Burning Some Awards

I have a friend who burns Christmas cards.

Seriously, once the holidays are over, she gathers up the odd assortment of well wishes and photos of smiling children and tosses them, one by one, in the roaring blaze.

When she first told me about it, I was aghast. We had just sent out a really fantastic card featuring our daughters in some extra-cute pose.

“Surely you didn’t burn our card?” I exclaimed, but it turns out that it was nothing but ash now. My wife Anita wanted to permanently strike her from our Christmas card list.

I went so far as to Google the subject, curious to see if this was something rational people normally did. In Britain, there seems to have been a tradition that children used to burn their Christmas cards in the fire so they can float up the chimney with smoke and wind can be transported magically to the North Pole. Other than that, I couldn’t find much on the subject.

“Why do you burn Christmas cards?” I asked her.

“Because I don’t want them cluttering the place up,” she replied. “And I hate throwing them away.”

Apparently her and her family have created this little holiday tradition of looking at the cards for a moment, maybe commenting on the person or the card itself, then chunking it into the fire. When you stop and really think about it, it makes a certain amount of sense. It's actually kind of touching, in a bizarre sort of way.

I mention this because I recently was awarded two more bloggy-love badges just as I was getting ready to throw the ones I’ve already received into the fire. Tony at The Anti-Jared recently asked me why I have no blogroll on JSGF, and as Tony has an annoying habit of doing, he made me start thinking.

I thought it would clutter things up, like a bundle of Christmas cards. Plus, I’m constantly asked to put people’s sites on my blogroll, and I liked the simple response of “Sorry, I got no blogroll.”

But I realize that there’re few bloggers that receive any more blogroll love than I do, so I’m throwing my awards and badges… new and old… into the fire and cramming in a blogroll over there. I follow a bunch of blogs, and because I know how much people’s comments mean to me, I try my best to be an active and involved participant.

Anyway, here’s the latest blog bling to cross my doorway. Unfortunately, they came through at the exact same time and got morphed into one award. According to the rules of the Beautiful Happy Blogger 101 Award, I have to tell you seventeen things that secretly make me happy (in no particular order)…

1. A British accent on a GPS navigation system
2. Marvel comics from the 60’s
3. Antique toys
4. Buying electronics
5. The last five minutes of a workout
6. Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies -- my all-time favorite line on TV was when the Clampetts were going to England and Jethro wanted to be a knight...
   
   “What’s your name?”
   “Jethro.”
   “What’s your surname?”
   “Sir Jethro.”
   
   
7. Feet in the ocean
8. Made-up words
9. Basketball… watching, playing, discussing
10. The smell of curry simmering
11. A well-turned phrase
12. Giving good gifts
13. Making my daughters laugh
14. Getting a new laptop
15. Being a super-fast typist
16. Looking at our photo albums
17. Having a good idea

Thanks to Phil, Lisa, Cactusfreek, Sarah, 266 (and anyone else I’m leaving out) for sending out the love.

Since I accidentaly jumbled up the award, I don’t feel quite right passing it on to anyone else, so I guess it’s just off into the fire with the rest it goes. However, I do encourage you to check out some (or all) of the fantastic folks on my low-calorie but very filling blogroll.

x