Tag: christmas

Repost of Yorn Yule Tune & All New 2021 Content

~ Jim Flanigan

As I find myself woefully unprepared for Christmas once again, I harken back to advice crooner Pete Yorn gave us 2 Christmases ago – calm the hell down. Read on.

Christmas can be a fun time, but also a very stressful time. There are gifts to buy, MAGA relatives to rub shoulders with, and decorations to put up outside often in less than ideal conditions. But Pete Yorn is back with some sage advice for this season.

Where’s Yorn been since he captivated us musically a decade ago with lyrical tales of his “Strange Condition?” Well, he’s been making music, but just not super memorable. This new tune from his 7th album may not be memorable, but it excellent advice to just calm the hell down.

If you aren’t calm after listening to that tune, then there’s something seriously wrong. Calm down. The gifts will get wrapped. The tree will be trimmed. You’ll get to go a-Wassailing, whatever that is. Ask Uncle George in his MAGA hat about his health. He won’t have time to talk about Trump. He’ll be too busy talking about his gout and the root canal he needs and the fried foods he can’t eat anymore because his cholesterol is too high and … well, you get the idea. When he’s done, just tell him to calm down because he looks great. Okay, that’s probably a lie. What is that spot on his head? But, what the hell, it’s the holidays. Maybe that Christmas lie will help him enjoy a Merry Christmas, like all of us will if we just calm down.

Continue reading for new content.

Continue reading “Repost of Yorn Yule Tune & All New 2021 Content” →

Mite Be Funny #253 – Christmas Exploitation

~ Jim Flanigan
Continue reading “Mite Be Funny #253 – Christmas Exploitation” →

A Netflix Christmas Miracle

~ Jim Flanigan

There has not been a miracle like I experienced this weekend since the weeping Madonna.

No, not that Madonna. You know, the Madonna, the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Some of her statues have supposedly wept and really made a mess like this one.

Continue reading “A Netflix Christmas Miracle” →

Where’s My Christmas Discount?

~ Jim Flanigan

Well, here we are on my 5th Day of Blogging, and I have decided to start my Christmas shopping. I stopped off at a local store owned by an ex-neighbor named Sherry. She’s a wonderful woman and was a great neighbor for 20 years. Sherry employs Victoria who we happily lived next door to in the same neighborhood as Sherry for 18 years. I always enjoy stopping by to see them and catch up, but they don’t work weekends, especially the crazy weekends before Christmas.

As I approached the cash register at Sherry’s store to checkout, I heard the woman in front of me quietly mention that she’s related to Sherry. She got a discount! Well, not to be outdone, I notified the high school girl working the counter that I was an ex-neighbor of both Sherry and Victoria, so I should get the ex-neighbor’s discount. I could see the panic in her face as her eyes started to dart to-and-fro looking for help. Seeing as it is the holiday season, I decided to be charitable and let her off the hook. I assured her that of course, I was just kidding. Yeah, sure, kidding. I figure I can make up the missed discount next year when we go to Victoria’s son’s wedding. I am sure the wedding venue won’t miss a few place settings of silverware.

Now that I’ve started shopping, I should check the ad revenue from this blog to see if I’ll be able to pay the credit card bills when they come due in January. Let’s take a look.

Continue reading “Where’s My Christmas Discount?” →

Let the Christmas Decorations Begin!

~ Jim Flanigan

With 2 weeks until Christmas, I best get some holiday posts rolling. I thought I’d begin by checking out our neighborhood for holiday decorations.

Except, I wasn’t expecting the holiday to be Independence Day.

But this one is more like it. I really don’t know how they do this every year.

Continue reading “Let the Christmas Decorations Begin!” →

Hoping 2021 is Worth the Weight

~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

Happy New Year to you all as I wrap up my Twelve Days of Blogging. When last I checked my weight in an act of public self-shaming, I had gained 2 pounds back from my summer & fall 17 pound weight loss. I hatched a crazy plan to gain less than 5 pounds per month during the 3 winter months, and I would then start Spring 2021 weighing less than last year. Even nuttier is that’s the plan I’ve decided to follow – weight gain. It’s the only plan I have. Winter weight gain is inevitable for me. The best I can do is minimize it.

I knew December would be hard. By the end of the month, my diet had turned almost exclusively to a focus on the 4 holiday food groups of cookies, chocolate, caramel, and eggnog. My workouts had faded as Christmas activities and a bathroom renovation took precedence over self-care. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t lie …

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Holiday Eats

~ Jim Flanigan

Today is the eighth day of my Twelve Days of Blogging, and Christmas leftovers in the house are running low, unlike my weight because of the Christmas leftovers. It’s a vicious cycle. My wife made some special sandwiches for Christmas Eve, and I was looking forward to this on Christmas Day …

Until I saw the whole dish …

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Mite Be Funny #202 – Christmas Gifts

~ Jim Flanigan

Well, here we are starting the second half of my Twelve Days of Blogging. A Mite Be Funny is normally (if you can call anything about Mite Be Funny normal) scheduled for today, so let’s roll with a Christmas-themed cartoon.

Do I Have a Drinking Problem?

~ Jim Flanigan

Here we are halfway through my Twelve Days of Blogging. I’ll let you do the math to figure out how many days that is. I hope you received the gifts you wanted or at least gift receipts along with the crappy ones.

I received this thoughtful gift from my oldest daughter. Now I can go around smelling like I’m stinking drunk even when I’m not.

Examine those soaps a bit closer and you will see this …

Continue reading “Do I Have a Drinking Problem?” →

Merry Christmas!

~ Jim Flanigan

On the fifth day of my Twelve Days of Blogging, I mainly want to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

But you don’t want to almost be able to see me. I know you want new content, but I have little to give other than that pic. So how about a Christmas Mite Be Funny from 3 years ago?

A Christmas Haul

~ Jim Flanigan

Here we are on the fourth day of my Twelve Days of Blogging, and I experienced quite a haul yesterday. No, I didn’t get a lot of gifts. (Thanks for that lack of gifts, by the way) My haul involved literally hauling these five 4′ x 8′ sheets of drywall up a tricky flight of stairs with a couple tight turns at the bottom and top.

No, I didn’t do it alone. I assisted my brother-in-law who is doing our bathroom renovation & expansion. But then, I got the bright idea to haul these bad boys up the stairs … by myself.

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The Twelve Days of Blogging

~ Jim Flanigan

There was a time when I was blogging daily, but complaints from blog followers were such that I had to cut back. I’m sure it was because the daily posts were soooo hilarious that readers couldn’t get anything done due to frequent bursts of chortling and chuckling all day when thoughts turned to my daily post with the end result being that they accomplished nothing.

But I’m back, baby. Twelve days of blogging to coincide with the twelve days of Christmas. Wait, what? Christmas is Friday? Uh-oh. Are stores open during COVID? Maybe I can coincide my blogging with the eight days of Chanukah. Wait, what? That’s over already? I completely missed Chanukah? I always feel like I slight Chanukah, and this year I’ve gone and missed it entirely. The least I can do is recruit a major celebrity like Motown legend Smokey Robinson to deliver a festive Chanukah video message.

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Holiday Decorations in my Neighborhood

~ Jim Flanigan

It’s nice that our neighbors behind us decided to install an airport landing strip in their backyard this holiday season.

I do need some trees trimmed in the back, so I’m not objecting to a small plane or two trying to land.

It’s not like we don’t have some of our own interesting decorations in our trees out front. Take a look …

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Mite Be Funny #200 – A Christmas List

~ Jim Flanigan

The Day the Ornament Died

~ Jim Flanigan

It’s New Year’s Day. Happy New Year to you. It turns out that my wife is allergic to the Christmas tree that has been up in our house for 3 weeks now. Nothing too serious. Just her throat closing up when she’s in the same room with it. But we entertained company on 5 different occasions over the holidays including last night, so up the tree stayed. Until today.

The tree is coming down today and heading out for chipping and mulching. No longer do we live in the neighborhood where we attach trees to old toilets and dump them in the neighborhhood lake for the fish to use as breeding grounds. That’s a blog post for another day. Nope. Out to the curb with it, maybe with an ornament left on it.

Having 5 kids, our tree features a lot of homemade or kid-centric ornaments. I’m guessing a child may have made this one …

ornament1.jpg

Heck, there are even ornaments that I painted many years ago on the tree …

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Christmas Wrap-up

~ Jim Flanigan

Now that Christmas is over, I don’t want to do any more wrapping for a while except to wrap-up a few holiday loose ends. And if you somehow make it to the end of this post, I have a very special gift for you there.

for me

Yes, a gift just for you (and the tens of other readers of this blog). WARNING: Gift receipt not included. Don’t waste your time looking for it.

First, the mystery of the mini wine gift basket coming my way has been solved. It wasn’t tiny bottles of wine after all. It was this in the 2 lb. box …

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A Small Gift at Christmas – Literally

~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

Do you know any of those people that give valuable gifts at Christmas and then say, “It’s nothing really, just a small gift to show my appreciation?” If you do, can you introduce me? Anyway, I thought I was one of those people getting a valuable gift today. I got this UPS notification yesterday …

UPS Notification

How festive looking, and classy. Wine country, huh? Our extended family comes over to our house Christmas Eve, so this basket of wine may be coming just in time for me to get my booze on before they descend upon our humble abode.

But then I tracked the shipment and saw this …

Continue reading “A Small Gift at Christmas – Literally” →

Who Ate Chocolate Jesus?

~ Jim Flanigan

Is this to become a beloved Christmas tradition or just a quirky annual post from Jim Flanigan Looks at the World? This is indeed a repost from December 2015 that continually gets lots of views. I’m lazy, and I have to start Christmas shopping, so I’m reposting it again. I hope you enjoy it and Merry Christmas.

While waiting in line at a local sweet shop, I could not take my eyes off their chocolate nativity for sale. Continue reading “Who Ate Chocolate Jesus?” →

New Music for Old Rockers – New Yorn Yule Yarn

~ Jim Flanigan

Christmas can be a fun time, but also a very stressful time. There are gifts to buy, MAGA relatives to rub shoulders with, and decorations to put up outside often in less than ideal conditions. But Pete Yorn is back with some sage advice for this season.

Where’s Yorn been since he captivated us musically a decade ago with lyrical tales of his “Strange Condition?” Well, he’s been making music, but just not super memorable. This new tune from his 7th album may not be memorable, but it excellent advice to just calm the hell down.

If you aren’t calm after listening to that tune, then there’s something seriously wrong. Calm down. The gifts will get wrapped. The tree will be trimmed. You’ll get to go a-Wassailing, whatever that is. Ask Uncle George in his MAGA hat about his health. He won’t have time to talk about Trump. He’ll be too busy talking about his gout and the root canal he needs and the fried foods he can’t eat anymore because his cholesterol is too high and … well, you get the idea. When he’s done, just tell him to calm down because he looks great. Okay, that’s probably a lie. What is that spot on his head? But, what the hell, it’s the holidays. Maybe that Christmas lie will help him enjoy a Merry Christmas, like all of us will if we just calm down.

 

Elf on the Shelf to Unionize – Repost with New Content

~ Jim Flanigan

Work is surprisingly busy this time of the year when I thought business would be winding down a bit. That is actually good since my income is directly linked to my sales, and I just got a peek at my wife’s credit card bill with all the Christmas gift charges on it. I’m swooning just thinking about it. My charge card is also filled with holiday gift charges, but mostly from the Dollar Store so the total hasn’t hit triple digits yet. The bottom line is that I don’t seem to have much time to generate clever posts. I know, you’re asking yourself, “What’s his excuse for the rest of the year?”

Anyway, it seems like a good time to dust off an old Elf on the Shelf post from 4 years ago that continues to get a lot of views around Christmas. Our youngest child is now past the Elf on the Shelf stage, so that frees up some of my time at night that previously had me occupied finding clever hiding spots for Holly, my daughter’s Elf. I still regret perching Holly on the toilet that one time.

elf toilet.jpg

 

I wish my son had paid more attention before peeing in the middle of the night. No big deal. A couple flushes and Holly was rinsed nicely.

Anyway, here’s the original Elf on the Shelf post from 2015 (with some punctuation corrections) …

The popular elves from The Elf on the Shelf fame have had it with working conditions and are organizing a union. Continue reading “Elf on the Shelf to Unionize – Repost with New Content” →