she kept crying “my tree, my tree!” and was utterly inconsolable. so i did what any good father would do — i started quoting from eulogy scene for Tiny Tim from the muppet christmas carol:

It’s all right, children. Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I am sure that we shall never forget [our tree], or this first parting that there was among us.

father of the year.

Each year we throw a party withe free food, free alcohol, and all the holiday specials you can stomach. In exchange, you just have to bring a plate of whatever Christmas treat you’re making for friends and family this year.

2011 is the fifth year that the lady sparkler and I have done it, but the tradition actually goes much, much farther back.

When I was at the college of William and Mary, the students of the theater department threw a party each year called “the grinch” — which ended the night with a showing of the dr. Seuss animated special during which you were expected to drink each time the word “who” was sung or said.

Every who down in whoville liked Christmas a lot.
But the grinch who lived just north of whoville did not.

For the record, there are 39 uses of “who” but that ignores homonyms like “hoo” but also the songs and choruses, like:

Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze, welcome Christmas, Christmas day…

needless to say the winner was whomever was still standing after the first commercial, which was pretty much limited to the people who weren’t playing along.

Over the years, the format of our party has changed, but we’ve developed a couple rules:

• pick no special that lasts more than half an hour, and that includes rudolph which is remembered more fondly that it was ever experienced.
• pick no special based on the gifts of the magi, beit ernie selling his rubber ducky to buy Bert a box for his paper clip collection or emmitt otter’s jug band christmas –you will cry, and it kills the mood.
• the star wars holiday special isn’t so bad it’s good — it’s so bad it’s horrible, and it will clear the room.

and, we still close the night with the grinch in honor of our holiday party ancestors — long may their livers live.