Barefootin’, Decoratin,’ and  Wishin’ You a Happy Christmas

It is officially winter in my world. I can tell because I am voluntarily wearing shoes. It seems that every year as I get older winter starts a little sooner and lasts a little longer.  As the Grand-brat told his mother yesterday, “Faux Pa is very very very very old.” I could have done without at least two of those verys.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

Last week I was at the Keysville Christmas parade when I noticed a young woman who was wearing no shoes. She had two children with her, one of whom was wearing no shoes and the other was in one of those wrappy clingy slingy thingies. As I was contemplating my shoes the Grand-brat with me shouted, “Mama.” I should have noticed first off that the barefooted girl was one of my brats.

For the past few days I’ve been working on decorating the living room although my bride Management doesn’t see it that way. I’ve added a couple of pieces of paneling, some sheetrock, some door trim and I cut a hole in the floor for a heat duct.

The reason I call it decorating is that I have attractively sprinkled sawdust all over the room. If it were glitter it would be called decoration and I think the dust is attractive-it even looks like a touch of snow. Management disagrees.

She would prefer I wait to work on the house until after Christmas but she is forgetting that if I lose my momentum it will take months to get it going again.  Mo isn’t one of those things you can start and stop. It is like a glacier. It is moving at a steady pace and if it ever stops it might take a century to start moving again. I don’t think I have another century to work on the house.

On Saturday as I was sprinkling sawdust in the living room the son called. He had our fire truck Oren in a parade in Dinwiddie and he’d forgotten the banners. He wanted me to pick them up and deliver them before the parade started. If everything worked perfectly I could make it with one minute to spare.

As it happened I arrived with one minute to spare and I didn’t even break any laws. In fact I arrived early since the parade started late. While I was waiting to escape (without ending up in the parade lineup) I was talking to Santa.

Some guy came up and asked Santa where the reindeer were. I told him, “The fat guy hid them. You are in Dinwiddie County in the middle of hunting season. Any deer with antlers that even sticks his nose out is going to be in a skinning shed before dark.”

Thinking about it, that red-nose deal isn’t going to save Rudolph either. I checked. The game laws don’t exempt glowing red-nosed deer. Rudolph better watch out.

Next week, watch for my bride Management’s version of this column. Twice a year she gets to fill in for me. Well, actually she did it twice and once you do something twice it becomes a tradition and you have to do it forever.

Management wasn’t aware of this rule when she offered to fill in for me Christmas week ten years ago but she is now. I think her plan was to correct what she considers some possibly incorrect opinions she believes I am guilty of perpetuating.

I’m certain she is correct. As I always say, a wise man never criticizes the opinions of the woman whose most important decision in life was in choosing to marry him.

And finally since I won’t be here next week-

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good week.