Honea Express

Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

Across the calendar a line of Xs stand upon the dates that we have kissed goodbye. Each line an ending, a memory, and one step closer to hugging someone at the last possible minute.

The year goes out with a bang, just as it arrived. It spends its last week sleeping off holiday treats and shopping fatigue. As the end draws near it makes a reservation, shaves what’s hairy, and puts on something that pops. It’s a party after all, and the year deserves it.

In the wings waits the next one. It is young and naive, full of hope and promises. It watches the current year and notes what it will do differently. It watches and it waits, one eye always on the hourglass. It too will dress in something smart, but not nearly as outdated.

People pull out resolutions and change the date accordingly. The one becomes an awkward two and everyone is the wiser. They are losing weight and quitting vices. They are eating healthier and trying harder. They have waited a year to repeat themselves. The first week is the hardest, and often the only.

The children want to stay up until midnight because everyone is doing it and the reviews are fantastic. They laugh every time someone makes a joke about seeing them next year. They are alive with apple juice and Chex mix.  They are why the new year rings.

The year will fall, another will rise to take its place, and the world will carry on regardless. There may be song and a spot or two of dancing. Laughter is strongly encouraged.

Happy New Year. You deserve it.

We’re a touchscreen family. My wife and I have smartphones, the oldest boy has an iPod Touch, and the youngest has… okay, three out of four isn’t bad. Unless you’re the fourth.

Luckily for our fourth, VTech came to the rescue with their new InnoTab. Now we’re four for four. Touchscreens for all the family!

Q: What’s an InnoTab?

A: The InnoTab Learning App Tablet by VTech is a cutting-edge educational toy that combines the technology of grown-up touchpad devices with the fun learning that kids love.

It’s a multi-media tablet with interactive reading, learning games and creative activities with a 5″ color touch screen and tilt-sensor. That means kids can tap, flick, drag, and curse at their touchpads just like Mom and Dad (not the cursing part, just making sure you’re paying attention). The InnoTab comes with on-board applications such as an MP3 Player, Video Player, Art Studio, Friends List, Calculator, and this thing which tells time.  Additional cartridges with kids’ favorite licensed characters are sold separately and teach essential skills in reading, logic, and creativity. Additional content such as e-books and learning games can easily be uploaded to the InnoTab through VTech’s Learning Lodge Navigator where parents can also see their child’s progress on a variety of educational milestones and lessons.

It includes four different media players: E-Book reader, MP3 music player, photo viewer and video player, 64MB onboard memory and a SD card slot for memory expansion.

Basically, it’s everything a kid needs in a touchpad without all of the worry and hassle of the internet.

The folks at VTech sent my family an InnoTab Learning App Tablet to review, and it immediately fell into the hands of the 5-year-old (it’s for ages 4-9). That’s not to say the 8-year-old doesn’t enjoy it, rather the younger one won’t let him play with it. This has also been a lesson in karma for the older brother.

If you’re looking for a last minute Christmas gift for that awesome kid in your life you can’t go wrong with the InnoTab Learning Tablet. It’s so much better than having them beg to play on your smartphone.

We give it a thumbs up!

Disclosure: As stated above, I received one InnoTab Learning Tablet from VTech for the purpose of this review. The opinions are my own. For more information on my review policy please see the appropriate page from the tabs above.

A working vacation in San Francisco ended with me hobbled and limping for home. I enjoyed my visit, but pushed my tired, useless feet too far. The swelling pain in them left me unable to walk, clutching the walls of the airport terminal like they were lined with last breaths. I moved at a pace roughly half that of the old woman with the cane. I believe she savored the moment that I became a spot of dust in her rearview bifocals.

I bit my lip until it bled and watched as empty wheelchairs rolled by for patrons much more used to their need. I was sore with pride and stupidity.

I closed my eyes on the plane, knowing my heart waited somewhere forward. I am not one for leaving it behind.

Days later had me working from bed. My right foot as swollen as it could be without bursting like an overblown balloon. I am at the mercy of my family’s patience and kindness. It has put my exhausted wife further to her husband’s end.

Today was Valentine’s Day. We had no plans for romance. My wife was over it sometime between the kids and the constant rains. I was done when I realized that chocolate and flowers were not the same as foreplay. It is a day we enjoy better for the mocking.

My morning was spent sprawled across a mattress stuffing Disney trinkets into cartoon cards while my boys signed their names in an assembly line of chicken scratch. Their day was filled with candy and roses. Except that there was more candy where the flowers should be.

Tricia worked the night shift, and soon the afternoon was replaced by evening, and my wife was replaced by a hole in the room.  The boys and I watched Finding Nemo, then sat on my bed and talked about cable cars and earthquakes. Zane shared thoughts on the protocol of Hallmark holidays. Atticus sang Black Bird in its entirety.

They were crawling from my bed to theirs when I said something about seeing my 4-year-old for the last time. That he’d be five come morning. It was supposed to build upon the excitement he’d been expressing for the better part of the last six months.

The only thing that built were the tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to grow up,” he said. And with that he was  tucked against me crying for all he was worth. His brother followed with equal tenderness and I found myself broken from heart to foot and covered in the tears of my children.

Explaining the meaning of bittersweet is just that.

Soft words soothed as only soft words can do, and tears gave way to warm cheeks pressed tightly upon the other. Plans were made for continued awe and so much wonder. Their pace grew slow and steady.

They fell asleep in my bed, wrapped in a hug of brotherly love. I sat at their side, beneath the glow of lights turned low, listening to a clock chime hours unknown, and watching my foot, willing it to explode.

We woke up early to watch the parade. It started at 7 a.m., which seemed to me a fairly unreasonable time to get out of bed, especially for Al Roker. New York City was buzzing with people doing something as simple as watching a parade and as brave as leaving their homes. It was two months after the terrorists attacked and we sat in our living room drinking butter-rum coffee and feeling as safe as ever, and guilty about it. It was the first Thanksgiving morning since we lost so much, and it was bittersweet. We had much to be thankful for.

The parade announcers, including Mr. Roker, were dressed smartly in their free Macy’s wardrobe, and the song numbers were lip-synced to near perfection. It was how Thanksgiving was supposed to start; family, coffee, the parade, and then football, turkey, and six bottles of wine. We had much to be thankful for.

About midway through the parade Katie Couric said it — something that I will never forget. They were cutting to commercial and she was discussing which balloons were making their way up the street, and she said, quite casually, to stay tuned for Jesusauros Rex. Yes, Jesusauros Rex.

“What did she say?” we asked each other even though we all knew the answer. There was a balloon coming, somewhere between the high school band from Alabama and the 27th boy-band float of the morning, that encompassed everything that we wanted, that we needed. That America needed. It was a monster, a dinosaur of the Rex variety, the kind that devoured its enemies. And America has enemies.

Yet, it was Jesus. Jesus is kind and understanding. He turns cheeks. He forgives. He makes a mean Merlot. Jesusauros Rex was everything we were feeling. Everything we wanted. Revenge and understanding. War and peace. Rage and reflection. Not to mention the endless bottles of wine. We looked at each other and waited his arrival like it was the Second Coming.

He never came. There is no such thing as a Jesusauros Rex. There is, however, a Cheesasauros Rex, a giant dinosaur that encompasses something else America needs, pasta and cheese powder in a nice blue box. Kraft had a balloon and it wasn’t a giant smiling cigarette. We had much to be thankful for.

So Cheesasauros Rex came and went, followed by the two oldest men alive, Tony Bennett and Santa Claus. It was really a nice parade. Al Roker was great. Katie Couric was smart and perky. Yes Katie, there is a Cheesasauros Rex.

The funny thing is that when the parade was over I couldn’t shake the message it had sent, even if I had imagined it. Love and mercy. Revenge and redemption. These were things that I needed too, and so, as I always do in times of trouble, I turned to the Beatles. After all, they were spiritual and blasphemous, revolutionaries and pacifists. They were eggmen, fragile (fra-gee-lay) and hard-boiled.

I am the walrus. Koo Koo Kachoo.

But football was on, so I forgot it all. Again. As if it hadn’t happened, and I had never known the kind of pain that I had. The pain that was but a pinprick to the pain they had felt. Still. They lost their wives, husbands, children and friends, and they kept going.

Those people gave new meaning to the word hero, and the old guard, like our professional athletes for example, could do nothing but say thank you, salute, and dry their tears. Sure, the Lions can’t remember the last season they had that wasn’t filled with pain, but it doesn’t matter. It is a game, football, like so many other things we elevate onto pedestals it may not deserve, but it’s okay. It keeps us sane and entertained. Football is a great game. An American game.

The Beatles, however, are not American, yet they are as much a part of our culture as any force in entertainment could possibly be. And then some. They are Beatlemania. They were bigger than Jesus for God’s sake! John Lennon said that, not me, but he had a point. They were selling out much bigger stadiums than God.

On September 11, 2001, Paul McCartney sat in an airplane on a runway in New York City and watched the world burn down. He saw through a first-class tinted window what we saw on our TV sets. He saw hate. He saw the horror.

But for us it was Thanksgiving. We had each other. There was wine in my glass, football on the TV, and in the next room my wife and my sister sang A Hard Day’s Night on the karaoke machine. We had much to be thankful for. And it was bittersweet.

It came and it went, tethered heavily upon our heartstrings, floating like a giant balloon. Yes, Katie, there is a Jesusauros Rex, and he loves you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours,
Whit

This post is part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

I also blog with whiskey.

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I received your Christmas cards. All of them. They were fantastic, and your family is beautiful.  I see you got the sweater.

They are in a box of holiday cards from Christmases past, packed away with other seasonal memories. It’s something I do so that I never forget you.  They are somewhere between the snowflakes and the sleigh bells, just under the brown paper packages tied up with strings. Also, whiskers on kittens.

It seems like I just put the holidays away, and now my thoughts have already turned to unpacking them again. They are the things I remember, simply, when the dog bites or the bee stings — when I’m feeling sad. I think of the card you took time to send, and then I don’t feel so bad.

They are a few of my favorite things.

I’m writing this because my family and I are terrible about sending cards. We always have been and we always will. Sometimes we skip a year.  Other times they’re late. Often we lose an address or forget someone, or just decide we no longer like you.  That last part isn’t true, but it probably feels that way standing at your empty mailbox like Chuck Brown and that kid with the blanket.  Sometimes the things we don’t do hurt more than the things we did.

I’m writing this because I’ve been given an opportunity by Shutterfly.com to share their vast collection of holiday photo cards with you, the public.  They’re also giving me cards, which is nice.

The hard part is choosing the right card. This isn’t due to anything that Shutterfly does — they make it easy, but because when you care enough to send the best you want your best to be good enough.  That’s why my picture will most likely not be on it.  Man, my kids are cute.

Here are the designs I’m considering:

The Cheery Year Noir 2010 Christmas Card is simple and elegant. Kind of like me, but, as I mentioned, elegant. In a world that isn’t black and white, it still makes a great card.

The Wonder Trees Noir Christmas Card is fun, and the trees are a wonder, but you probably got that from the name.  It feels like family, and I hardly know these people.

The Family Letter Blue Christmas Card hits home on many levels. There is ample space for pictures of the kids and a whole sidebar for me to write stuff! I may just cut and paste this post.  Also, Blue Christmas is my favorite Elvis holiday song.

I’m not really considering the Retro Love Holiday Card, it’s not really my style, but doesn’t this dog look like a Muppet? Or ALF? Man, those nutty Sutherlands.

Here’s where you come in. Yes, you. If you’re a blogger and would like 50 Shutterfly cards for your own use, well, those people at Shutterfly will make it happen. It is the season and all that. Click the link above and you’re on your way. And goodbye, I’ll miss you.

So let’s pretend we’re close enough for me to send you a holiday card, which one of the above choices do you like best?