It simply doesn’t compute that it is December and Christmas is in 2 weeks. I keep thinking it’s August!

With this in mind, I decided to have some fun and indulge my quirky sense of humor with an email sent to me by my daughter.

It’s one of those multi-particpant emails that we love to hate and usually ignore with an emphatic punch of the ‘delete’ key, but I must have been caught in a moment of boredom.

So keeping in mind all that I have just said regarding our first desert Christmas in the RV, read on and I hope you get a giggle or two:-)

(My answers are in red)

Welcome to the annual Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. We do the same thing every year, but it’s always fun. Okay, here’s what you’re supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy (not forward) this entire email and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you. Tis the Season to be NICE!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Brown paper mailing envelopes and cardboard boxes

2. Real or artificial tree? Purple tinsel tree 3′ high, ready to plug in

3. When do you put up the tree? Dec 1 when shamed into it by show-off neighbours

4. When do you take the tree down? When the blasted Santa Ana winds blow it off the trailer reach!

5. Do you like eggnog? As long as there is no sand in it!

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Where in the heck would I put one!

8. Hardest person to buy for? No one if I had a bottomless bank account

9. Easiest person to buy for? Me

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A gun!!

11. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Cards????

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? When the postal deadlines loom

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Miracle on 32th Street (no, that’s not a typo, it’s our Yuma address)

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Maybe to a charity

15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas? My daughter’s Christmas Eve appies and anything else I can get my greedy little hands on

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Any kind that come already on the tree purchased in a plastic tube at Target

17. Favorite Christmas song? Carol of the Bells

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Anywhere I don’t have to cook dinner

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Doner, Blitzen, and of course Rudolf! I just stole Lacey’s answers, I stole Dawns also (someone else’s answer in ‘blue’) Hey, I’m happy with stealing!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? How about the three wise men as long as they come with “gold, common sense and fur” (I stole that from the mouth of a 4 year old)

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? LATE Christmas morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? It’s STILL 6 months till summer

23. Best thing about this time of year? It’s ONLY 6 months till summer

When you think about it, the first Christmas was celebrated in the desert! There were no Christmas trees (purple or otherwise), reindeer, postal deadlines or turkeys.

I think I’m really going to celebrate this season with gratitude, expressions of love and prayers for a planet that can work toward the understanding and tolerance of all peoples and to bring it back to a place in which all living things can live in a ‘green’ environment of health and safety.

There are some other people in the desert right now celebrating a very different kind of Christmas. Let’s spend at least a few moments of the day sending thoughts of support to all the Canadian, American and allied troops in the Middle East.

I invite you to post your comments (click “comment” below), ask questions, make suggestions etc. and forward to a friend (click on the envelope icon below)
Let’s interact!