When we follow you through the good, it translates into big money for you. When things go bad, you better be willing to stay at the plate. Thats all I have to say. That and they just don't make them like Jimmy Stewart anymore. I really hope Jeter's name is not one of the 30 or so remaining on the "yet to be announced steroid list" for MLB. That would be a bigger blow to the sports world than when Tyson bit Holyfield's ear off.

(Side Note: these situations always make the best chain emails. I got one the other day of the "Woods' Christmas Card" showing a beaten up and bruised Tiger and his wife–(x-wife?)–holding a 6-Iron. It made me LOL. It reminded me of a guy that sits near us at Utah Football games that we have for years called the "retarded Tiger Woods." Gotta love Photoshop, Tiger looks like the latest Garbage Pail Kid.)

Is it wrong of me to have been trying to come up with enough information to claim an affair with Tiger too? I could say I was at Augusta in 2004 and met up with Tiger at a sleazy hotel. I am considering this for the financial payoff to keep quiet only. I would never want it to go public. I could settle for 5 million.

Conclusion

I had more to say, more randomness, but this went longer than I thought it would, so I am leaving it there for now. I guess you only spun around once, maybe just stumbled in your walker rather than full on slipping, and didn't quite reach the vomiting Nirvana you were hoping for. TTYL.

Bucket List

Perhaps I feel motivated to open up a little, or perhaps I am curious if any of you do the same thing...regardless, I want to write about my bucket list.

Years before there was ever a “Bucket List” movie, I was sitting in my Adult Roles class, (10th grade I think) making my own “List of 100 Things I Want to Do Before I Die.” This was an assignment. (Other notable assignments that semester:

• design an automobile and give it features based on our personality. I chose a four wheel drive, convertible pick up-my imagination knew no bounds
• carry around a pound of flour or sugar and pretend it was a child we had to take care of for the week–we also had the option of an actual doll, but I opted for the decorated bag of flour over the cabbage patch kid
• ask the hottest girl in school out on a date- I made that up but sure wish it would have been an assignment.)

I was recently reminded of these lists while going through some boxes of junk. I found some of my old lists. It was quite entertaining to read through them again. I loved making these lists. (I am a list maker, remember?) So much that I continued making them throughout my years of college. Constantly updating and changing things as my interests changed.

One thing that kept showing up on these lists was that I wanted to meet the Princess from “The Neverending Story.” I had to google that to try to trigger some memory. Good call on my part, she was and is a hottie.

Another item I had on multiple lists was to go to all 50 states. I have done well at this. I have made it to 38 of them so far. If I stretch my rules (to count a state on my list, it typically had to be more than an airport layover, or a quick drive through the corner- i.e.- driving through the corner of Arizona on I-15 would not allow me to check-off Arizona) I can say 43. I have an eternal grudge against Dave Rock for this. We had gone to the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. We were only a few miles from North Dakota and I suggested we go to a campsite in North Dakota for the night, so I could scratch it off my list. Dave was driving and protested. We never went. (My grudge goes even further because he was in such a hurry to get home that he would not stop for me to take a pee break. If it would have been his car I would have peed on the floor–one of these days Dave, one of these days!) Can anyone give me a reason to ever go to North Dakota? Perfect opportunity blown. All I can hope for is economic collapse and for North and South Dakota to merge as one state, then that area gets grandfathered in for my list. (We were able to get a “Nature Shot” with the black hills in the background-if you don’t know what a nature shot is, you probably do not want to ask.) The picture is from a town we went through on the way. Population 3? Seriously?

I have not made an actual written list for years, but I realize I still have one, mentally. I want to go to every major league baseball stadium. I have 7 out of 30 done. I get a “double whammy” this April when I have plans to go to Opening Day baseball in Boston. The Red Sox play the Yankees in Boston. Fenway Park (aka Green Monster)- Check. Massachusetts- Check.

Other notable items from my lists of the pasts (ie- I actually wrote these things on my lists at one point or another):

• Compete in an air guitar competition–still out there, though I feel like I invented this skill.
• Throw out a first pitch in a MLB game–lists don’t have to be dream free!
• Make out with the entire cheerleading squad of any NFL team–I feel this is possible, but will take some convincing of Rebecca to let her know they mean nothing to me, its just a list thing.
• Come across a traffic accident involving one of those semi trucks that carry cars, preferably one carrying luxury sports cars–I think the carnage and mayhem would be awesome, and there would be little or no human injuries.
• Go to Everest base camp- I just think it would be cool.
• Stop using parenthesis like crazy–yeah, it’s a weakness.
• Write something that people actually enjoy reading–I am trying, I promise.

These lists were contagious. I have talked many friends into making these lists. Seriously, think about it... what would you put on your list? Start with a list of 50. Realistic, or fantasy, it doesn’t matter. My lists usually have a combination of both, because after all, it takes a lot to fill up a list of 50 or 100 items.

So, do you have such lists? If not, what would you put on one if given the assignment? Let’s hear them! Pssst, if you haven’t already, read the next post too...I have done a couple this week! Hooray!

Nothing Changes On New Years Day

We are approaching a new year. This is a time that has always represented starting over. Doing better. Making a huge change. A clean slate. I always wondered "how did this come to be?" Where is it written that making life changes needs to correspond with years end? I tend to have the more pessimistic approach. As Bono put it, “Nothing Changes On New Years Day.”

Why do we wait until the calendar changes to make changes in our own lives? I was under this mind set in the past. Always setting deadlines and “this is thelast day I will do this or that.” Thinking that somehow there will be a newfound power by coordinating my goals and desired changes with the change of a year, the coming of a new tide, a full moon, no moon, a blue moon(of course the really big changes are saved for the blue moons, since they are so rare), extended sunspots, or sometimes if my horoscope lined up right. More times than not, these magical time periods really didn’t help me, and I found myself pushing deadlines back to correspond with the next phase of whatever looked like it would be beneficial to me. Basically, creative procrastination.

Then I realized that these galactic events and calendars didn’t mean squat. They were about as effective as Daniel Laruso using the Crane Kick against Chozen, the local chinese karate guy that wants to fight to the death. If you have forgotten, the Crane Kick was a staple move in Okinawa, and Chozen easily blocked it. Lucky for Daniel-san this was a sequel, and Mr Miagi had taught him a whole new finishing move based on a baby rattle that everyone not only owned, but happened to have with them when this movie ending fight ensued. Damn, I either need a rattle or my own personal Mr Miagi. (Just for the record, I am absolutely against Will Smith remaking the Karate Kid with his son as Daniel Laruso. This is a travesty that may get its own blog post.)

Many people make resolutions to go the gym, to eat healthier, to wake up earlier, to go to bed earlier, to be a better person, to go to more MLB games, to stop spending money on Pez Dispensors, or whatever. ( I am excluding all references to religious related changes. We all have our own personal Mr Miagi’s in that regard.)

One of my favorite Simpsons episodes is the Treehouse of Horror IV (Halloween special) in which Lisa and Bart stumble across a hangout for vampires. Both are absolutely scared to death of these vampires. During the chase scene, Bart is running up a long spiral stair case. Lisa is in front of him. Bart comes across a switch in the stairwell that says “Super Happy Fun Slide.” Bart stops and looks at the handle. Nothing is said, but you can see the inner struggle in his mind as he contemplates his decision...If he pulls the switch, the vampire will surely catch him, if he keeps running, he may escape. Well, Bart shrugs his shoulders and pulls the switch, changing the staircase into a super happy fun slide. Bart loves sliding down it, until sliding right into the vampire who proceeds to do vampire stuff to Bart, makes Bart a vampire, and then the two of them chase after Lisa.

I often feel this way, making great progress on things I have wanted to change, but along comes the Super Happy Fun Slide and I pull that lever. This nearly happened the other day at Thanksgiving dinner. I was so close to having a Cherry Pepsi that I was ready to throw away my 2 years and 5 months of success to hop back on the soda pop wagon. (Or is it off the wagon? Seinfeld?) I have said before and will probably say again, this was one of the hardest things I have ever done-giving up soda. I am not looking for praise here. I'm just sayin'.

Thanksgiving's near miss made me wonder..Will this ever be easy for me? Or is that what's its all about? A never-ending battle like the one between the Utah Jazz and a championship ring? I hope not, I can't go that long.

Anyhow, I will not be making any New Years Resolutions. If I come up with something that would qualify as a New Years Resolution, why not just start it on December 9th? Or right now? Or tomorrow? I want to hear from someone who disagrees with me. Someone who sets New Years Resolutions and has a success story from doing so? Is there anybody out there?

Was It Worth It?

Yes folks, I am talking In N Out. We waited, as you may know, for about one hour and 45 minutes to eat at In N Out in Draper yesterday, the locations opening day. We are considering camping out over night for the opening of the West Jordan location, just to say we did. So my question is was it worth it? We think so.

We love In N Out burger. It is a regular part of our trips to Disneyland. We almost always stop in either St George or Vegas. It stands alone in quality, taste, and every other burger category. We are not afraid to spend some of out time getting something we like.

Yes, we know we could have waited a week and decreased our wait time, but we view that as having to wait an extra week. Nearly 2 hours is much less time than 1 week.

Critics have accused that we like it so much because it previously was not as accessible to us? Time will tell, but I don't think this is true. Another restaurant we absolutely love is The Waffle House. Unrivaled in waffle making, the closest Waffle House is in Denver. About 4 years ago, Rebecca and I decided to drive to Denver to eat at Waffle House. Denver is an 8 hour drive each way. Luckily, we had friends in Denver to visit as well, so we threw that in there as another reason, but ultimately all we wanted was a waffle and plate of hash browns, diced, covered, and smothered from Waffle House.

Are we the only crazy ones here? I know you all have something equivalent in your lives...and we want to hear them. What would you drive hours for, wait hours for, or do "anything" for? Leave us a comment and tell us what it is you would do and what you would do it for. What would it take? Don't be shy.