Dec 6, 2007
Bossy’s Twelve Days Of Christmas: Or Night Photography 101.
On the second day of Christmas, Bossy’s true love gave to her: A
Tree-lighting Ceremony. In her little town.
Every year the whole town gathers to light the municipal Christmas tree and sing carols:
Bossy is just kidding—that’s not the whole town. Here are the rest of them:
After the Christmas carol lyric sheets are distributed, the evening’s live entertainment hits the stage lawn:
After a rousing rendition of Deck The Halls, the townsfolk gaze upon the darkened municipal tree and begin the countdown. Ten… nine… eight… what is this sticky stuff on Bossy’s gloves?… seven… oh, it’s sake… six… five… Bossy’s friend Martha says Bossy was pouring her sake from the top of her thermos rather than the bottom… four… three… but Bossy doesn’t know what in feck she’s talking about… two… one!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by; yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light…
The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight… Because then. The fire truck storms around the corner and pulls up to the curb. Sirens blasting. Until all the small children are crying:
And yes he does, Santa climbs off that fire truck and throws candy at the small children’s heads:
And then the townsfolk retire to the fire station for hot chocolate and donuts:
In the fire station Bossy wades ankle-deep through hot chocolate puddles and eats her weight in glaze and spies another million-dollar idea she forgot to think of. The end.
I want one of those coats for my cat.
Looks like fun (if you’re into those freeze-your-butt-off activities). Our little town does that, too. But they call it a ‘light up the town’ ceremony. *snickers like a 14-year-old boy* I still don’t attend, though. I don’t think Santa throws anything different than candy at the kids’ heads.
I love that coat…I bet you could put a small dog in there too.
Hey, maybe you could get one of those for your Mom and her adorable little pooch for Christmas!
Dude. Why did all the cool and useful baby stuff come out after Mary Alice had already finished having babies and cut her own uterus out with a rusty butter knife?
Mary Alice, that’s why I am having baby # 3. For all the cool new stuff. Seriously. Then my husband will be doing his own vasectomy. Huzzah!
Our town does the parade thing after Thanksgiving, and Santa is the main attraction. He throws candy. He has a wee gingerbread style house were he has kiddies sit on his knee and lie, I mean swear to God they’ve been good and not naughty. Mrs. Claus reads stories. It’s all so festive, but FREEZING. So, we haven’t made it to the parade, and only once to visit Santa.
Oh, and our firehouse only does the holes, too. What’s up with that? Not even jelly filled holes, darn it.
Bossy’s drumplaying-captain-son will DEFINITELY NOT fit into that pouch….but perhaps some of her daughter’s cool diorama figures would!
How is it that I grew up in this stinkin’ little town and have never been more than marginally aware of this event, let alone attended it?…
Mmm, yes, bossy needs new child to put into child carrying coat. Since you are sending one off to college there is now room for a replacement.
Thanks for the photos – my town is too big for fun stuff like that.
Being a dual-faith family, this weekend we’re supposed to dress up like Maccabees and dance around an eight-foot lighted electric Menorah. Question: what does a Maccabee dress like? Or dance like, for that matter?
Oh yeah — then we get to go see Santa.
The message my children have learned living in an interfaith household?: WAY more presents.
I think the Maccabees do the macarena.
vuboq loves sake. mmm. sake. vuboq also loves the cutest coat!
Do you think maybe that coat just had a place where you could store it inside itself. I have a raincoat like that, so you can put it away. I’m just wondering?
Awww, reminds me of the days when we used to go Christmas caroling through the neighborhood and finish at our neighbors for the most excellent homemade cookies.
Awww, Bossy lives in Mayberry! How cute!
A built-in backpack!? Where was all that cool stuff when my kids were still totable?
I’m thinking that coat would be awesome right up to the time you have to go to the bathroom. That’s also the time anyone who could help you disappears and you find yourself having to back into the stall, and try to drop your pants (but not into the wet stuff on the floor) and hunker down with a squirmy monkey on your back.
A squirmy monkey who doesn’t want to be there and will attempt to throw you off balance while all you want to do is keep your pants dry…
Not that anything like that has ever happened to me…
One summer it was so dry that they “postponed” the Fourth of July fireworks. They had them on the evening of the day they had the Christmas parade. I thought it was an excellent idea, and everyone loved it. Too bad I couldn’t go, since I do not leave my house voluntarily between October and April.
That coat is disturbing. I’m betting it was invented by the same guy that invented the beer hat. The poor kid can’t even see! They could at least give him a periscope or something.
Coulda used that jacket today while Christmas shopping. Once again, I thought the store would pay us to leave as RC threw out an entire display of makeup and attempted to bathe himself in Glow by Jennifer Lopez. Mmmm…Glow….
I want to come next year. I want to wear that coat. NOT the one with the kid in it.
Mmmm…I prefer hot chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps. It’s like a liquid Thin Mint.
A sake Christmas – you’re a woman after my own heart.
Mom Bomb:
Appropriate Maccabee garb includes tunic, roman-like skirt, sword and shield, and sandals. The perfect outfit for this cold weather, right?
I have a menorah lighting ceremony eight nights this week, but from the comfort of my own kitchen.
all of that and night photography too? Oh Bossy, i am so totally whelmed.
i wonder if truman would fit into that coat? hmm…
Cool town, cool coat. Happy holidays Bossy.
When the kids get too big to fit in the coat it becomes the place you keep your monkey.
OK. Let’s think about this.
How do you put that coat on?
Do you put it on and then somehow reach around and put a baby into it? Um….have you ever tried to scratch the middle of your back? Are you double-jointed with really long arms? I don’t think so.
But then…do you put the baby in it and *then* put the coat on? How many tries do you get? Try lifting a coat and putting your sleeves in with several pounds of baby pulling it to the floor. Do you FLING the coat around your shoulders? Or…are you one of those people who FLIPS the whole coat over your head.
It’s an interesting coat. But all I can think about are flying babies…
If my taxes are going towards donuts… Someone better tell me right quick where I can pick them up.
After carrying a baby inside my body for 9 months, the last thing I want is UGLY clothing that carries the baby around on me some more. Yuck.
The kid goes in a stroller and I get to walk around in a CUTE outfit.
I kept the coat I wore during the winter pregnancy, then the next year I put my squirmy monkey facing front in the snugly-thingie and zipped up the coat and off we went on our holly-jolly way to the corner store for the newspaper every morning. It was a really big coat cuz I gained monster pregnancy weight.
About the Babycoat: If a baby’s diaper fails in a stroller, you wash the seat covers the next day. If a baby’s diaper fails in a Babycoat, you are cold and wet at the tree-lighting ceremony, and no one will stand next to you at the firehouse. Especially not cute firemen.
Drink sake straight from thermos. HANDS OFF MY THERMOS!
we have that in my little home town too! i missed it this year, but last year we went. it was… cold. i wish i had thought to bring sake.
LMAO You have a way with words Bossy. A hilarious way with words.
Oh, the chick with the coat . . . that would be Kate. I’ve complimented her on it when I see her at Mayberry Elementary picking up one of her four kids.
“BOSSY…eats her weight in glaze and spies”
Farty thought “spies” was shorthand for “mince pies”, as in Xmas fare. Farty loves spies. Mmmmmm…
I guess that’s why I could never handle those events. I always forgot my thermos of sake.
Ho-ho-hold the cup steady so I can pour your sake!
ah yes, the ‘three alarm santa’ — as if the fake beard and giant boots don’t scare the kids enough. bring on the sirens!
Do you live in a northern Mayberry?! My crappy town has nothing like this. And if they did, Santa would have fallen off the fire engine, drunk, and then shot his rifle into the air yelling, “long live Dixie, ya’ll.”
What is that lady who won all those coats (4)going to do with them, and why are you turning japanesah?
Too much to ask for a dreidel song for um, I dunno…AG?!!!!
RoD still has cookies though. For all ya bakers who wish to enter the bake-off.
Sake and Christmas carols is a great combination.
It’s quite the social life you have there Miss Bossy. Wait, it’s waaaaaaaaay better than mine, so I’m gonna shut up now.
way! way! Way! I should of thought of it. Sigh.
You are so fecking funny, I can’t think of anything clever to say except: “You’re cude, you’re cude, I think you’re cude”!! In the way you write kind of cude……………..now take both Bossy and myself back to thy land of misfits.
So Bossy lives in… Stars Hollow?
Admit it. Bossy actually lives on Wisteria Lane. Because, I hate to tell you this, but that isn’t Martha–that’s Bree VanDeeKamp!
A thermos of peppermint schnapps would have been good too. You could have sold shots for the coca and gone home rich(er).
The baby back back coat YES WAY (hilarious) …. The sticky sake… I can’t…
You are soo freeking funny.
I wish my town…(or at best a few neighbors) did something like this around here.
Must get that coat for my husband. Now.
It’s just like a damn Norman Rockwell painting over there, isn’t it.
And who’d have thought! Christmas sake!
Festive. Warm.
It just isn’t Christmas unless Santa comes to your town and throws candy at the kids’ heads! I believe that Ole St. Nick was here last weekend, throwing the ubiquitous Old Lady Hard Candy at the neighborhood kids, as he rolled through town in a vintage pickup truck (this IS the south, ya’ll!). Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.
I have a fever for more bossy!
P.S. Hope the sake comes out of bossy’s coat.
Happy Hannukah Bossy! Love the second photo- I can see through your Sake-induced eyes!
Wish my town did something like this but could you imagine??? They’d call a state of emergency.
Green with envy…
Dang. I skipped ’cause it was too farking cold.
I wish they had that coat/backpack when my kids were that age!
Wow, your niece looks like she was on a lot of sugar that night
I wonder if they make those baby backpacks for cats and small dogs?
Your town looks a lot like ours, in terms of both merriment and sophistication
No WAAY!
Love your photo documentaries! That tree is quite tiny for that big ceremony!
Like, why didn’t someone invent that coat-itsa-backpack thing 11 years ago, when I could have USED it for my 3 wee ones??? (No,not 3 all at the same time, 3 in succession over a period of years.)
I’m a little pissed-off now b/c when my kids were little we didn’t have that coat feature nor did we have swimmy diapers & shopping carts with little cars attached on the front.
That is one really cute coat. The one on the woman, not the backpack one. Although that is a good idea if you live up North in the frozen tundra. Now, maybe if they came up with a wet suit with baby carrier built in….
I would totally be digging through the coat pile on the bed for my kid.
My dad had a coat like that, the pouch on the back was to put the ducks in. The ducks he shot while hunting. That is the first thing that popped in my mind when I saw the picture here. If it was a camo coat I would say that is what the pouch is for, but not as sure since it is black.