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    Humor for the Holidays
    Humor for the Holidays
    Humor for the Holidays
    Ebook185 pages4 hours

    Humor for the Holidays

    By Shari MacDonald

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    About this ebook

    Celebrate the holidays with the marvelous gift of humor!

    Holidays can be both fun and frustrating, can't they? All the chaos that goes with the holidays can make you grin or groan. What you need for happy holidays is to have your stocking stuffed with tasty bits of humor.

    Imagine reaching into your stocking and finding a hilarious story by Patsy Clairmont, pulling out funny-bone ticklers by Martha Bolton, Jack Hayford, and Tim Wildmon, and discovering goodies to make you giggle by many other gifted writers.

    So grab a cup of wassail, curl up in your favorite chair, and indulge yourself with this heart-lifting book of holiday cheer -- it's stuffed full of special surprises to raise your spirits and add joy to your world!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHoward Books
    Release dateDec 12, 2017
    ISBN9781416542674
    Humor for the Holidays
    Author

    Shari MacDonald

    Shari MacDonald is the author of numerous Christian novels, coauthor of such titles as "The Creative Memories® Way", and compiler of several humor compilations, including "Humor for a Mom’s Heart". She and her husband, live in Portland, Oregon with their twin sons.

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    • 3/5
      Just a cute book with stories and anecdotes about the holidays.

    Book preview

    Humor for the Holidays - Shari MacDonald

    Christmas Is Coming, Tra-La, Tra-La …

    All I Want for Christmas Is a Parking Place

    Dave Barry

    Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall.

    The Best-Laid Plans

    Karen Scalf Linamen

    As we approach Thanksgiving, many of my friends are busy planning holiday dinners for their families. I tend to run behind on these things. I’m not thinking about Thanksgiving yet. How can I? I’m not done sewing the finishing touches on my five-year-old’s Halloween costume.

    The truth is, planning far enough in advance to defrost a pound of hamburger in time for dinner is a challenge for me. And when it comes to planning ahead for major holidays…well, I can’t tell you how many turkeys I’ve defrosted in less than two hours using a blow-dryer.

    But it’s not like I NEVER plan ahead.

    For example, there was the time I spent hours drawing up plans for a playhouse for our backyard. I used transparent overlays for various construction phases, colored pencils to indicate different building materials, and a black marker to pinpoint every nail. The good news is that my architectural masterpiece has been put to good use. In fact, this very moment it’s under my coffee cup, protecting the wood grain of my desk.

    Then there was the time I planned to lose thirty pounds before summer. I lost five and discovered that you can really perk up the flavor of fat-free cookies with the simple addition of two scoops of Dreyers Rocky Road ice cream.

    I have lots of really great plans. Sometimes I sit around and try to figure out what keeps me from turning a few more of them into reality.

    Part of the problem is that I procrastinate.

    For example, at this very moment, across from the desk where I’m writing, there is an empty wooden frame hanging on the wall. I hung it there with every intention of putting a picture in it the next day. That was two years ago.

    I’ve heard there are support groups for this kind of thing.

    I keep meaning to find one.

    My other problem is that I get distracted a lot. Like just now. I was busy writing this chapter when I decided I wanted to include a quote by Albert Einstein, something about the power of the imagination. Realizing the book containing the quote was in my bedroom, I ran upstairs. While I was upstairs, my husband phoned to remind me of our lunch plans. Thinking of lunch, I decided to take a quick shower and change clothes. After I showered and dressed, I walked back into my office and sat at my computer and remembered the book. It was still in my bedroom.

    Refusing to be undone, I headed back upstairs, thinking, When I come back down I should bring the vacuum since the dog has been shedding in the den. I went directly to the closet, grabbed the vacuum, wrestled it down the stairs, deposited it in the den, then returned to my desk. It wasn’t until I sat down and faced my computer that I remembered the book. Still in my bedroom. Still upstairs.

    You’ll just have to take my word about that quote. It was a good one.

    And when I’m not forgetting to plan…or making a plan and then putting it off…or making plans and then getting distracted, I’m having my life planned out for me by my kids.

    Which may not be such a bad thing.

    One morning when Kacie was four, I was getting her dressed when she said, Mom, if you worked at a circus, could you take me to work with you?

    Sure. I’m sure I could arrange that.

    Then stop writing. You need to work for a circus. Can you buy a job at a circus?

    I laughed. Not exactly. But maybe we could find some reason for them to hire me. I know, I could feed the animals! Wanna help me feed the animals?

    Okay. But not the lions. Only the nice animals. Like the goats.

    Of course. After all, what circus would be complete without goats?

    So Kacie has my career all planned out for me. And to tell the truth, it’s a nice feeling.

    You know who else is in the process of making plans for me and for you as well? I’ll give you a hint. He’s the author of these powerful words: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jer. 29:11).

    It’s so easy to rush about in a self-induced lather! Indeed, a hefty chunk of my life is spent making plans, breaking plans, and recovering from plans of mine that have gone awry. Perhaps I’d do well to remember that, ultimately, my well-being rests not in the plans of my making, but in the hands of my Maker. Best yet, his plans for me are better than mine could ever be!

    Of course, I’m not saying you and I should NEVER make plans. After all, as I write this, Thanksgiving is merely days away and those turkeys don’t exactly defrost themselves.

    This year, I think I’m going to change my ways. No more last-minute scrambling for me. I’m actually going to plan ahead.

    I’ve already moved my blow-dryer into the kitchen.

    Thanksgiving Rolls Around, and So Do the Dishes

    Marti Attoun

    That grandest meal on wheels, Thanksgiving, will park at my table this year.

    In our family, everyone hauls in a dish. Crisscrossing the countryside on laps and floorboards, and in shallow boxes, Tupperware, and lidless bowls with dishtowels for covers, will be all our family favorites.

    The dishes vary according to road and passenger conditions, but the menu always includes Overly Tossed Salad, Crammed Corn, Cranberry Slosh, Raked Beans, Footprint Pie, Defiled Eggs, and assorted Casserolings.

    The Footprint Pie will be a berry, pumpkin, or pecan. They all look alike after a restless kid gets bored with balancing it on his knees and plops it on the floorboard.

    Crammed Corn is another must-have. During the first jostle of its journey in a casserole dish on the back seat, wedged between the hot rolls and oyster dressing, the Crammed Corn starts to slip and slurp. By the time it arrives on the table, there are just a couple of clods left. But the hot rolls are super-moist.

    Our Thanksgiving fare always includes Defiled Eggs. A starving passenger can’t resist snatching just one of the yellow middles. Then just one more.

    The potholders can’t keep their mitts off the homemade cakes, either. I was a young potholder once, so I know how just a little lick to waylay starvation turns into dips and dives along the sides of the cake where it won’t immediately be visible. By the time the cake lands on the table, the frosting will have more dents than the turkey on the day after Thanksgiving.

    Our cornucopia always runneth over with Raked Beans with limp bacon surfing on top, Picked-on Pickles, Squashed Yellow Squash, and Bandied Yams.

    It wouldn’t look, sound, or taste like Thanksgiving, though, without these well-traveled dishes and their tales. We laugh about potholes and potholders. Then we give thanks for a Relished Tray and all those responsible.

    A Thanksgiving Recipe

    G. Ron Darbee

    It amazes me to realize how many of my memories are tied to food, although a look in the mirror puts the pieces of the puzzle in place. The sight of a certain pastry in the bakery window sends me decades back; I find myself, once again, holding my father’s hand and begging for a dime. One bite of cinnamon toast and I’m sitting at the kitchen table too sick to attend school, but not quite sick enough to forego my mother’s coddling. And turkey? That takes me back to my grandmother’s house.

    As best I can recall, my grandmother’s kitchen contained a large, stainless steel oven and absolutely nothing else. I’ll admit I probably missed a few things, but for the life of me, I don’t remember anything besides that beautiful, shiny, warm oven. Sure, she probably owned a toaster or a blender—a refrigerator at the very least. If so, they escape me as minor tools of an artist whose masterpiece was created in another medium.

    Thanksgiving at Grandmas was a Darbee family tradition, and members gathered from the four corners of the world: Brooklyn, Queens, and the north and south shores of Long Island. Aunts and uncles, cousins of the first and second variety, everyone with a remote connection to my father’s side was invited and duty bound to attend. Of course, marriages and various ties required some to make only a brief appearance between obligations, but their expressed regrets were undoubtedly heartfelt and sincere. Grandmas house was, without question, the place to be.

    Dinner at Grandmas was less a meal than an event. Mashed potatoes and gravy, little gherkin pickles—I always got yelled at for sneaking them from the table before we were officially called to dinner—cranberry sauce, candied yams, and beets—thought to be poisonous, they caused me no temptation whatsoever—were but a few of the many accompaniments to the holiday fare. A juicy, pink ham always graced the table, and a

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