Get In the Christmas Spirit Withe the Best Jokes of the Day

Ho Ho Ho

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

Maxine Xmas 2MaxineXmas 4MaxineXmas 5Maxine xmas 7Maxine xmas 9Maxine 8Maxine 10

Found on internet

It was Christmas and the judge was in a merry mood as he asked the prisoner, “What are you charged with?”

“Doing my Christmas shopping early”, replied the defendant.

“That’s no offense”, said the judge. “How early were you doing this shopping?”

Funny Letters to Santa

Here, Will and Guy bring you some amusing correspondence to Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Pere Noel. We hope that these letters, which we have discovered on the internet will entertain you.

A Real Santa Claus Talks About His Role

Carl Anderson has been Santa Claus for 28 seasons, at last he has revealed what we already suspected.

Kids can be hilarious and heart-breaking and he’s got some perfect tales to illustrate it write Will and Guy.  Beyond the expected requests for the latest Barbie and video game, kids have whispered into Santa Carl Anderson’s ear their desire for world peace and…

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52 WEEKS OF THANKFULNESS – WEEK 26

Reblogged from Haddon Musings

Bernadette's avatarHaddon Musings

52weekw

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

I invite you to come and join me on this pilgrimage to change the world through thankfulness.  Perhaps if enough of us join together we can change the negative climate that exists and is overtaking our planet. Together we can move our fellow citizens of to a better, higher and finer place.

Good day and thanks for coming along with me on this journey.  This has been a special week filled with many reasons for thankfulness.  I can start right here – this is week 26!  That means I have stayed faithful to this project for half of a year.  It was also week 52 of The Senior Salon – I had accomplished the goal I set for myselfof bringing together a community of artists with a little silver in their hair.  Since I have a way of starting a…

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My New Old Friend

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I met a new “old friend” for the first time last week. I got to know Bernadette through her blog Haddon Musings.  She is every bit as warm and friendly as you’d expect.  She introduced me to scrabble, a delicacy I’d often heard of.  I wish I lived close enough to have coffee with her often.

Two Roads Part 4

img_1662Image pulled from Internet
In her loneliness, Neeley was an easy mark.  Aunt Lottie kept her close to home.  Awkward about her imposing height and girth, she wasn’t surprised no one had come courting. In her feed-sack dresses and straight, chopped off hair, she’d never expected to be admired. Boys liked dainty little girls with curly hair and nice clothes.  She felt like a work horse in a field of thoroughbreds.  Saturday night, when she was allowed to attend a Holness Tent Revival with her cousins Louise and Bertha, she was embarrassed when a fellow kept staring at her.  Her cheeks burned, and she looked away whenever they made eye contact, fearing he ‘d ridicule her, given the chance.  Though she did nothing to encourage him, he found his way to her after meeting.

“Howdy, pretty girl.  Can I walk you home?”  He asked.

She answered without thinking.  “No, sir.  Aunt Lottie don’t allow me no callers.  She’d tan my hide if I asked.”

“Now, how’s she gonna know?  It’s a long, dark walk home.  Ain’t you an’ these gals together?  My buddies wants company, too.  Who’s gonna know if we walk all of you gals home together?  You shore ain’t gonna tell off on each other, are you?”  Her cousins Bertha and Louise stood giggling at her side.  Obviously, they were delighted by the offer.  “How ’bout it, girls?”

The three girls held a giggling conference, deciding to give the boys a chance.

Neeley fell hard for Joey, agreeing to meet him the next night, and the next, and the next.  He’d come to help with the harvest at his Uncle George’s farm.  To hear him tell it, Uncle George was doing poorly, not likely to make it for long.  He thought so much of Joe, he was gonna leave the place to him.  Joe was gonna be well-set up.  Him and Neeley could have a good life, if he was sure she loved him.  He couldn’t marry no girl without her loving him.  Neeley sure loved him.

Three months later, the curse had passed her by and Neeley needed a husband.  Joe was long gone.  There was no Uncle George, nor farm.  When she told her cousins, they begged Neeley not to tell of their part in her story.  They’d both escaped her fate.    Lottie would have beaten them half to death if she found out what they’d been up to.

When her condition was obvious, Aunt Lottie took after her with a broom, maybe hoping she’d beat the baby out of her.  When Uncle Jep got home and found Neeley brutalized, he threatened Lottie if he laid another hand on her and set off to see his friend and neighbor, Eddie.  Eddie had a small daughter and needed a wife.

The Joy of People-Watching

img_1660The best part of traveling is people-watching.  A young family was sitting a sat or two behind me.  The mother had to take the little girl to the bathroom and interrogated the little boy vigorously as to whether he had to go.  Emphatically, he did not.  Mom annoyed him by asking again.  He stalwartly denied a need to go, despite her insistent interrogation.  Giving up, she took the little girl.  Not long after they were reseated and buckled in, imminent landed was announced.  He’d missed his chance.  Immediately, he set up a howl.  “Mom, get me out of here.  I gotta go! I gotta Go!  The pee is coming down!”

“What!  You said you didn’t have to go!”

 

Next I watched a young mother bouncing her wailing newborn.  Clearly, she was exhausted.  A young man walked up and she handed off baby, bottle, and pacifier. He skillfully bounced and fed the baby with pacifier in his mouth.  What a man!

 

Another couple was corralling two little guys.  The older knocked the smaller off a climbing toy.  Dad exploded.  “That’s it!” and stormed off.  Mom simultaneously calmed the little one and put the other in time out.  He howled.

“You hush and think about what you did.  I don’t like the way you treated your brother.”  He snuffled a while before quieting.  Before too long, he was playing with his brother.   Eventually, Dad was back.

Best Christmas Chuckles for Your Sunday

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

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Two Roads Part 3

It is questionable whether Aunt Lottie was really mean or just a harried woman with a houseful near to bursting when she had to take responsibility for Neeley.  It couldn’t have been an easy time for her, Uncle Jep or the grieving child.  Having Uncle Jep take Neeley’s side against her, hardened Aunt Lottie further.  She often hissed at her, “I’ll tend to you later!”

Neeley’s attempts to avoid Aunt Lottie were hopeless since she had to work along side her while enduring jabs about “yore sorry mama.”  While living with Ma,she never gave Cassie a lot of thought, but now the oppressive shadow of Aunt Lottie’s contempt for her mother was a heavy burden for a young child.  It was very confusing to mourn Ma knowing she had a mother “out there somewhere.”  Why didn’t she live with her mother?  Uncle Jep changed the subject when she asked him.

Cassie took Neeley for a few weeks or months when she had a stable home.  She’d remarried and had two boys, so Neeley did get to spend some time with her mother and two young brothers.  These times meant the world to Neeley since her attention-hungry little brothers adored her.  On her arrival, her mother showered her with love and affection before eventually succumbing to a mood swing and becoming neglectful of herself and the children.  Eventually, there would be a violent fight with her husband and the children would be dispatched to various relatives with a domestic split.  Neeley always landed back at Uncle Jep’s, the odd child out once again.

Neeley was becoming a young Amazon, over six feet tall and powerfully built.  With the hard life she faced, she’d need her strength to be able to hold her own.  Neeley never spent enough time in school to be a good student. At the age of sixteen, she realized she was pregnant.  No knight in shining armor showed up to marry her.  Soon after her baby was born, she married Eddie Malone, a twenty-six-year-old divorced man who was a friend of Uncle Jep.  Love was never mentioned, but there was the promise of a home.  She hadn’t had a home since she was nine.

 

 

Kathleen’s Cuthand Christmas, Excerpt from Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad

Excerpt from my book Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad.  To purchase book, please click on link of book cover to right.  I would be grateful for a review.

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

We don’t have the money.” I’d heard that so many times I knew not to ask for candy, bright rubber balls, or coloring books at Miss Lonie’s store. If Daddy had a few cents to spare, he’d fill three small brown paper bags with candy for us…..peppermint sticks, gumballs, bubble gum, lollipops. Kits and BB Bats were five for a penny. A few cents

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Two Roads Part 2

On the last day of her old life, Ma sent nine-year-old Neeley to the store with some butter and eggs to trade for baking soda and needles. As she left the store with her penny candy and Ma’s things, she saw smoke hanging over the trees.  To her horror, when she topped the ridge, flames were leaping in the field between their house and Uncle Jep’s.  She fairly flew the last few hundred yards, calling for Ma at the top of her lungs.  Tearing into the front room, she found Ma slumped in the rocker, her arm hanging limp at her side with spittle running out the corner of her mouth.  She shook Ma, then pulled her arm with no response.  Desperate to rouse Ma for escape, she dashed her with a dipper full of water.   Ma didn’t wake up!

Threatened by the approaching fire, she realized she had to get Uncle Jep.  Racing barefoot toward his house, she skirted the actively burning areas, arriving to find him and Aunt Lottie gone.  Desperately, she headed toward the nearest neighbor’s place, only to meet neighbors rushing to help put out the fire.  Crying, she told them of Ma’s troubles.  Most went on to fight the fire, but Mr. Jones and Mr. Bilieu went to check on Ma.  Mr. Bilieu took Neeley to his house for his wife to tend her burned feet.  They got Dr Crisp out to see Ma.  He came later to check on Neeley bringing sad news.  Ma was dead.

Uncle Jep came for her. She had to deal with the agony of her burned feet along with the greater pain of losing Ma and her home.  Uncle Jep loved and welcomed her, but Aunt Lottie had the burden of her care.  The overworked mother of four was quick with the switch and criticism.  It was not an easy transition for the grieving girl going from darling grandchild to “another mouth to feed.”  The farm wife already had more work and worry than she could handle before Neeley was foisted on her.  It was not a good situation for any of them.