Teeny Manolo

We wish our fabulous readers a wonderful, happy, and safe Christmas!

If you’re still shopping at this late date, you’ll need attitude at the mall. Truly, I shall never get back nor forget the two and one-half hours I wasted looking for parking at the mall 9pm on Christmas Eve…thank god now I live downtown.

To all frustrated, last-minute shoppers, here is your patron saint, and here is your anthem:

And here’s your Unicorn Chaser, the startlingly gifted and very likeable countertenor Nick Pitera singing O Holy Night. And yes, that is him.

I think he earns the “The Cuteness Abounds” tag, don’t you?

Didja ever wonder what it would be like to sit in Santa’s big chair and face hundreds of strange, possibly dangerous children daily, maintaining enough of a facade of geniality that the parents are still moderately happy to pay for the privilege of getting their kiddies’ picture taken with Santa? To be peed upon over and over again, to hear “I wanna iPod” over and over till one could strangle Steve Jobs with one’s gloved hands, to hold writhing, shrieking masses of life-force in your arms for adrenaline-pumping minutes at a time, lest they destroy expensive animatronic reindeer in the desperation of their heedless flight?

Wonder no more.

Colin Stevens, 44, film-maker
Hamleys, Regent Street, London

I am an alumnus of the Ministry of Fun Santa School in London. I can say ‘Happy Christmas’ in 12 languages. The first time I played Father Christmas, I thought, ‘So it’s come to this’ because I used to be a serious actor.

Wasn’t there a movie about this story? Or at least a Eugene O’Neill play?

Fred Holmes, 47, caretaker, Meadowcroft primary school
Painshill Park, Cobham, Surrey

I have been asked for a boiled egg, a Diet Coke, world peace and a live dinosaur… One girl told me all she wanted was to see her brother in pain. Sometimes you get lecherous mothers. A young mum once sat on my lap and asked if I would empty my sack on her bed. I think she’d been drinking. We once had a drunk elf who gave out the wrong presents, then fell into the lake.

Super bonus story: The Grinch is real, nabbed, and Bosnian.

Okay, this is raincoaster in charge of the Listmania today, not Glinda, so we know that the tastelessness factor is amped, relatively speaking. Just so you’re braced for some of the below, a roundup of some online Christmas games dug out from behind piles of old mittens and boots in the backs of dark closets all over the blogosphere.

And if you notice the prevalence of a certain source for some of these coolest of cool games, well, did you ever watch a Christmas special and wonder what happened to some of the characters afterwards?

Yes, the Grinch’s humble dog Max took the Whoville Express right to the top of the Office Supplies heap, garnering him a fortune of which his erstwhile master could only dream. Now, he spends his days dreaming up new ways to bring Christmas to every little girl and boy on the internet, even the grown-up ones.

Elf Bowling #1 through #7 (Nstorm)

Christmas Jesus Dress Up! Like paper dolls, only more heretical! (NormalBobSmith)

Shoot the lame Christmas junk! And you’ll really feel like shooting something with this music in the background! (Resn)

Alert Britney: North Pole Dancing (OfficeMax) Don’t you stick to it at those temperatures?

Reindeer arm wrestling (OfficeMax) Blitzen here has some serious ‘tude.

Shake the SnowGlobe and hear them scream! (OfficeMax)

Elf Yourself (OfficeMax)

Scrooge Yourself (OfficeMax)

Forget the cheerleader! Save the Snowman! (OfficeMax)

Snowball fight. A bit primitive, but classic (Zeeks)

Build a snowman (ChristmasGamesOnline)

Evil Santa generator (ScottsMind)

Christmas Tree Generator (Pyzam)

Christmas Disaster Generator (SecretTechnology)

Make a Flake (Snowflake)

Quiz: what movie is your Christmas most like? (Blogthings)

And, of course, the immortal: Subservient Santa (SimonsezSanta). Comes in kid-friendly or Naughty and Nice versions.

Is the rending of the space-time continuum.

To my great shock and horror, I have discovered that something is greatly amiss in the universe.  One of the bedrock principles of existence has been changed, thus triggering a destructive chain of events that will only end in the doom of mankind. Or something really bad like that.

You see, the new Scooby-Doo movies? 

Nobody ever gets a mask taken off.

You heard me right, my friends, the familiar refrain of “And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky kids” no longer exists in the Scooby-Doo canon.

The powers-that-be at Warner Brothers, who now own the franchise, have seen fit to alter a time-honored tradition.  Nay, eviscerate it. A tradition that I was raised on, and I expected to raise my son on as well.

But no.

Having entered that childhood epoch henceforth named “The Scooby-Doo Era,” I now find myself renting anything and everything with Scooby-Doo in it.  He will bypass Oscar-nominated fare to watch “Raggy” and a Great Dane consume large amounts of food as if it was the highest form of entertainment.  And hey, I guess to a five year old, it might just be.

I settled myself in to watch one “Scooby-doo and Zombie Island” or some such flick.  Throughout the whole thing, I kept wondering who was the dastardly person behind it all.  Who would be the one tied up in some rope at the end, with everyone gathered around and who would utter the famous utterance?

However, Warner Brothers apparently thinks that stuff is lame.  It’s too “old school” and now the ghouls and bad guys are real.  Real zombies, real worshippers of an Egyptian Cat god who sacrifice people and drink their blood in order to remain immortal.  I mean, this crap scared me.

I kept thinking, OK, any minute now they are gonna pull off those disguises!  Any second…. Really, any time now would be good… 

No.  The film leaves your child with the assumption that there are indeed zombies and blood-sucking cat-worshippers walking around. In Louisiana, no less. Zoinks!

It’s wrong, I tell you.  Just wrong.

No, I don’t mean scary. I mean SINISTER! Hearkening back to our Halloween Costumes of the Great Old Ones, this marvelously crafted portrait of Cthulhu, the best piece of eldritch and abhorrent Elder Gods art you’ll see this holiday season, is the work of Amy Rawson of Thirdroar and her boyfriend, which we found via the reliably bizarre Neatorama.

Ye knowest the drille: Captions in the commentes, Elder Signs in the pockettes.

And just for bonus points, here’s a Cthulhu Cthristmas tale
and some Cthulhu Ctharols.

By the way, we will be “keeping the season” with our friends in the early part of next week, so posting may be a bit slower and commenting a bit touchier than normal. It’s the “indigestion,” you know.

Today is a day for sitting on the fence.

I don’t know if it is because being sick for over a week has worn me down, or if there has just been too much to do and not enough time to do it.

But today, I am going to have an absolute non-opinion. 

About Christmas sweaters for kids.

In their favor, they usually have bright colors and I am always a sucker for a sweater.  Probably because I live where you can comfortably wear a sweater for about one month out of the year.  I’m sure if we could wear them all the time, their charms would be minimized.

Not in their favor are gaudy designs and just the fact that I am not an overly “cutesie” type of person, even when it comes to children’s clothing.  Even when the Munchkin was very young, I resisted putting him in items with dogs and trucks all over them.  I’m just ornery like that.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not in favor of adults wearing Christmas sweaters.  Maybe if you are over 60 I will cut you a bit of slack.  You know, if it was a gift from your grandkids or something. But really, seeing someone dressed in one does not in any way, shape, or form put me in the holiday spirit.  In fact, despite their general ugliness, they tend to be rather expensive.  Unless you go the way of the Christmas sweatshirt, and then all kinds fugly can be unleashed thanks to the miracle of silkscreening.

So, this year will not find the Munchkin in a sweater with Santa or reindeers or snowmen.  But, if I see a three year old in one, I will probably smile and think she is cute.

Nope, I’ve got some pre-shrunk Italian wool sweaters, and those sound perfect to me. 

For those of you who have no idea what we were on about yesterday, here is the Anaheim Ballet’s video of the highlights of the Nutcracker in just under ten minutes. See, I told you there were rats and soldiers and all kinds of macho things, as well as kids, sugarplum fairies, and dancing snowflakes. But how many ballets have rat battles and beheadings, eh? tell me that!

And more to wear to the splendid occasion:

I know, I know, it’s the most expensive thing your kid will ever hate to wear, but just gaze upon that sweet, preppy child and try to tell me you don’t want to give him a hug.
And for the young ladies (updated, as we seem to have few fans of sewing):

Longtime reader Cherry asks:

Dear Glinda,
Just because it is the season and I’m curious how parents handle things with their kids at this time of year:
How you do deal with the pressures from the Munchkin for Christmas presents? Or has he hit that stage yet?

Cherry, any doubts you have about my son hitting the “all about the presents” stage would be allayed by the very long list of items dictated to me by said five year old in a surprisingly detailed letter to Santa.  We’ll see if Santa can deliver some PVC pipe for him to make his own marble run, as well as some building material for a treehouse.  That should be a challenge.

The interesting part of it is that my son doesn’t watch network television, so he has little exposure to the mighty media forces on display every Saturday morning.

But still, like any kid, he has things in mind that he wants and since his wants are so far very simple, we can handle it.

However, to take some of the emphasis off of himself and what he will be getting, I have tried this year to include him in some philanthropic pursuits which include going with me to the store to pick out toys for some underprivileged children, as well as going through his current set of toys together and picking some to donate to another charity. 

Which is much harder than it sounds, actually, because every toy suddenly becomes a favorite that is unable to be parted with.  Even though it hasn’t been so much as looked at in the past three months, it immediately becomes his most favorite toy that he has loved always. I stand over him and say, too bad dude, you’ve got to pick.  The accompanying dramatics should really get him nominated for an Oscar, but after the tough decisions are made, he feels proud of himself.

I’m not sure how much worse it will get in the coming years, but I hope to balance any sense of entitlement with making sure that we do charitable works and deeds.  And not just at Christmas, but throughout the year. Then, I’ll just cross my fingers and hope that the message that it’s not all about him manages to penetrate that bubble of self-importance that childen often carry themselves around in.

Got a question for us here at Teeny Manolo? Email to theglinda @ gmaildotcom or raincoaster @ gmaildotcom

We are aware, here in the Manolosphere, that there are those who do not love ballet. We feel sorry for them, and we assume that they were traumatized in a horrible pointe shoe accident as toddlers. We seek, therefore, to reintroduce them to this finest of all athletic arts one bunny hop at a time.

We will start them off on The Nutcracker.

Not the story; if you actually read E.T.A. Hoffman you quickly see that he was a nutbar of the very nuttiest type. We start them off right with the ballet itself.

Now, this ballet, it has many things going for it. It has magic. It has a mysterious sugar daddy. It has a prince. It has soldiers and cossacks and battles and rats. And, if it’s the Pacific Northwest Ballet version, it has sets designed by Maurice Sendak and special effects whipped up by Boeing engineers in their spare time (presumably making airplanes stay up is dull relative to making Christmas trees explode).

Oh, and it has dancing, too.

But, ballet fan though I may be, I maintain that the best part of the Nutcracker is the outfits.

Not those outfits.

These ones.

A full third of my motivation for going to this particular ballet is the chance to see all the cute little kids dressed up and looking good; given the fact that ballets are rarely performed adjacent to food or Play-Doh, it’s also the one chance they have to STAY looking good for several hours. Not a few parents cram the photo with Santa into this day; although their children may be overwrought and unhinged by such a jam-packed day, they do look fabulous, and that’s what counts when Aunt Fran is comparing your brood to her sister’s, eh?

But while there are a billion attractive options for girls formal dresses, what have we got for little boys?

Still.

Equal rights, my friends, include the right to be equally fabulous, and I’m afraid this just doesn’t do it for me, velvet though it may be. Go ahead, search: Amazon doesn’t even have a category for boy’s formal wear. I suppose the powers that be simply assume that your boys will be happy with a band tee, a mackinaw, and some overalls for their special occasions. Or variations on the sailor suit, which really hasn’t been the same since Tom of Finland. Really, there’s a huge gap where boy’s formal wear could be; if you trawl through “boy’s suits and sport coats” on Amazon you end up looking at orange pj sets and some hip-hop track suits with satin trim. It’s enough to give one the vapours, whatever they are.

Now, the vest thing I understand. Try wrestling a willful five-year-old into the sausage-casing sleeves of a suit jacket and tell me that vests aren’t a good thing. Indeed, I’m going out on a limb here and saying that, for small boys, vests are an acceptable substitute for suit jackets. This special exemption ends when the child is old enough to learn cursive and/or l33t. In the meantime, may we suggest: