I didn’t cry when Old Yeller died, I rarely cry at funerals, and I don’t cry when I am cutting onions.  But nothing makes me cry faster than the thought of a kid at Christmas with no food and nothing under the tree. 

I had a nice, humorous, heartwarming post in my head about the importance of giving a gift to a child in need this Christmas, but then I had to work all night coding and testing and refreshing and css-ing and my brain is completely fried.  So I all will say about that is, please go buy a toy for a kid today!  There are plenty of programs like Toys for Tots and the Salvation Army that locate families who really need it and wrap and deliver the gifts.  And it doesn’t have to be a toy.  A warm coat, colored pencils and a sketchbook, or a kid’s classic like Charlotte’s Web or The Hobbit would be a fantastic choice that a needy kid would benefit from for a long, long time.  Plus you will feel a little bit better about the world.

It’s not about the gift.  It’s about believing in miracles.

Okay enough of that drivel. 

We’re moving this weekend and it’s supposed to be 20 below zero here toward the end of the weekend.  A high of 2, if we are lucky.  Holy cannoli!  The moving truck is going to freeze to the driveway!  I guess this is what we get for deciding to move in December.  Sheesh.  I am really looking forward to setting up my tree though.  I need a miracle myself.  The miracle needs to consist of floating furniture that moves itself, an auto-vaccuuming home, and a buttload of premium coffee (delivered to me in my favorite cup by a Swedish masseuse named Hans). 

I met my husband for lunch yesterday and we went to the Bozeman mall.  There’s a relatively new restaurant in the food court that is run by a local farm.  They sell their own food there, except instead of being dirty and farm-style the food comes out in delicious, fresh combinations such as what we had yesterday.  Pork-n-taters.  That’s what we ordered.  Something called a “Pork-n-tater.” 

It was frigging delicious.  It was a huge baked potato covered in all natural pulled pork, topped with sour cream, cheese and green onions  (I didn’t say it was a calorie-free lunch).  And it’s fun to say.  Pork-n-tater.  I usually detest such cutesy names but I will make an exception for the Pork-n-tater.  See, I even wrote it again.  Pork-n-tater.

Anyway after lunch we wandered around for a bit to shop for kids in need and see if we could find any bargains at the mall (no).  I made the mistake of walking into a Hallmark store.  I say it was a mistake because now I can’t stop thinking about their damn $15-$30 ornaments. 

We have a nice tree each year (a fake one though).  Most of our ornaments are the “Box-O-Decorations” variety but we do have several “nice” ornaments.  I think the most I ever paid for an ornament that wasn’t a gift for someone else is about five dollars.  And that just felt wrong.  Is it because I had Depression-era grandparents?  Either way, we manage to get one or two “fancy” ornaments each year and because they have built up, we have a pretty lovely tree by now.  But Hallmark let me know just how inadequate we really are.

They had a leg lamp in a box ornament.  If you know of any Christmas Story fans, get thee to Hallmark and fork over the $15 for this one.  It has a little button that you can press and you can hear that dad say “Frah-gee-lay…it must be Italian!”

They had the Little People barn from my youth, a perfect, miniature replica of the barn with the tiny black pig and the brown horse.  Oh my goodness.  I don’t remember the price on that one.  They had miniture tractors, trains, and recreations of every Christmas show ever made, I tell you. 

Then I saw the heartbreaker.  They had an ornament that was the skating rink from A Charlie Brown Christmas!  Oh my goodness.  The wind-up on that one made Woodstock spin on his tiny nest and Lucy twirl on the pond as music played.  I fell in love with a stupid ornament.  In a major way.  Except this ornament was twenty-eight freakin’ dollars.  There’s no way.  So sadly it stayed on the shelf.

I hope that when we do finally set up our tree, I can shake the feeling of the empty branch where that skating ornament would be, you know, if I was a hundred-thousandaire (I’m being fantasy-realistic in our new world economy). 

Well, that’s all for now.  I need some serious coffee to remedy last-nights all-nighter. 

Oh, and go buy a gift for a kid in need!*  Now!  Please!  It will make me feel a lot better about my lack of twenty-eight dollar ornaments ;)

*Not Kaylee…heh