Dave Barry: Christmas ideas!

Mr. Cat · 12-12-2005, 11:59 PM

The Miami Herald

Dave Barry

Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005

We wish you a merry gesso

BY DAVE BARRY

(This classic DAVE BARRY column was originally published on Dec. 13, 1998.)

Ho ho ho! 'Tis the Christmas season, a time of festivity and fun and credit-card statements the length of "The Brothers Karamazov." It's also a time when the publications at supermarket-checkout counters are chock-full of articles featuring creative holiday craft ideas, with headlines like:

"CHER TELLS OPRAH: 'CAST OF "FRIENDS" ATE MY BABY!'"

No, sorry, wrong type of supermarket-checkout publication. The ones with the holiday craft ideas are the homemaker magazines, which are filled with articles like "50 Fun Holiday Crafts You Can Make With Your Saliva." The problem is that, to make these crafts, you usually have to understand some technical craft terms. For example, I have here a Family Circle article on 25 do-it-yourself holiday gifts; in the instructions for making a "Yuletide Shelf," it says that step one is to "gesso an unfinished wooden shelf."

Call me a big fat holiday dope if you want, but I have no idea what "gesso" means. It sounds like dialogue in a bad western movie:

FIRST COWBOY: Yew fixin' tuh wrangle them heifers?

SECOND COWBOY: Ah gesso.

The thing is, I happen to consider myself a craft expert, based on my experience in the summer of 1966 at Camp Sharparoon in Dover Furnace, N.Y., where I held the title of Craft Shop Counselor. They did not give this title to just anybody. They gave it only to those individuals who, when asked, "Do you want to be Craft Shop Counselor?" answered "OK."

Our most popular craft project -- in fact, our ONLY craft project -- was having the campers make "lanyards," which were these things that you made by braiding something called "gimp." You spent several days braiding your lanyard, and then you hung it around your neck, where it served thousands of useful purposes, although nobody I know ever could think of any.

Nevertheless we had our campers make them by the metric ton.

I suppose I should have come up with some other craft projects, but I was pretty busy fighting bats. The Camp Sharparoon craft shop was located in a rustic old structure that housed what had to be the largest irate bat colony in North America. Around dusk, the bats would swarm out and, perhaps angered by the "gimp," swoop around the campers, causing them to become frightened and commit potentially serious braiding errors. So I, as the authority figure, would try to hit them (the bats) with a broom. I got pretty good at it. The key is to have a relaxed grip on the handle, keep your eye on the bat, and follow through on your swing. I could consistently drive a bat 25 feet, which is more than twice the best distance ever attained by so-called "craft expert" Martha Stewart.

And that is why today I am proud to present the following holiday feature, "Christmas Projects for the Craft-Impaired." We'll start with an easy and inexpensive gift idea:

HOLIDAY COAT HANGERS

This is the perfect solution for that embarrassing moment when people give you a gift and you didn't get anything for them. Simply take an ordinary wire coat hanger from your closet, tie a festive red ribbon around it, and -- Voila! -- you have a useful, hand-crafted gift that perfectly expresses the holiday message: "This cost me nothing." If you don't want to go to all that trouble, you can simply give people a hanger and tell them to tie their own ribbon on it. For that matter, they might just as well use their own hanger; no sense in killing yourself! You have other holiday craft projects to think about, such as this fun and rewarding idea for the kids:

MAYONNAISE NATIVITY SCENE

Get a big jar -- no, get SEVERAL big jars -- of mayonnaise. Scoop the mayonnaise out onto a table or floor in a big glob, and tell the kids to make a Nativity Scene out of it. They can't, of course, but they'll be busy for the next few hours, which gives you some time to make:

FESTIVE HOLIDAY EGGNOG

Eggnog is a traditional old beverage that gets its name from two words, "egg," meaning "egg," and "nog," meaning "a sound people make in the bathroom if they have consumed too much eggnog." You need a dozen eggs, a quart of rum and some other ingredients that I forget. Begin by separating the egg whites from the yolks. When you're done, take a standard No. 2 pencil and write me a letter explaining how you did it, because I never could. I always end up just drinking the rum, or, if no rum is available, beer. Which always puts me in a good mood to plan my:

HOLIDAY "SURPRISE" GIFT PARTY

Invite all your friends, and, in the invitation, tell them to bring a wrapped gift with no name on it. At a given time -- say, 8 p.m. -- gather all your guests together and tell them to go home. Then open the gifts. If any guests refuse to leave, threaten to gesso them. Because you're a busy person with many more holiday projects to attend to. Such as getting the mayonnaise off the dog.

=^..^=

Fran · 13-12-2005, 12:14 AM

Mr. Cat · 13-12-2005, 05:43 AM

I had a good laugh reading that column, Fran, especially since I too went to a camp where we were required to make lanyards. (That was back in the 1950s, when I was a kid.) I hated that camp, I hated braiding those stupid useless lanyards and I finally persuaded the camp bosses to get my father to come take me home.

It was named Camp Columbus and was located somewhere in New Jersey. (At the time, we lived in a small New Jersey town named Point Pleasant Beach.) At Camp Columbus we kids were housed in ramshackle cabins presided over by bratty older kids who must have been instructed to act like drill sergeants.

Actual adult men would regularly patrol the camp to make sure we were dilligently braiding those idiotic lanyards. (What's this lanyard fixation on the part of grown-ups all about, anyway?) These men would, in the way of motivation, say things like "You're here so you'll grow up to be a man!"

Yeah, like all your Real Men down through the millennia have been heavy into braiding. Maybe lanyards have some special significance in those rich-guy ultra-secret clubs, like that Nose and Throat Society (or whatever the thing's called) to which the elder George Bush belongs. In their "no girls allowed" clubhouse they probably have a big round seal featuring one of those hovering-eye pyramids and the phrase "The mark of a man is the lanyard he has braided" written in Latin.

=^..^=

yola · 13-12-2005, 11:07 AM

Joe - that's a brilliantly observed article as usual!! D

id you really have to endure all that nonsense? Poor you!

Thankfully we don't really have a kids camp culture here and most people wouldn't have a clue what a lanyard was anyway . . . which is probably about right and as it should be, don't you think?

Mr. Cat · 13-12-2005, 08:13 PM

Yola, I couldn't agree more! Mind, some kids find these camps to be fun -- believe it or not. Go figure.

=^..^=

Mags · 13-12-2005, 08:19 PM

Boy scouts used to wear lanyards didn't they!

Fran · 13-12-2005, 08:27 PM

lanyards are the 'in' thing for kids to hang their mobile phones off these days aren't they??

CathyW · 13-12-2005, 09:17 PM

was going to ask whats a lanyard???

Mags · 13-12-2005, 10:25 PM

Here are some lanyards BM...

Fran · 13-12-2005, 11:15 PM

Yup, my children have several differnent types of Lanyards. Em's favourite is a Playboy one

She attaches it to her mobile

Welcome to our Cat Forums!
				Welcome to our CatForums! You are seeing this message because you are viewing our cat forums as a guest. You can continue to browse our many cat related areas as a guest but you are more than welcome to register and join our friendly community of Cat Lovers! ... And for free! Doing so will also remove this message and some of the ads, such as the one on the left. Please click here to register.