Before I get into the Best Christmas Present Ever, I want to let you know that someone attacked my zombie with a clove of garlic. If you have any idea what that means, you either spend too much time on Facebook or you spent too much time huddled in your basement as a youth playing Dungeons & Dragons. I was going to click on the link that said "See what happened!" but, honestly, I didn't know I had a zombie and now I'm scared to look because a good, solid clove of garlic can probably really mess up your average zombie and I'm not up for bandaging a virtual zombie. If you can even do that.

The second thing that I should say is that there was a brief moment - I mean really brief - in which I considered titling this post "Best Christmas Present Evar!" Honestly, if I ever really do something like that and it was on purpose come and visit AccuWeather where I'll give you the NERF® bat and you can have five or six free hits (hits after six are $1.50 each). Internet "speak" has crept into my house via my kids and when I try to explain that they should just use proper English they look at me like the tired old man that I am. But the house is currently an EVAR-free home. I also try to squelch W00T which isn't even made of letters, and PWN which doesn't even have vowels. PWN may just be the most annoying thing EVAR. W00T!

I recently received my Christmas Present from Alert Shopper Tammy. It came earlier than expected, even though it's almost February. I'm actually going to save the announcement for tomorrow as I have to take photos of the gift before I install it. I suppose that's rude - to tease like that - but I generally don't have blizzards, ice storms and hurricanes to drive my blog traffic way up so, you know, I do what I can. Speaking of which - BIG BLIZZARD COMING! Details Soon!

Coming up with Great Christmas Presents is tough. This year one of my gifts to Tammy was arranging for the house to be decorated with Christmas lights while we were away at Disney. I had friends come over and string lights everywhere, and before we got home they threw the switch. As we drove up to the house Tammy was all baffled because it looked like our house, but it was much more colorful and shiny than a normal Schaad house. For you see, we never ever ever (I'm not going to use that other word) have had any lights on the house, although Tammy has always wanted some. Mostly because our former house had 50' walls and it was hard to reach the gutters where one customarily hangs lights. There's also inertia. And apathy. And other assorted issues that resulted in a dark house.

So, needless to say, she was thrilled. The decorating job my friends did was tremendous. In fact, I really can't claim much credit here because all I did was arrange things. But it was one of those great Christmas Gift Moments. However, I think Alert Shopper Tammy actually did me one better with her gift to me.

W00T!

ps/What's the best gift you've ever received? Leave a comment - it's not to early to start planning for December!

Posted by Carl at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I know, I know, it's a little early. But I wanted to let everyone know that the Schaad Christmas Letter is up and you can read your own PDF copy here. There's some material taken from the blog, so long-time sharp-minded readers may recognize a bit or two. But the whole Pictionary thing was too good to pass up.

Alert Communicator Tammy roped me into doing the letter 13 years ago, I think, and every year I swear it will be the last because the pressure to be witty and entertaining to family and friends is getting nigh unbearable*. But something happens, I think some sort of Jedi Mind Trick, and I end up doing it anyway. Oh well. I hope you enjoy the peek into our twisted family.

I'll likely post again before Christmas, but in case you are not able to get a chance to visit the blog (shame on you!) a very Merry Christmas to you and yours.

*Today's asterisk delayed and subsequently sponsored by LEGO. Buy LEGOs today even IF I don't see a dime of it. The whole point here was just to use the word nigh, which is sort of a holiday thing. (I get lots of nigh in my stocking each year, along with soap and whatnot.)

Posted by Carl at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The title of this post is, of course, a reference to Alert Shopper Tammy's rumored habit of buying toothpaste and putting it in stockings. Of course, I would never suggest such a thing because I have no proof.

Yesterday was Wednesday and I woke up with horrible ear pain. That is, a pain that was horrible and located in my ear. I thought I must have an ear infection, and so called and made an appointment with my doctor. Not only did I have some sort of ear infection but I had a bonus sinus infection. That is, a pain that was located in my sinuses. You can't appreciate a sinus infection until you visit the doctor and he presses right on your sinuses and holds there until you start to cry like a little girl.

Now I have a super antibiotic which hunts down and kills your typical biotic. Assuming I have typical biotics I should be feeling better by Christmas. The super antibiotic has the side effect of "unusual or unpleasant taste in your mouth" which I can confirm. It's like you've eating aluminum shavings or something. Not that I do that regularly.

The Christmas shopping is almost complete. The kids will be thrilled with their iPod Touchs, digital cameras, Nintendo DSs, and new Hummers. (The kids sometimes read the blog so I have to plant disinformation.) I'm not a very good shopper. On the one hand, I don't want to buy anything that is practical, because there's always time later to buy toothpaste and soap. On the other hand, I don't want to buy anything superfluous because there are very few things that a child will actually play with beyond December. So I go out and look for something cool and practical but not too practical that will captivate the gift receiver and be used for more than a few weeks. I think there's only one thing that fits that description, and that's money but money doesn't make for an exciting Christmas morning.

I will say that as we get closer to Christmas some sort of brain damage ensues - or perhaps temporary insanity - and almost everything looks like a good gift. I was as Barnes and Noble tonight and was browsing books and saw something on the sale shelf about the Civil War and thought, "The kids might enjoy that." Or when I was in a checkout lane at another store and was looking over all of the garbage they put there and thought, "Hm, that Visine looks good. Oh, a lint roller. And look, lighters!"

Sigh. Brain damage.

Posted by Carl at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)