But as for Santa and me, we believe

Okay, Christmas cards, done. Even though I ran out halfway through and had to go to the card store and buy more. Which by the way has never happened to me EVER and I figured out it happened this year because of stupid going-all-of-2007-without-spending so I had to wait until January 1 to buy 50% off cards and by then the pickings were slim so I only bought three boxes, one box of which in retrospect were TOTALLY NOT ME and the entire time I was signing them I felt like a total impostor. They were all modern and edgy and I'm all who am I, Edie Sedgwick with these cards? So, anyway, I paid 900 dollars for cards today.

How many Christmas cards do you send out? I send out 80. I do not do that "If they don't send me one, I don't send them one" thing. Seems mean-spirited.

I know I have told this story before, but it bears repeating, if you ask me, and it's my blog. One time it was the day after Christmas and I was on my annual quest for half-off Christmas cards. I was standing there for an hour and a half with all the other women, choosing cards. This set? No, too dark. These? No, the message is too long. Hey, these are nice! No, the envelopes are blue.

Suddenly, bursting through the crowd was a man. He leaned in, grabbed the first cards he saw, and left. You have never seen anything so shocking in all your life. Men do not understand about cards. My father also says men never buy cotton balls. Is that true?

Also, I had to go to the post office today and buy stamps and I was SO TENSE about going and do you know how many people were ahead of me in line? None, that's how many. I have to remember I am not in LA anymore, hence the DOWN JACKET zipped up to my medulla oblongata. Anyway, I have to tell you I am disappointed in this year's Nutcracker stamps, which look less Nutcracker to me and more Animal from the Muppets. However, they were really colorful and they made the "42 cents" part of the stamp the same color as each Nutcracker character and they looked good on the envelope so in the end it was less of a tragedy and yes I DO realize only girls care about this sort of thing and that this is a run-on sentence of gargantuan proportions.

Speaking of grammar and punctuation, as I was running around stressing myself out about Christmas, the Elton John song Crocodile Rock came on, and I have to sing it like this: I remember when rock was young, Susie and I had so much fun...

I am unABLE to bring myself to say "me and Susie." Just writing it now sends shivers down my bottle. I mean, I was ALONE in the car. Who would have KNOWN? But still, I couldn't do it. And I have already told you that when that pretty song If I lay here, if I just lay here... comes on, I have to say "lie" every single time. I mean, it would have fit into the song perfectly well to say "If I LIE here," so why couldn't he have sung that? And the NEXT LINE is "would you lie with me and just forget the world." So why did he get it right THAT time but not the two times before? Why did nobody in the recording studio point this out? If I ever see that guy it is the first thing I'm gonna bring up. It is the only thing I'm gonna bring up. After that his people will probably take me away.

Also too today, I finished shopping for my aunt, her husband, my stepsister, my soldier, my stepfather, and my mother's dogs. Shut up. Oh, and my step-grandmother. I have not even begun Marvin yet. He is a pain in the patoot to shop for. And yes, he accepts Christmas gifts and also Hanukkah gifts. He is fine either way.

I wasn't going to tell you about my soldier, because I figure the best good deeds are those that no one knows about. BUT, in case anyone else wants to do this, I am going to come out.

There is this organization called Soldiers' Angels, and through them you can adopt a soldier. Now, there are other ways to help soldiers with them, but the way I did it was I committed to writing a letter once a week and sending a care package once a month. And if you are flummoxed about what to send a soldier in a care package, they have premade ones there that you can choose from starting as low as $11. Adopting a soldier is free, although when you sign up, one of the ways to prove you are you is to donate a dollar through PayPal, but you do not have to sign up that way, and I didn't.

Anyway, it's a nice thing to do if you feel like being good at Christmas, although what I feel like doing tonight is drinking 17 enormous Cosmopolitans and going to sleep under a big fluffy down comforter. In reality what I will be doing is making some hot chocolate and bathing Tallulah. It is a lot like how Patty and Selma, Marge's sisters on The Simpsons, think their lives are just like Sex and the City, isn't it?

Comments

[Cat]

I think the Nutcracker stamps are completely lame. I bought them, but I wasn't happy about it.

[Gladys]

I told you to just buy 75 or so horrid Christmas sweaters at the Good-will or Salvation Army store and then send those instead of cards. Think about it. It is a win-win situation. You are donating money to a cause and those horrid sweaters get a home.

[lee]

I don't send Christmas cards yet I buy some every year. Then it gets to be the DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS and I have yet to send a single one. I also write a "family news" letter but never send that either. Mostly because it fels like fraud. I only wish I were ballsy enough to write what our life over the past year is REALLY like...not just the high points. Oh what a letter THAT would be.
I am feeling a bit lonely..therefore I am talking to you via your blog. My sister (jan) is out of town today and we haven't talked on the phone 639 times like we usually do and I am feeling a bit like a lost puppy. *sighs*

[chickadee]

what bugs me even more than using the objective case in the subjective case is using the subjective case in the objective case!

i can tolerate "me and susie had so much fun" more than i can take "the gift was for susie and i."

and it's everywhere! they get it wrong on tv all the time. it's as if people think if they say "___ and i" in every sentence then it's always right.

[M]

1. I agree with you about the Christmas stamps.
2.Elton is wonderful, no matter what he does.
3.Who sang the song you mentioned above,if I lay here,i I just lay here? Not ringing a bell.
4. I will check into the Sodiers Angel program.
Merry Christmas!

[EmilyTakesTokyo]

Oh, the misuse of "and I" always gets me, too. So does using fun as an adjective - thanks for hammering that into me, Grandma!

[J]

I think your dad is right! About the cotton balls. I rarely paint my nails therefore I have had the same bag of cotton balls since Apronstrings had Farrah Fawcett hair.

[June]

M,

Snow Patrol. So it's a whole BAND who did not say anything about the grammatical error.

[suburbancorrespondent]

Doesn't Marvin get jealous of your soldier? Doesn't he worry you'll run away with him?

And I'll bet you'll do better buying Marvin's present than I did buying one for my husband last Christmas. For details, see the following link, because retarded Typepad will not allow commenters to look all tech-savvy and use hyperlinks:

http://suburbancorrespondent.blogspot.com/2007/12/are-we-done-yet.html

[Jane @ What About Mom]

I think the "lay" in that song is an intended sex pun, but I'm not sure. In fact, I could be definitely wrong and just have a dirty mind.

[Jenny]

Wow- I can't imagine ever running out of Christmas cards. I stockpile and hoard them when I find them dirt cheap. And I just inherited a bunch of my late Grandma's Christmas cards.

[Sharon]

My daughter and two daughter in laws have been having a fierce - yet strangely non-violent - competition for years about who sends out their cards first. I first began getting cards from them right after Thanksgiving, then it backed up to just after Halloween. Now it's shortly after Labor Day. I'm thinking that next year's cards should come sometime around Easter.

[Jan]

That soldier is probably in stitches every single day because of you June. I'd bet he looks forward to your weekly letter. I think I'll adopt a soldier and then copy this blog and mail it to him every week. That's all I'll ever write to him. "Hi Soldier, Here is your weekly dose of June. Take Care... Jan." Then at Christmas I will send him a FABulous card and a bag of cotton balls. Just doing my part.

[Bonnie]

I have no trouble singing "Me and Susie" in the song "Crocodile Rock." It's a fun way to get away with bad grammar, and it takes me back to carefree days. As for choosing stamps and cards, I am VERY particular.

[Melissa]

Once, on JAG, a character said "Chickens lay, people lie." Is that a good way to remember it? Or were the writers wrong?

[Susan]

I have these grammatical discussions with myself, too. I've decided - perhaps just to make peace with myself - that the use of "lay" is actually in the subjunctive past tense. If you switch out "lay" with "sat" it makes sense. "If I sat here, would sit with me?" Or, "If I ran here, would you run with me?" It's cool with me if I am wrong here, but it does give me peace of mind when I hear this song!

[June]

How I do it is you can replace "lay" with "place." "Lay" is active, whereas "lie" is passive. So you lay carpet but you lie down.

[Rachel]

June, the Snow Patrol thing? This bugged me too until it occurred to me that what he means is a conditional thing, I don't know the technical grammatical term. He is saying "if I was to lie here" - like, I could say "if you bought these cards everyone would despise you" meaning "if you were to buy them", using the past participle. I don't like "lay" instead of "lie" as present tense but I think "lay" is correct here. For what it's worth.

[Rachel]

Or, I could read other comments before posting and just agree with Susan.

[Tee]

Don't send Christmas cards. Every few years I'll do a letter and sent it to friends and family we rarely see. Hey, your next career can be "Grammar Expert" for recording studios, then you can listen to all the music without changing the words. That is such a kind thing you have done adopting a soldier. Does he (or she) write back to you?

[Apronstrings]

Haha, very funny J.