You Better Watch Out

Doesn't everyone know at least one person who has been Naughty this year instead of Nice?

Personally, I think the whole lump of coal thing, while appropriate to humanity historically and deserving therefore of at least momentary consideration as a holiday offering to those who have earned such recognition, is outmoded.

A lump of coal for a naughty person at Christmas is as out-of-date as my grandmother's size ten mink coat had become. My mother had that mink coat transformed into something equally as impractical as a size ten anything in our family: a teddy bear. I kid you not. Somewhere in the good old US of A is a place where new life is breathed into old furs coats that we larger modern relatives never have a hope of fitting our larger modern selves into. I think it's just across the bay from the Island of Misfit Toys.

The mink teddy bear sits on a couch in her formal living room. While it may seem a teddy bear in a formal living room is entirely out of place, Winston fits right in.

Yes. My mother named her bear Winston. It's a family thing.

I came across the ShizaGram, that is, I think, an acceptable modern gift alternative for the Naughty people in our lives. This gift item has the added appeal of being completely impractical, unlike a lump of coal that can be used in a variety of ways by a Naughty person with imagination. It can be burned for heat. Or used to write on the sidewalk. Or launched as a projectile at an unsuspecting stander-by.

Then again, the ShizaGram can be used those same ways. But it sure shouts "Naughty!" more than any old lump of coal ever could, doesn't it?

I'm making a list.
Should you be on it?

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