Happy holidays to everyone on Broadway and around the world. Hope you’re staying warm, traveling safe and ending your year in high spirits.

Here’s a video clip from a show aiming to be next season’s holiday favorite, A Christmas Story: The Musical!

Enjoy

- – Just to wish all of our Foxsylvania readers a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Solstice, Joyous Festivus, and whatever!- -Whatever floats yer boat, have a good one!!!

Crone and Bear It wishes you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

WOD: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Power Cleans/Pullups/KB swings

Level III – 135/85 PC ; 53/35 KB

Level II – 95/65 PC ; 53/35 KB

Level I – 65/45 PC ; 35/20 KB

Merry Christmas to all my readers and their families.

Wishing all you bloggers out there a very merry Christmas from me and the Penguins.

We want to wish everyone a very happy holiday, whatever holiday it may be that you celebrate. We both are prepared to have a very merry Christmas, with The Destroying Angel enjoying a sunny, warm one! (Spider Monkey is incredibly jealousss of this.)

As our gift to you, we have one more chapter for you this week!

Go read Chapter 23.

Enjoy, and check back after the holidays for more updates!

and not writing a post for like a month.  Among my goals for twenty-ten (finally learn how to skateboard, find a job for realzies, and get knocked up by Tiger Woods — yeah, low blow, I know, but I only have like a week to make a stale Tiger Woods joke before the new decade makes ‘em obsolete) is to start writing more frequently on this blog.  As a Christmas present, and an act of contrition for being a deadbeat blogger, I offer to you, this SNL video:

Happy Holidays, I hope it’s everything your heart desires. Much love to all you sexy people out there.

-New Kingdom

Tomorrow is Christmas and I’ll be spending the day with my real life family.  I am taking a break from the modeling world for a few days trying to relax and spend more time with the ones I love -  my kids!  Wishing you and yours the best this holiday season.  See you next year with more stories on Second Life modeling.

Sorry for the delay but the holidays caught up with me yesterday and well…

The last part of our little holiday story. Enjoy!

———

Bobby’s idea of a bachelor party had two ingredients, booze and strippers. In other words, a strip club in downtown Boston. Somehow he managed to rope Paul into going as well. Not to say that seeing half naked women doesn’t hold a certain appeal to me, but the only person that was having any fun was Bobby. He managed (don’t ask me how he did it) create a very long straw by fusing a dozen or more end over end so that he could reach the glass bourbon in his hand. The girls were trilled to hear of how the tale of how he became encased in plaster. After a few hours we stank of cheap perfume and overpriced liquor.

Richie wheeled Bobby around while Paul and I followed behind on the crowded streets downtown with a mix of last second holiday shoppers and early evening bar hoppers. Then Bobby spotted something near Boston Common “Isn’t that Linda? And she is carrying a giant rubber–”

“WOOOHOOOO! HEY ITS MY BOYFRIEND! JOOOOOOHNY!” Linda screamed and threw her arms around me. “I love you! You know that, right…I love you very…very…very much!” she said in what she thought was a whisper. Behind her a gaggle of her female friends laughed and swayed. Among them was Rebeca. Still draped around my neck Linda waved her arm at her. “Come here Beca, c’mon! We go to talking and she…” Linda gasped for air between fits of giggling “and she told me about the time you drank all the apple cider and puked on her father’s new shoes. It was HILARIOUS!”

“Oh really?” I said.

Rebeca shrugged with an impish smile.

Bachelor party collided with Bachellorette.

Linda pointed at a nearby bar. “Come on! Follow me, this way!”

Inside the crowded bar, beer was drunk, shots were downed and I made sure that as many girls sat on Bobby’s lap as I could manage, including a matching pair of Boston College coeds (brunette and redhead). If they could pour an entire beer down Bobby’s throat without spilling a single drop, I would buy them the next round. The thing is that having a very attractive woman sit on your lap while their pour libations up your thirsty maw tends to arouse a man.  Sadly, Bobby was in no position to do anything about it, since his arms and legs were indisposed.

“Oh man, this girls, they are driving me wild!” he said.

“Too bad the doc said you’re not coming out that cast in at least a month, maybe two,” I said.

“Yeah…that’s right…” he said. He then glance at his lap. “Oh hell! You bastard!”

I laughed out loud. Once they threw us out of the bar after last call we ended up in Bobby’s place, were more shots were taken.

Jaeger

Jell-O

Tequila

Some green (or was it red) stuff I don’t remember.

A distant chirping pierced through my mental fog.

Focus.

Something was on my lap.

Focus dammit.

It was warm, spherical and had a bit of yellow straw on top. And for some reason my thigh was wet.

Focusing here, no really I am.

The chirping continued. For some reason I checked my wristwatch. “Holy Mother of Fuck, is ten!” That’s when I realized I fallen asleep on Bobby’s couch with Linda head on my lap. Across from me laid Bobby looking like a B-Movie mummy. Beside him slept one of Linda’s friends, Mindy I think, curled up in the fetal position. Down the hall walked by the perky brunette from last night, one of the pair wearing some boy short panties. Just the boy short.

I shook Linda awake. “Sweety, we got to go. Now.”

We called a cab to take us to my folks place. Dad was watching a program from somewhere were they don’t celebrate Christmas. Mom was looking for something in the kitchen. I laid a semi conscious Linda on the couch next to Dad’s recliner. The fact that his son’s fiance was draped like a rag doll on the couch didn’t phase him. Then again, it would take more than that to  upset Jacob McKinley. He saw it all working for the AP in three different continents.

I marched into the kitchen, my head pounding at the beat of my heart. “Mom, were are the aspirins?”

“John, you lived in this house for eighteen years and you don’t–”

“Not helping mom!”

“Upstairs bathroom cabinet,” dad said from the living room.

“Thanks dad!”

I retrieved the bottled and went back to the kitchen. There I set a pot of coffee, black. While the coffee brewed Linda’s phone buzzed, again and again. It was Mrs. Kurt.

On the umpteenth buzz, Linda managed to answer it. “Mom…yeah…just here in Johnny’s place…sure…be right there…don’t worry…I’m fine, bye. Love you too, bye….”

She finally came back too life after three aspirin and two cups of coffee.  Then the panic started. “Oh my god! What am I doing here, what time is it. I got to go. I got to get ready!”

“Linda, we still got time. The taxi is on it’s way. Just go the hotel, get ready and go the chapel. Don’t worry the bride is always bit late. It’s tradition.” I gave her a peck on the lips and sent her on her way. Then my phone buzzed. “Paul, were the hell are you?”

“In front of the Sheraton with Richie. We’re dropping Linda’s friend off. Were the hell are you?”

“Home. Just sent Linda back to the hotel. Get you sorry ass here so that we get ready to leave,” I said.

“On my way.”

We managed, parents, best man and I to get to the church on time and so did the bride and her family. I thought I was going to be nervous during the ceremony, but since it was the one thing that had gone right in so many days, I felt so relaxed I nearly fell asleep.

Then came the part about the vows. “If anyone here objects to this union, please speak now or forever hold your peace,” the pastor said.

“No! Wait!” came a familiar voice from the back of the church.  Linda and I looked askance at each other and with the rest of the hundred guest turned to see who had said that. Richie pushed Bobby to an empty space beside the front doors. “Sorry, I didn’t want to miss it. My bad!”

I saw the mother’s go gray with shock while my dad was choking back the tears. He was about to burst out laughing.

OK, I had enough this shit!

I put my hands on Linda’s cheeks. “I love you Linda Kurt. And nothing is going to change that.” And I kissed her.

A long silence followed. I turned to the pastor. “So, are we married or what?”

“Oh…oh sure. I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride…again.”

Which I did.

And that’s Christmas is a very, oh so very special day for me.

———

Well, I hope you like it. Thank you all who have said such wonderful things about this impromptu short story.

And Happy Holidays to one and all!

The fridge is stocked with Christmas foods, all the presents are wrapped and under (or rather, around) the tree, Frank Sinatra is singing Christmas songs on the stereo…………… yup, we’re ready for Christmas! =)  We’ve even got a couple of little presents for Millie =)

It might look like we have a mountain of presents but not all of them are for us.  Also, GM has bought me a very big surprise present that’s taking up a lot of space, I wonder what it is!  I shall tell you all tomorrow.  The gold box in the bottom left is a birthday present for me from my colleague, how nice of her.  She’s told me it’s some kind of food so maybe it’s chocolates.

GM and I are having Christmas lunch at home and then going his parents’ for Christmas dinner.  A traditional and simple Christmas celebration.

GM, Millie and I wish you all a fabulous Christmas =)  Hope you all have a lovely time celebrating!

Wishing everyone a joyous and fulfilling 2009 holiday season.

The Snowdog – animated Flash ecard by Jacquie Lawson.

Although we all have our different ideologies, preferences and opinions, we all are a part of  “America the Beautiful”.  There is no place like home.  I wish you all the very best  in the coming New Year.

Santa's little helper refused to wear his reindeer ears...

To all Christians and non-Christians alike, eat and drink well, drive safely, cherish your family and remember we are all just a small speck of dust in the grander scheme of things.

Your PS3s, V8 engines, Apples and what-nots don’t really matter…

Evening, Revelers.

I’m off to my tia’s house for Noche Buena, a tradition we’ve followed almost every year. I’m humbly thankful for the family I have, and am lucky to spend Christmas with them. I hope you guys experience the same with your friends, family and loved ones this year.

Expect writing-related posts after Christmas. Until then,  Here is one of my favorite Christmas stories.

Merry Christmas, and may there be peace on Earth.

- Julian

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
by O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice– what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs–the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims–just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Happy Holidays (courtesy of TheSussman, Flickr)

Here’s wishing you a merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah (a week late), and a soon to be safe New Year. Eat good food, get good presents, enjoy friends and family.

Thank you for squeezing us and letting us squeeze you back!!

May the squeeze be with you all year round!

Come squeeze all ye faithful!

Juice to the world, the word is king!

You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you squeeze!

Enough already!!!

From The Juice Bar, the best bar in town, bar none!

L. K. Thayer

Photo by VC Ferry

All Rights Reserved

© 2009

No better way to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!!

Happy Holidays! Best wishes to you and yours at this time of the year! Enjoy each other’s company and reflect on the past year! Best to all of you in 2010!