Ahhh--the chill in the air, the sound of sleigh bells, twinkling lights--it can mean only one thing, you know. That’s right! It’s the First Ever Axis of Weevil Ramahannuchristmakwanzavus Thursday Three!

Yippee.

Now then, being that it’s the very middle of a whole passel of competing holidays, this might be hard to make it as inclusive and festive as all the rest of the T³s have been, but we’ll try and do the best we can.

Remember, anyone (theoretically) can play along, and if you don’t do any celebrating of any sort, it’s okay. Just make something up and no one will be any wiser. Except Santa Claus. Just leave your answers neatly gift-wrapped in the comment section below, or leave a link to your blog so we can all come by and oooo-and-ahhhh at your inventiveness.

Anyway, on to the questions, which were once again provided by our favorite East Carolinian, Jim Smith (not an alias, by the way).

1. The ol’ Tannenbaum--fake or real? When does it go up? And when does it come down?

2. Shopping--fake or real? Oh, wait, that’s the last question. Here we are--do you wait until the last minute or plan ahead? Do you give gift cards?

3. And finally, where do you carry out your celebrating, of whatever sort it might be? At your house, at a relative’s house in the area, or out of town?

Take yourself a big gulp of eggnog and get to work!

As for my answers--regular readers will know that the Possumclan always make use of a traditional plastic tree that is now in its thirteenth year of faithful service. Reba and I had a real one the first Christmas we were married, and the constant bother led me to find a fake one. It usually goes up during Thanksgiving vacation, and usually comes down on New Year’s Day.

Although some folks might scoff at a fake tree, please understand it is part of my cultural tradition, and you mustn’t scoff at the quaint ways of indigenous peoples. The first Christmas tree I ever remember at our house when I was little was made of aluminum foil with a silver painted broomstick trunk, and from there we moved on to a big white flocked tree. Both were lit up with spiffy floodlamps with the swanky modern rotating color discs. (We had to get rid of the flocked tree because rats got in it.) Anyway, since we celebrate Christmas in more of a secular style, a fake tree has as much symbolism as anything else to me, and it won’t burn the house down.

#2--Miss Reba shops all year and stores presents away like a squirrel hiding walnuts. I wait until the week before, because I would forget where I hid stuff within five minutes of hiding it. We do occasionally give gift certificates and the like, but mostly we give actual presents, just like Santa Claus.

#3--We have three sets of people to go see here in town, but we made a hard and fast rule the first year of our marriage that in order to keep down petty jealousies amongst these groups (two in particular) we would never leave the house on Christmas Day, and everyone else could just jolly well stay away as well. By doing this, we figured we could have some private time with our kids and they could actually play with the stuff Santa brings them. It has worked out very well, although not without some grumbling. But, being the jolly fat man that I am, I say they can take their grumbling and shov...never mind. As for the other visits, those occur mostly in the days before, but sometimes after, Christmas, and it is always tiring, and not that much fun. But, hey, who but a Scroogely Grinch would ever complain about Christmas?! So, the foregoing should not be construed as a complaint. Please. (If I get coal again this year, I might file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.)

Anyway, there you go.
posted by Terry at 8:21:00 AM