Lawnmower Boy

You ever notice that Christmas seems to need saving every year?  
 

RIP. 

They came and took it.  

Okay this is too coincidental, so here we go.
 
So I spent five days last week at the hospital waiting for my stepmom to die.  (Which she eventually did and though sad it was for the best for her.)  In the meantime, we had to assume she was occasionally lucid, and the hospital room TV didn't have any nature channels so the next best thing to have on for her sake was the Hallmark Christmas Channel.  So I watched a lot of Hallmark Christmas movies last week.  And I have a newfound respect for them, because they really are perfect for that particular set of circumstances.
 
That said, they are even more formulaic than this graphic would suggest.  They even have a stable of actors that they reuse so it's impossible to separate them in my mind, except maybe for the token Hanukkah one.  But as we went in and out of the room we'd joke that (for example) we'd be back before the big fight over the ridiculous misunderstanding, or that the nurse would be coming in to turn stepmom around the time of the meet cute.  Seriously you can set your watch by these.
 
In order to maintain the last shreds of our sanity, we began to "predict" alternate endings for each film:
 
The girl has found nine of the missing Christmas ornaments so far... and when she finds the 13th it will open the unholy portal and summon Krampus. The amnesiac woman journeys back to her hometown to jog her memory... where she remembers the murders. The career-oriented lawyer hires an actor to play her boyfriend at the family Christmas dinner*... and gets disowned by her family when they find out because seriously who does that. The big city lawyer returns to her hometown to save the Christmas lodge from a buyout by developers... The career-oriented baker takes a 3am phone order from a single dad who can't sleep either... The world weary thrift shop volunteer joins forces with a down-on-his-luck journalist to track down the owner of a charm bracelet...  
And so on.  I didn't get to see "Sister Swap", though, which was heavily advertised during commercial breaks, and sounds like... another genre entirely.
 
Anyway, before last week, the Hallmark Christmas Channel was just a joke to me.  Now it is still a joke to me, but it will also forever remind me of my stepmom.  Thanks for reading.
 
 
 
* This was the actual plot!  It was the token Hanukkah movie, as the "actor" was Jewish.  It also had Bruce Boxleitner, who has aged well.

Today (Dec 8th) is Aaron Allston's birthday. Let us light a candle and toss a few D6 for our missing brother.
 
 

MCU sings Deck The Halls
 
https://www.instagram.com/marvel_uk/p/CXDvfZhosf7/
 
 

George Perez has posted that his cancer has reached critical mass
 

 
This really hit me hard because I'm going through the end of this story right now. 
 
I'm watching my step-father go through the same. He suffered a few minor strokes a few weeks ago. He's been dealing with prostate cancer for a decade and the last round of radiation treatments did f' all and so the plan was to comfort him and start hospice when it looked like it was time. We (the kids) all gathered for Thanksgiving this year, and dad, unable to talk well was vibrant and laughing taking part in the telling of tales where he could and miming when he couldn't find the words. He seemed to be getting better...at least his speech.
 
A week later he's had another stroke and is now confined to a wheelchair and the planned party for his 85th birthday on the 11th might not happen. 
 
I'm sad.  Sorry to show up only to  whine. 

This is why god created gift bags. 
 

T.rex gets Christmas jumper at Natural History Museum in London