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make your own christmas television special, in five easy storylines
the lady sparkler and i are watching our way through our annual list of christmas specials, and as far as i can tell, there is a grand total of five unique storylines:- cute [animal/small child/old person/magician] is [sick/growing up too fast/angry], and [believes/is recently doubting/never believed in] Santa’s existence, and [protagonist] goes on a crazy caper which saves Christmas, and proves Santa is real in the process.
- [protagonist] is a [cute child/bumbling adult/cartoon character/muppet/angry hermit] who [finds out Santa is sick/finds out Santa is in trouble/accidentally injures Santa/un-does all of Santa’s work] and goes on a crazy caper involving a unique but belittled talent, which saves Christmas.
- [protagonist] is [home for Christmas/someone who never understood Christmas/haunted by three ghosts/a disgruntled relative of Santa or Rudolph/sent to an alternate world where he had never been born], and is driven by a dysfunctional but ultimately well meaning [self/family member/group of friends/unwitting arch-nemisis] to go on a crazy caper in order to save Christmas, and thereby remembering the meaning of Christmas in the process.
- [protagonist] is [looking for the perfect gift/concerned someone’s list didn’t make it to Santa], but doesn’t have any money, so he goes on a crazy caper where he [sells his favorite possession to get the money/earns the money through some crazy scheme/steals the present/builds the present from scratch] and even though the [attempt/gift exchange] is ultimately unsuccessful, he remembers the true meaning of Christmas and [Santa/intended gift recipient] saves the day.
- [protagonist] is disilusioned by the commercialization of Christmas when he [goes on a crazy caper/directs a school pageant, often with repetitive dance moves] and thereby remembers the true meaning of Christmas.
i’ve run through a list of 54 christmas specials and movies, and each one falls into at least one (if not more) of these five buckets. if i am missing a storyline, i can’t come up with it …
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found: first snow angel
![[(repost)]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4320103818_6e4933d68b.jpg)
photo of the week // week ten -
photos: snowfall in mount pleasant, dc
Explore the Photo Set:
snowfall in mount pleasant, dc -
video: whoops
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBw8xkDk3nA
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sleep?
![[]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4145201255_de43feacf6.jpg)
two month checkup today, and we got the best news imaginable … we no longer need to wake sparklet up for a 2 am feeding. just the slightest possibility of this actually happening has our whole house in a tizzy.at the pediatricians, sparklet clocked in at 11 lbs. 1 oz. (75th percentile), 22.5″ long (again, 75th), with a head circumference of 15″ (shockingly, 75%). this is quite a step up from where she started at birth, which for weight was in the 8-10% range.
but, besides indicating that we officially have a big baby — the pediatrician called her a “chunky monkey” — this means that the days of being concerned about her size are over, and as such so we can stop the long forced march of sustenance through the night.
(sparklet also got a cocktail of vaccinations, and a clean bill of health, but we really stopped paying attention after the “don’t wake a sleeping baby” verdict…)
we are of no illusion that she is miraculously going to start sleeping straight through, effective tonight … but we are really hoping that we she’ll want to combine the two inconvenient feedings (2am, 6am) into just one inconvenient feeding (4am).
it’s hard to believe that we would consider this an upgrade, but that’s where we are.
i don’t know who is more excited … baby sparklet? the lady sparkler? myself? my boss/coworkers? the people who live in the apartment below us? our extended friends and family now that they no longer have to endure our sad attempts at being lucid?
“it’s a whole new worrrrrrrld….”
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video: wiggles
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xkIO9-MZWY
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found: december
![[]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4186740794_806fdfb53a.jpg)
photo of the week // week nineExplore the Photo Set:
camera dump: december
![[]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4208117873_3a16a93786.jpg)
![[Snow, Mount Pleasant, Washington, DC.]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4196898153_06e23492fa.jpg)
![[]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4185982467_d87f24d6eb.jpg)
![[]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/4186741368_4113f55133.jpg)
it seems like every other year, the D.C. weathermen predict at least one “major” storm that will paralyze the city … although, seeing that three inches of snow is more than enough to bring D.C. to its knees, i guess “major” is a relative term.
we’re supposedly at 10 inches, which would already puts us in the top five storms of the last twenty years. we got 24 inches of snow my junior year of college, a much smaller storm (maybe a foot?) in high school, and i remember using a yardstick to measure a 20+ incher back when i was seven or eight.
outside of those, we’ve had way more false alarms than anything of interest … which is a good thing, because in the end D.C. is a southern town, and southerners (a) refuse to walk or use public transit, and (b) only think they know how to drive on snow.