LARGETONY Blog

Dear friends,

Happy Holidays from us. Who can believe that it’s already been more than nine months since I ended things with Jude and welcomed Jake into my life? And we are spending our first holiday together.

We managed to pick up our official holiday portrait just moments before Sears closed on Christmas Eve. It was just one of many stops on a whirlwind day of last minute shopping, serving turkey dinners at the homeless shelter, and attending the annual Christmas show down at the middle school auditorium.

Practically the whole town was there. I say practically everyone because Patsy Pratt, who has directed the show the past twelve years, was still miffed after the city council asked Jake to handle this year’s event. For weeks, Patsy has been wagging her tongue to anyone who would listen about how she didn’t care that she was not directing the show, but had concerns about how it was going to get “all Hollywooded up.”

She probably would have had plenty to say when Clooney flew in to play the Innkeeper. But I doubt that Patsy Pratt would ever had the foresight Jake did in making sure there were understudies. How would she have handled things when eighth-grader Misty Johnston walked out on her role as the Virgin Mary because it was pointed out that her blue eye shadow and frosted strawberry lip gloss was more suitable to Mary Magdeline? To quote the preacher’s wife, “Frosted strawberry is for tarts, Pop and otherwise.”

Unfortunately, Jake had not planned for the fact that when Misty left, so did the baby Jesus, since he was being played by the girl’s own three-month old, Brittney Rae. But everything worked out fine because Misty’s replacement was Lexus Tyree, the daughter of a local grocer. Some of the more narrow-minded citizens, no doubt led by Patsy Pratt, questioned what was probably the world’s first African-American, cleft-palated Virgin Mary, but she came with a seven pound honey-baked spiral ham in swaddling clothes to pose as the Newborn King. Oprah, who was seated next to me at the performance, with Steadman, leaned over and whispered to me that it made perfect sense to her to have ham as the savior.

The show was one of the most successful in anyone’s memory despite the ending when Mrs. Johnston’s toy poodle, Reba, wandered onto the stage. The little ball of fluff had played a baby lamb in the Nativity sequence and backstage managed to work it’s way into the manger to eat twice it’s weight in the Christ child. It was struck with a violent finish of diarrhea, making the White Christmas finale sequence not so white after all.

After the show, we met up with Oprah and Steadman at Chili’s for baby back ribs and gift exchange. (Guess who’s got a subscription to “O” magazine coming in the mail.) It was a great way to wind down, but Jake and I had to cut out early because it all got just a little too weird when, halfway through the meal, Gayle showed up. Besides, Jake and I had our own gift exchange to do.

So, with our portrait tucked safely in the trunk of the Mercedes (Jake’s, not mine. No matter how much country sausage you put in the boy, you can’t take all the Hollywood out of him), we headed for home where the lights are on the tree, the menorah is on the mantle, and the rum cake is cooling in the kitchen.

Jake suggested I send off a holiday greeting to all of you before we settle in by the fire with a hot cup of cocoa to each open one present before Christmas morning. I can’t wait for him to open his gift so that he can snuggle up to me in the new all-in-one PJ’s I got him. The kind with the rear hatch. I think it will come in handy for stoking the fire of my Yule log.

They say that Santa won’t come as long as you are awake. How unselfish of him to not come until Jake and I do. I just hope he doesn’t mind the wait. It’s going to last a while.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 24th, 2006 at 11:43 pm and is filed under holiday, humor, just jake, stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.