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#Post#: 61691--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: Lilipons Date: December 17, 2020, 4:58 pm
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The thread about the work colleague who was offended by any
holiday observance brought to mind a year in the library when we
created a holiday artifact that really could have been
considered offensive but wasn’t.
Get your snack and beverage of choice because this will a rather
long haul. I hope it will also be worth the attention.
Back in the mid 1990s our curatorial department was putting
together a small show on 6th century BCE Greece. Every label we
wrote had to be vetted by the Education Department to make sure
that the average museum visitor would be able to understand what
we wrote.
That was fair enough but, at the time, the Eduction Department
was populated with a cadre of very young, and very ardent
feminists. These young ladies made the Guerrilla Girls look
like Phylis Schafly. All our labels were rejected as not giving
Greek women of the time their due. Well, Greece of the time
WAS very Androcentric.
The Education Department called it a similar name that began
with ‘Phal...’. You get the idea.
Our library always had a holiday tree that was inclusive. It
had a green crescent as a topper and incorporated both dreidels
and candy canes as ornaments. That year, both the women and men
of our department decided that we would have an ‘Androcentric
HolidayTree’. Absolutely every ornament would carry some
reference to the male gender.
It was fun to assemble. The topper was a German spike ornament
that Kaiser Wilhelm II might have worn on his pickelhaube for a
festive occasion. Instead of the puffy garland we had a garland
of dripping icicles. It just went on from there.
We already had small animal ornaments. There was a Portuguese
Rooster, A Scandinavian ram, a male lion and a Bison. There
were also Chinese zodiac ornaments of a horse, a snake, a boar,
a tiger and another ram. All were done in festive red and gold.
We bought a few little fun wooden figures of male stereotypes.
We had a weight-lifter, a football player, a fire fighter and
someone who resembled Bob the Builder. We also bought a small
bag of cardboard representations of vintage locomotives.
Curators loaned us more expensive glass ornaments. We wound up
with Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, a
chili pepper, a pickle and a cigar.
To top it all off, we had a box of a dozen glass ball ornaments
and another box of 6 long glass ornaments. We hung these with
three on the same hanger. We hung a long ornament between the
balls. We thought that would be a dead give-away of what we
were doing.
It wasn’t.
As was the museum custom, departments were invited for a visit
to other departments on Christmas Eve afternoon. The ladies
from Education loved our tree!. It was international and
multi-cultural. They especially liked the artistic way we
combined the glass ornaments on the same hanger to ‘cover the
bald spots on the tree’. A few even said they’d do something
like that on their trees at home.
I don’t think anyone who wasn’t in on the joke ever quite got it
but we certainly enjoyed it.
#Post#: 61692--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: chigger Date: December 17, 2020, 5:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Lilipons link=topic=1937.msg61691#msg61691
date=1608245910]
The thread about the work colleague who was offended by any
holiday observance brought to mind a year in the library when we
created a holiday artifact that really could have been
considered offensive but wasn’t.
Get your snack and beverage of choice because this will a rather
long haul. I hope it will also be worth the attention.
Back in the mid 1990s our curatorial department was putting
together a small show on 6th century BCE Greece. Every label we
wrote had to be vetted by the Education Department to make sure
that the average museum visitor would be able to understand what
we wrote.
That was fair enough but, at the time, the Eduction Department
was populated with a cadre of very young, and very ardent
feminists. These young ladies made the Guerrilla Girls look
like Phylis Schafly. All our labels were rejected as not giving
Greek women of the time their due. Well, Greece of the time
WAS very Androcentric.
The Education Department called it a similar name that began
with ‘Phal...’. You get the idea.
Our library always had a holiday tree that was inclusive. It
had a green crescent as a topper and incorporated both dreidels
and candy canes as ornaments. That year, both the women and men
of our department decided that we would have an ‘Androcentric
HolidayTree’. Absolutely every ornament would carry some
reference to the male gender.
It was fun to assemble. The topper was a German spike ornament
that Kaiser Wilhelm II might have worn on his pickelhaube for a
festive occasion. Instead of the puffy garland we had a garland
of dripping icicles. It just went on from there.
We already had small animal ornaments. There was a Portuguese
Rooster, A Scandinavian ram, a male lion and a Bison. There
were also Chinese zodiac ornaments of a horse, a snake, a boar,
a tiger and another ram. All were done in festive red and gold.
We bought a few little fun wooden figures of male stereotypes.
We had a weight-lifter, a football player, a fire fighter and
someone who resembled Bob the Builder. We also bought a small
bag of cardboard representations of vintage locomotives.
Curators loaned us more expensive glass ornaments. We wound up
with Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, a
chili pepper, a pickle and a cigar.
To top it all off, we had a box of a dozen glass ball ornaments
and another box of 6 long glass ornaments. We hung these with
three on the same hanger. We hung a long ornament between the
balls. We thought that would be a dead give-away of what we
were doing.
It wasn’t.
As was the museum custom, departments were invited for a visit
to other departments on Christmas Eve afternoon. The ladies
from Education loved our tree!. It was international and
multi-cultural. They especially liked the artistic way we
combined the glass ornaments on the same hanger to ‘cover the
bald spots on the tree’. A few even said they’d do something
like that on their trees at home.
I don’t think anyone who wasn’t in on the joke ever quite got it
but we certainly enjoyed it.
[/quote]
Love it, and especially love the way ya'll worked together on
the FU tree!
#Post#: 62924--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: peony Date: January 22, 2021, 5:28 pm
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I know this is a month late but I just happened to think of a
funny (true!) holiday story. One end of the street where my
mother lived was a T intersection, meaning you could turn left
or right but not go straight ahead. There was a house located
right on top of the T; this is relevant because anybody driving
down my mother's street to turn left or right would see that
particular house, there was no avoiding it. The house had an
two-story chimney of red brick in the front yard. One year the
owner decided to plant two low, round bushes, one on each side
of the tall chimney. The resulting visual wasn't that obvious
until Christmas of that year, when the owner strung Christmas
lights outlining each bush and then outlining the tall chimney.
Yeah. The following spring one of the bushes was dug up and
replanted in front of the chimney to break up the offending
outline, but then they gave up and simply removed that bush
altogether, I am assuming because people wouldn't let them
forget it. The entire neighborhood was chuckling over that
unforgettable brightly lit outline. Merry Christmas, indeed!
#Post#: 62939--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: Aleko Date: January 23, 2021, 5:32 am
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[quote]To top it all off, we had a box of a dozen glass ball
ornaments and another box of 6 long glass ornaments. We hung
these with three on the same hanger. We hung a long ornament
between the balls. We thought that would be a dead give-away of
what we were doing.
It wasn’t.[/quote]
It’s wonderful how people can wholly fail to get the point. Once
when DH and I were still active in Napoleonic-period living
history, we got a call from a friend who had been asked to bring
a small group to Portsmouth Dockyard on Trafalgar Day and just
‘be 1806 Portsmouth types’ next to HMS Victory. Would we like to
come? Oh, and his girlfriend H wanted to go as a Spithead
prostitute, and had I a bonnet I could lend her?
(I don’t know if this is true across the Pond, but an
extraordinary number of women in British historical reenactment
seem to fancy this role. Some of them do it under the - entirely
mistaken - notion that prostitutes wore fewer clothes than
ordinary women so they can save money and effort putting
together their outfits; but many of them seem to think it’s
somehow dashing and saucy - although anything less dashing and
saucy than the life of a working-class woman reduced to hawking
her body to soldiers and sailors for a few pennies and a dose of
clap is hard to imagine.)
Anyway, I had indeed made a rather fine straw bonnet, which I
wasn’t planning to wear to the event myself (I went as a
bumboat-woman, with a basket of merchandise) and was willing to
lend. But I definitely wasn’t prepared to soil or damage it in
order to make it shabby and sordid enough to be plausible wear
for a Spithead doxy, so I set out to achieve that effect with
accessories. I took ribbons in two nasty and badly-clashing
colours, splotched them with mud then half-washed them just
enough to spread the grubbiness, frayed the edges and ends with
an emery board, and groped them with greasy hands. I bought
three of the lowest quality of ostrich feather (also dyed in
clashing colours), hacked them about with scissors, broke two
leaving the ends hanging askew, held them over a candle till
they were smoke-blackened and singed, and trailed them in some
candle-wax for good measure. Then I ‘decorated’ the bonnet with
these monstrosities, till to my and DH’s eyes it looked
extravagantly, even parodically squalid.
Well, we got to Portsmouth and I handed it over to H, who
expressed herself pleased, and we got on with the day. I hoped
that at least one or two people might compliment H on not
romanticising her role, but no: to my complete amazement, just
about every person who commented on her outfit at all cried
“What a beautifully-decorated hat! What a pity your lovely
feathers and ribbons have been damaged!’ Like Lilipons’s
colleagues in Education, they came expecting to see a lovely
wholesome spectacle, so that’s what they did see.
#Post#: 64292--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: bopper Date: March 9, 2021, 11:03 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=kckgirl link=topic=1937.msg61261#msg61261
date=1607559849]
[quote author=pierrotlunaire0 link=topic=1937.msg61234#msg61234
date=1607537892]Let the kids start by waking up naturally. There
is nothing worse than giving your child what you think is going
to be a great gift only to have them nodding off as they are
supposed to be enjoying it.
[/quote]
I made that mistake for my daughter's second birthday. After
that, the kids wake up naturally and we start the day when they
do.
[/quote]
Ah, but at some point you have to tell them that they can't wake
you up until the first number on the clock is a 7.
#Post#: 65111--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: Lilipons Date: April 1, 2021, 10:54 am
---------------------------------------------------------
The spring holidays of Passover and Easter are upon us.
Do you have any fun or odd spring holiday stories? have a doozie
that I posted in the old E-Hell. Some of you may remember it.
It’s the Easter dinner spent with a murderess.
Neither Mom nor I had ever heard this story but Dad’s side of
the family had a very nasty secret. One of their cousins had
murdered her (almost certainly) abusive husband with a butcher
knife in the 1930s. She had been tried, found guilty and
confined to an asylum for the criminally insane for at least the
last 30 years.
The Easter when I was 15, Dad’s sister found out that she could
take the lady I’ll call ‘Ann’ out for a holiday weekend. She
was no longer considered a danger but she was too old and frail
to be released on her own. Dad’s sister put Ann up for the
weekend but we were to be blessed with her for Easter dinner.
My mother went tharn trying to produce a lamb roast for dinner
while not giving Ann access to any cutlery in the kitchen. It
was my job to entertain Ann until dinner was ready to be served
in the dining room. It wasn’t all that hard.
Ann turned out to be a very mild, interesting older lady. We
could talk about books that we both enjoyed and laughed a bit
about things.
Dinner went off well until Mom offered Ann mint jelly to have
with her lamb. Ann said that the jelly was all right but she
preferred mint sauce. Mom flinched as if Ann was going to go
after her with her steak knife like the shower scene in
“Psycho”.
At last the ordeal was over and Ann was picked up by Dad’s
sister. she left our house with some Easter candy and a bunch
of tulips from our garden.
#Post#: 65117--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: BeagleMommy Date: April 1, 2021, 1:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Many years ago my mother's aunt (my great aunt) Martha came to
Easter dinner. BeagleBoy and my nieces were in grade school
(between kindergarten and 3rd grades).
For several months Aunt Martha had been having some stomach
issues that no one could find a cause for. We suspect she was
eating things she wasn't supposed to but we could never prove
it. Very often she became....gassy.
So dinner is over and Aunt Martha is heading to the restroom
with my mother assisting her up the stairs. Suddenly there was
a loud "brrrrraaaaaaappppp". I'm watching the faces of all
three children who are trying really hard not to break out in
hysterical giggles. Let's face it, to small children body
sounds are funny.
To their credit all three of them managed to hold in their
laughter. I found out later my mother had forewarned the kids
that Aunt Martha had tummy issues that made her "toot" and it
would be rude to laugh at her.
#Post#: 66189--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: blueyzca Date: May 6, 2021, 1:38 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=BeagleMommy link=topic=1937.msg65117#msg65117
date=1617303158]
Many years ago my mother's aunt (my great aunt) Martha came to
Easter dinner. BeagleBoy and my nieces were in grade school
(between kindergarten and 3rd grades).
For several months Aunt Martha had been having some stomach
issues that no one could find a cause for. We suspect she was
eating things she wasn't supposed to but we could never prove
it. Very often she became....gassy.
So dinner is over and Aunt Martha is heading to the restroom
with my mother assisting her up the stairs. Suddenly there was
a loud "brrrrraaaaaaappppp". I'm watching the faces of all
three children who are trying really hard not to break out in
hysterical giggles. Let's face it, to small children body
sounds are funny.
To their credit all three of them managed to hold in their
laughter. I found out later my mother had forewarned the kids
that Aunt Martha had tummy issues that made her "toot" and it
would be rude to laugh at her.
[/quote]
Forget kids, adults find body sounds just as funny, though we're
supposed to act more mature than that. Last year, I remember
many news networks and SNL poking fun at Rudy Giuliani for
"tooting" during some official hearing. To Rudy's credit, he
just kept talking and didn't react. But every adult I know
brought it up soon after.
#Post#: 66228--------------------------------------------------
Re: Funny, Quirky or Just Plain Odd Holiday Stories.
By: Nikko-chan Date: May 7, 2021, 2:32 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=BeagleMommy link=topic=1937.msg65117#msg65117
date=1617303158]
Many years ago my mother's aunt (my great aunt) Martha came to
Easter dinner. BeagleBoy and my nieces were in grade school
(between kindergarten and 3rd grades).
For several months Aunt Martha had been having some stomach
issues that no one could find a cause for. We suspect she was
eating things she wasn't supposed to but we could never prove
it. Very often she became....gassy.
So dinner is over and Aunt Martha is heading to the restroom
with my mother assisting her up the stairs. Suddenly there was
a loud "brrrrraaaaaaappppp". I'm watching the faces of all
three children who are trying really hard not to break out in
hysterical giggles. Let's face it, to small children body
sounds are funny.
To their credit all three of them managed to hold in their
laughter. I found out later my mother had forewarned the kids
that Aunt Martha had tummy issues that made her "toot" and it
would be rude to laugh at her.
[/quote]
I have a similar story.
We were at a family gathering (perhaps easter???), and one of my
mom's cousins (so older cousin, way older than i was, she was in
her late 50's/early 60s I was iirc in my late teens/early 20s at
the time) needed to go to the restroom. So she got her walker
and someone helped assist her towards the rest room. Well she
happened to lose control and soiled herself. We were all quite
sympathetic to the situation (well..) most of us were, as you
will see below) and did the polite thing and pretended the smell
didn't exist, as my Older cousin was assisted to the bathroom to
get cleaned up.
I was standing next to a younger cousin, and yes, this is
important to the story...
Younger cousin: EWWWW WHAT STINKS!??!! (she was old enough to
know better than to do this, btw)
Me: *immediately wraps my arm around her and covers her mouth*
My younger cousin was immediately chastised by her grandmother
for her uncouth behavior, after Older Cousin was out of earshot.
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