Two Funnies

There are some people at our church that do not do Christmas trees or Santa Claus – sort of like not doing the Easter bunny - just trying to keep the holidays more focused on what they are suppose to be about. This is not a requirement in our church. It is not a sin or anything odd. It is just each person’s personal convictions. I tell you that in order to tell you this silly story about Jesse and Lindsay.

At art yesterday, Lindsay remarked about all my beautiful poinsettias. I have five poinsettias given to me by different people. Our little house is beginning to look like a flower shop. Jesse told Lindsay to take one home with her since we had so many. After much discussion, she picked a very pretty flower, but as she lifted it up she said, "Oh, it has a basket on it." (as opposed to wrapping paper). Jesse told her to go ahead and take it – the basket was not important to us. Then Lindsay noticed that the basket had Christmas trees painted on it, and being funny she said, "Heathen Christmas trees!" Jesse quickly responded with, "I guess you will go to hell in a flower basket."

Last night Jesse and I attended the Duncan Art Guild Christmas party. Everyone was supposed to bring food and a small gift to play the dirty Santa game. It is beginning to be popular to give a small painting rather than some cheap gift. Marty Childers is probably the best-known artist in our club, and he has been known to give little paintings as his Christmas gift. They are much coveted by the members of the club. Jesse drew the number one and went first in the choosing of her gift. She chose Marty’s gift. When she unwrapped it, there were two small canvases. She showed the members of the guild and then took her seat. The game continued, and people chose gifts and took gifts away and chose new ones – I really hate this game. In the mean time, Jesse takes apart the two canvases and sees a painting by Marty in between the two boards. Honest Jesse wanted to tell everyone what she really had. Me, I told her that she could kiss that painting good-bye if she told. No one would think anything of taking her painting away. After all, this was dirty Santa. So she kept quiet and kept her painting which thrilled her. I ended up with a tube of white oil paint, which is actually a great gift for me.

My "give away" gift was a small watercolor painting on a card – much like I do for Christmas cards. Inside Jesse put a gift certificate for a puppy – redeemable after Jan. 1st. The lady who chose my gift looked dumbfounded when she saw the gift certificate. Jesse and I nearly fell out of our seats laughing. We had to explain that the gift was the painting – the puppy certificate was a joke. Everyone laughed then including the lady who chose the gift. We all went home happy with our gifts.