Day something

Grrrrr…. I am having a really hard time coming up with something memorable to write about. I am Yule blocked or something. This is the fourth attempt to come up with something good. The other two ended in disaster. I got so bored writing the first one I almost fell asleep, and the second one got really depressing. Really, really depressing. Attempt four came off like a preachy Sunday school lesson. Sigh.

I confess I have internet friends that I do not actually know in real life and have not met in person. Don’t judge. They are sort of like the neighbor Wilson on the sitcom Home Improvement, sort of there, but you never see the face? Some of my friends like Roland or Billy are so funny they make me smile just thinking about them and some of the things they have done or said.

Then there is Texas Jay. I call him that because he lives in Texas, and because when we became friends I was working with another Jay, and have a former roommate named Jay, and I would start these stories and Kat would stop me and say “which Jay?” so the nickname Texas Jay was born and sort of stuck. What can I say about Texas Jay? Kat calls him the tall small man. For a while he had a blog and the tagline was “one of life’s little pleasures”. On occasion he has called me up on the phone to talk for hours about the Rolex watch his godfather gave him. I am not kidding, hours. On more than one occasion. I suspect that something in the description is going to make him sound dull, and he isn’t. And no, I don’t really care about the Rolex watch, but there is a whole entertainment factor in the consumerism that I do not have the skills to describe. When Kat was home on maternity leave after Matthew Jay would call at night while I was at work. Kat and Jay would watch food TV and he would chat inanely about Tyler Florence, Ina Garten and Sara Moulton.

Texas Jay lives in McAllen Texas, which is according to him, basically Mexico. Probably the last place you would ever have a white Christmas, (in case you were starting to wonder if I was ever going to get to Christmas?). On Christmas day 2002 McAllen had a white Christmas. The first one my friend had ever experienced in his lifetime. He called the house Christmas morning as giddy as a child. I don’t think 4 year old Paul could have been as excited about a white Christmas as Texas Jay was that year.

Then he called back later, with the cell phone “I am outside in the snow”, “who knew it was so cold?”, “how do I make a snowball?”, “is it safe to eat?” Kat and I took turns answering his questions and laughing at his enthusiasm. The lesson I learned from Texas Jay that Christmas is twofold; #1 that when you decorate for Christmas instead of red and green you can use white, gold and silver to exude a wintery elegance, and #2 that there is no age limit on the joy and excitement that a white Christmas can bring.