Christmas in the Basement 1.0: Plastic? Fantastic!

Wait! Don't eat it -- it's fake! You shouldn't be eating holly berries anyway, knucklehead. Unless you're a dog. A dog named Jack. He's already slobbered on a vintage decoration or two. He's so dumb, he's adorable, as my pal Harry Carbohydrate used to say.

Of course, when I say fake, I don't mean fake decorations. They're real decorations. They're real old decorations. Even the dust on them is old. That's an old smell, too. There are smells down here that died out fifty years ago. The basement's a museum of extinct Christmas aromas. And this is not a complaint.

This is a complaint: Entenmann's crumb cakes are getting smaller!

No, it smells terrifically festive down here (that's what she said) and it's not even Thanksgiving yet! Take a look around -- and it's still in a state of disarray:

Ah, On-A-Lite Christmas light strings! Do they even make things in Peoria anymore? (I'm sure they do. Sorry, Peoria!)

Gene Autry sings everyone's favorite Christmas carol, "The Three Little Dwarfs." Hardrock, Coco and Joe annoy the crap out of Santa's reindeer. I believe in the second verse, a felony is committed.

Guess who? Yep, you got it. It's quite uncanny, really, the resemblance. They're so friggin' excited for Christmas. "Eeeeeeee!"

Wait until Adam brings out the other ninety percent of the Eisenhower-era decorations! Someone's plastic Christmas Past is our Christmas Yet-to-Come!

Christmas in the Basement Prelude: Have You Ever Seen a Partridge?

I'm listening to Christmas music. Specifically: The Longines Symphonette Living Music Program Proudly Presents Music for Christmas at Home (An exclusive new Treasury from The Living Music Program...the world's most beautiful and familiar music). And it's only November 13!

Why so early with the Christmas music? (What are you, the Holiday Police? Do you have a warrant? That's not a warrant -- it's a lyric sheet for "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring".)

Speaking of Christmas music (isn't that what I'm talking about?), my least favorite carol is "The Twelve Days of Christmas." I get so bored with cumulative songs. By the time we get to the seventh day of Christmas, I want to roast the French hens, throw my shoes at the turtle doves and hose down the...wait a minute -- what is a partridge anyway?

It's a bird.

Yeah, I know it's a bird, a fat pheasant full of pear juice. But do they live around here? I've never seen one. I think I saw a pheasant once, but it might've been a quail. Or a grouse. But maybe it was a partridge.

Come to think of it, have I ever seen a pear tree?

Regardless, that song is long and boring. It's like sitting through an episode of "Desperate Housewives" (except no one's a-milking those maids -- ho, ho ho!).

And, AND, by the last two days, the lyricist stopped trying. Drummers drumming? Pipers piping?

It's a stinker. The only version I can listen to without turning into a complete Scrooge is this'n:

Enough with the Dogs, Right? But, No, You Don't Get It...

We're dogsitting. Us. Erin and I. Caretakers of the hounds -- the (wolfs)bane of our existence! We're actually walking the dogs. In the morning. Can you imagine? You know us -- hopelessly selfish, helplessly lazy. But maybe not. Maybe we've been wrong about ourselves. Because there I was, six in the morning, standing on the sidewalk with a hot blue bag of concentrated stink, jerked forward by a four-footed beanbag full of gas, hair and anything that might've crawled into her gaping maw as she mouth-breathed her way through a muddy meadow of doggie dreams.

Emma. That's her on the left (and a little bit on the right). Brother Jack, his Kardashian-like wall-stare contrasting his passionate obsession with licking cabinets and sniffing kitties, sits impatiently beside her, his trembling posterior betraying his weak obedience.

Adam and Josh are on vacation for the first time in, like, forever. So, noble friends and frenters that we are, Erin and I stepped up to offer our seemingly bottomless capacity for charity. We'll walk the dogs, feed the dogs, not kick the dogs (real sonsabitches sometimes) and even, God save us, sleep with the dogs. In the same room ("Gee-dee it, Jackie! Off the bed!). They've got two cats, too. (Did I feed them yet? I'm sure I did. I'm sure they're fine.)

This is the kind of reality show that should be on TV. It would have to be on a cable station, after prime time, because of all the cursing...

TO BE CONTINUED!