HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 98 Bow ties. 182 Neckties.
Santa Relaxed Today
And Heeeeeere’s Side 2 Of The Wintry Cape
Ties o’ Last Night are ecstatic to present the wintry cape’s flip-side, which you haven’t yet seen in all its fabulosity. Both sides of this shimmering cape drop glitter wherever the cape travels. Suzanne be the Cape-maker to the Ties. And to me.
I chose to display these ties together as a way to sort of illustrate something I think about occasionally– especially at this time of year when everybody’s talking about making resolutions: What kind of person am I, and is that the sort of person I want to be?
Am I Scrooge, holding my little candle, and saying BAH HUMBUG as I move through life? Am I an elf, happily completing whatever project or errand I’m assigned to do, without doing much bigly thinking? Am I a jolly ol’ gal who gives much and expects nothing in return? Am I just a cold blob with one goal: don’t melt? Am I a HO?
Of course, all of those traits are angles of our personalities. Any given person is a spectrum of human thinking and emotions and roles. I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying, “Well, YOU might be a HO, but I most certainly am not!”
After much reflection, I do believe that although I am all these ties, I am a HO most of all. And I think it’s a good thing. It’s certainly a much-needed aspect of all emotionally healthy human beings to sometimes HO around. Of course, I mean it in the HO HO HO way. The greetings-to-all way. The laughter way. The explosion-of-wonder way.
Being a HO is my go-to. It’s how I make sense of a sometimes out o’ control planet. If I can’t laugh about difficult things I can’t change, I try to HO HO HO my way through it. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s a way to maintain sanity. We all need some HO in us.
I have tried to make HO-ing a skill. I hone my HO-ness to the point I think it’s worth passing along in these posts, in the HOpe it will touch the HO in you enough that you can pass along some of your HO HO HO to others. It can be a confusing and tough life at times, so embrace your inner HO. HO’s are for sharing.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 98 Bow ties. 181 Neckties.
A Christmas Wish
My primary Christmas wish for my family and for y’all is for us to drown in happiness, peace, silliness, courage, and love. And every other positive, exciting thing we can add to that list.
The next important wish I have for this year’s Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa season is for me to make the Holiday Tie Tally go higher than the 100 mark for the bow ties, and the 200 mark for the neckties. I’m working to make that happen in a way that allows you to examine the finer points of the neckwear designs which show up on your screens.
The two Ties o’ the Day I most enjoy in this post’s pix are the pathetic Chuck Brown X-mas tree and the one with the mutt peeing on the snowman. Of course, I love my Ties o’ the Day and Bow Ties o’ the Day equally, as any parent would. They all bid you a grand Merry Christmas.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 98 Bow ties. 176 Neckties.
Happy X-mas, Y’all, From The Residents Of The Tie Room!
Yes, it’s Christmas mid-morning. And we all know what that means: Suzanne still hasn’t gotten her festive arse out of bed. It also means I woke up Skitter; dragged her downstairs, where I wrapped a red bow and gold-glittered antlers around her; and put her Santa hat on her tired head, at which time she said, “To heck with this. I’m going back to sleep.”
But was I going to let the contagion of everybody’s early-morning exhaustion get in my Christmas way? No, sir. I crowned my head with cheesy holiday antlers– with lights on ’em, which don’t work. I suited up in my ostentatious Jolly Guy jacket, even throwing a Christmas-y handkerchief in its pocket.
And why did I do all this, despite my own hankering to make a bigly commotion which will wake Suzanne so she’ll bah humbug-ly descend the stairs, so I can finally open my presents? I did it for you. Yes, I did. I did it so you could have a Bow Tie o’ the Day X-mas present waiting for you on your screen after you recover from the early morning wrapping paper tornado that flew through your living room.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 91 Bow ties. 167 Neckties. Don’t worry. We’re not done with the count just quite yet.
This Is Kinda How The Whole Thing Got Started
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 89 Bow ties. 167 Neckties.
Down To The Christmas Wire
Bow Ties o’ the Day and Bow Ties o’ the Day wish you a merry Christmas Eve.
I admit that on Christmas Eve I am ALWAYS in the naughty category. Actually, I and my SWWTRN do the same naughty thing, whether we’re together or not. If we happen to drive past a store that has a parking lot full of cars, we get apoplectic about it, and say the same thing: “Look at all these flippin’ stoopid people at the flippin’ store! Didn’t they flippin’ know when flippin’ Christmas is? My hell, it’s on the exact same flippin’ day every flippin’ year!!! Have these flippin’ dopes not heard that it’s not against the flippin’ law to do their flippin’ Christmas shopping BEFORE flippin’ Christmas flippin’ Eve?” And so on. And then I go back to being my peace-on-earth-good-will-to-all-God’s-children self that I am.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 89 Bow ties. 165 Neckties.
Blame Whoever Sent It
Somebody sent me this formal, holiday party outfit, which I’m modeling over my Grinch pajama bottoms and under some random pajama top. The look of my new gift of clothing is festive and pepperminty, eh?
This black-tie bow tie attire simply showed up in an innocent-looking package in my mailbox a few days ago. I’m not sure who it is I should be thanking for such an idiosyncratic X-mas gift, or even if I should be thanking someone at all. But really, the skimpy outfit is the totality of the package’s contents. No note, no card, no letter. No return address. Who knew a red-and-white elastic collar with a solid black Bow Tie o’ the Day sewn on it skiwampusly would show up attached to a thong with more red-and-white elastic? Genius!
To the lost party soul who sent me this attire: Thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for adding a bow tie item to the TIE O’ THE DAY Christmas collection. Please be okay with the fact that I chose to wear my black Bow Tie o’ the Day thong outfit over my pj’s, and not by itself. Yes, be thankful. Be very, very thankful.
BTW Thanks again for crocheting me these great Bow Tie Slippers o’ Many Days, Georgia Grayson Wadsworth.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 88 Bow ties. 162 Neckties.
Piling On The Bow Ties And Ties
Bow Ties o’ the Day and Ties o’ the Day want me to make sure they are seen by our audience this year, and the countdown to Christmas is almost at zero. When I’m tooling around in The Tie Room these days, it’s clear to us all that not all holiday ties will be able to be presented on the posts, let alone worn in them before X-mas is over. Some of the neckwear got a committee together and they did a wee protest about probably not having the opportunity to reach their much-deserved stardom. I gave in, of course. I’ve packed a bunch of ’em into this Sabbath morning post, so they’ll be quiet, and I can get back to falling asleep in the recliner. Enjoy the bow ties and ties. Also, enjoy the bigly leap the tie total makes.
BTW My fave bow tie in this offering is the Ugly Sweater Bow Tie o’ the Day.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 87 Bow ties. 162 Neckties.
More Mom. More Skitter.
More MCR. More me with a sinister face. And one more Christmas Tie o’ Yesterday. Ain’t Mom cute?
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 76 Bow ties. 148 Neckties.
Visiting Helen, Sr.
Bow Tie o’ Yesterday is worn by Skitter. It’s a black-and-white, checked number. It’s not a holiday bow tie, so it won’t add to our holiday tie total, but who the heck cares? Here sit Mom and Skitter in Mom’s room at MCR. I think this is one of my all-time fave photos of Mom. The ever-so slight smile on her face as she looks down at Skitter is just plain full of love and sweetness. As I’ve mentioned before, Skitter is the only mutt Mom has ever warmed up to. And I do mean ever in her life. And despite Skitter’s skittishness and paranoia, she and Mom gravitated to each other the minute we introduced them five years ago.
Skitter was a hit at MCR, as I’m sure all canine visitors are. I was pleased with how she handled the new situation. Big building. Lots of people. Lots of folks petting her. She did shake, but not bigly. And she was like velcro to me wherever we went– except in Mom’s room, where Skitter and Mom acted like Suzanne and I weren’t even there. Overall, Skitter did enjoy her outing, despite her fears. She is already nagging us about going back to visit Grandma ASAP.
When we walked into Mom’s room at MCR, Mom immediately beamed. And she wasn’t beaming because of my smashing wintry cape. She wasn’t even beaming about Suzanne being there. Nope. When Mom saw Skitter in the flesh… er, in the fur, she almost blew a happy gasket. (I have no idea what a gasket is, but I know the saying. And I know it has something to do with a car.) In fact, when Skitter and Mom saw each other, the scene was like those sappy movies where two people see each other across a field and they run to each other and embrace for the rest of their lives, or until the movie ends. Well, it wasn’t exactly like that, but it was close. We tried to keep Skitter at the bottom of Mom’s bed, but she kept inching her way up to Mom’s side, which was perfectly enjoyable to Mom.
Please notice Mom’s new cozy house jacket. Her friend, Judie Curtis, stopped by to visit Mom while we were there. Heck, Judie even showed up with gifts for me and Suzanne. Judie is Mom’s “favorite daughter,” and Judie never let’s us forget it. That makes Judie my “favorite sister.”
As always, Mom was in feisty, funny spirits yesterday. But I think we sort of caught her on a bad day. Her blood sugar was way way way way too high, so it was a little difficult for her to keep up with the finer points of our conversations and humor. She was still herself though– especially when the staff told her she is no longer allowed to drink Pepsi until her blood sugar gets back into whack. She was very vocal about how important her drinking is to her, and about how yucky Diet Pepsi tastes to her. She mentioned it many times. Loudly. It was gripe, gripe, gripe. In a mostly-funny way, of course. But she drank the Diet Pepsi anyway. And she drank more than one.
I love that shrinking woman.
Our HOLIDAY TIE TALLY holds at 76 Bow ties, and 147 neckties.