Ah yes, Christmas morning at Berea-Rose. In addition to all the Legos, sweatshirts, and Nerf artillery there are the battling tanks. Thanks to Guido and Kay, Da Chimpz now have tanks that not only blast each other, but send an electrical jolt through the remote control of the tank that got blasted.

Here's Cookie not learning any of the lessons of Kursk:

Here we are, at the north pole. Which can't possibly be melting: I just checked the local weather and it's a frosty one degree at Berea-Rose. That's messed up.

The wind started whipping last night. I got up early this morning and saw that our giant inflatable nativity scene was having some, er, erectile dysfunction as the frost had collected on the uprights and the wind held the top-heavy structure down.

I went out and stood it up a few times, and by late morning went out to stake more guidewires.

The temperature has plummeted throughout the day. But that was okay: we were inside with Dan and Laura eating meatballs and drinking Big Ass Cab wine. Then we had some massive chocolate cake.

Yum.

Got a third controller for the Wii, specifically for the shoot 'em up games that we now (unwisely) let Da Chimpz play. We go head to head trying to gun each other down. Parent of the year? I'm disqualified.

Well, Steve and I learned a very valuable lesson as well in regards to christmas trees....Christmas trees and pets (particularly very playful, young pets) do not mix..

Steve bought a beautiful pre-lit tree (we do live in South Florida after all and both of us do not have the energy to tend to a real tree especially after a long work day and early mornings)..We decorated it with red and gold balls (some innuendo can be inserted there) and a sparkly red star....(Thank you Target!)...

I didnt want to spend that much money this year on the tree considering it is Bentley's first christmas, Bruno has mastered an amazing high jump, and I had to buy gifts for three birthdays, Hanukkah, and Christmas...I also figured our house was quite festive considering I had my own little tree for the counter, a menorah, two packs of white lights to string around the condo, and as we all know Steve has quite a few items as well...

Anyways, all things considered, I knew the pets were going to do some serious damage...I just didn't know to what extent...Steve and I were betting on which animal would be the first to knock down a ball or damage the tree .

(We bet more often than most couples I think---btw I need to have it stated in writing, that due to the results of the November 4th election, Steve still owes me a yoga retreat! If Obama would have lost, I would have had to cook a Thanksgiving dinner (and for those of you who don't know---I don't cook).)

Anyways, I was quite disappointed when the next morning, we caught Bentley with a red ornament in his mouth, like a pig with an apple..Bruno has been no angel either mind you...He has knocked down his fair share of ornaments...Steve and I reacted as most people would do..move all the ornaments up..so now our tree looks bare on the bottom..

Most animals would move on to damaging another item in the house--but not Bentley..He is determined to cause serious damage...Let's just say he has acquired a taste for christmas lights..Because naturally it is a skinny rope with little chew toys...And no matter how many times I scold him, put obstacles in his way..His mission remains the same: to attack and destroy the tree...

Needless to say, our tree now no longer lights up on the bottom.....quite sad looking actually....which has me thinking if this dog is out to get me, is trying to tell me that he is Jewish, or if he is just "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"......

Tonight, Alane and Da Chimpz decorated the Christmas tree. And what a tree... The moral of the story: never select a tree when it's raining and all you want to do is get in from the cold.

I dragged the tree into the house last night and fetched the big steel tree stand we've been using for years. The trunk did not fit into it. So I got a wood-chisel and hammer and made wacky totem-pole carvings into the base until we could work it snugly into the upper steel ring of the stand.

Then we stood the tree upright.

Well, "upright" may be an overstatement.

The friggin' tree is bent. The trunk is bow-shaped and the branches don't do much to hide the deformity. With the trunk barely squeezing into the stand there wasn't much we could do to adjust the pitch or yaw of our hunchback tree... all we could do was tighten the bolts and rotate the slope-shouldered monster so it was "lunging" at you head-on, making the slouch somewhat less noticeable (until you look at it from the side, which at a quick glance might make you feel like you've stepped into one of the bad guys' hideouts on an old Batman episode).

Anyway, Cookie and I strung the lights onto the tree this afternoon, and now all the ornaments have been hung. It looks pretty good, our nodding, goosenecked Christmas tree. It'll be like celebrating the holidays in the fun-house.

Then again, pretty much every holiday is like that around here.

Only two words can describe our annual Pork & Vermouth Christmas Lighting last Friday: Epic Fail. So the festive scene pictured here is nothing like the meager light-work we accomplished in Tuckahoe on that cold dark night.

Just about everything went wrong. It started at Stew Leonards, where the icy wind nearly cut us in half as we eyeballed Christmas trees and light strings -- especially the light-strings, which needed to be strung end to end to reach around the hedge. We bought about ten boxes. And a couple racks of ribs (what, no grill? yeah, this was destined to flop).

So we got out the vermouth (Martini & Rossi? how could the wine shop not have Cinzano?). And we ate. Then we went back out into the cold to start.

And we hardly got started before we realized the lights were all wrong. Meaning, even though the box described lights that could be strung end-to-end, these did not. Furthermore, they were chaser lights. And even though they could be set for steady-on, unplugging them set them back to chasing.

So we changed gears and turned our attention to the giant wreath that gets hoisted above the front porch. We hoisted. Guido tied it into place and then we remembered we hadn't tested the wreath lights -- sure enough, half the lights were out. So we un-hoisted. Then fumbled in the basement with the old light strings to find one that could be salvaged. We re-wrapped the wreath with the frankenstein light string and re-hoisted. Guido tied it in place and we stepped back to look. Most of the lights were facing the wall, leaving much of it dark.

We declared Christmas ruined and went back to the house to drink wine (we were out of vermouth by then).

Okay, here's a bailout I think I can get behind. From today's WSJ:

SALSOMAGGIORE TERME, Italy -- The world is bailing out banks and car companies. Italy is coming to the rescue of parmigiano cheese.

In an effort to help producers of the cheese commonly grated over spaghetti, fettuccine and other pastas, the Italian government is buying 100,000 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano and donating them to charity.

Better yet, that's a government cheese distribution worth waiting in line for.

I think I'll hit the market and buy a few bricks of the stuff -- talk about an industry that's too crucial to fail!

Even the name...Rod Blagojevich, the greatest fiction writer could not have made a name up that damn good. So, I bought the NY Post today to read in more detail about the Chicago Macy's One Day Senate Seat Sale and discovered on page 29, that according to astronomers, the north star which guided the original 3 Wise Men was actually only visible in early June, making Jesus a Gemini! See that...Bazzuka Joe, Dr. Sfingi, and I do have something in common with the big J.C....well aside from having a lotta Joes in the family.

No sooner does Frylock ask why a Chicago hack would pay such big money for a federal office than another Chicago hack answers the question with precision: federal office is apparently "a fucking valuable thing you don't just give away for nothing."

I don't know why the networks even bother to produce and air sit-coms anymore. Truth is so much more entertaining than fiction. And funny as hell.

Anyone unaware that the song reference, "you could get the finger...the middle!" was Kriss Kross circa 1991-1992 should be dipped in spoiled ricotta and then forced to grab the heat-pipe at Castle 1526 with both hands. I had a small size rock-band party on Friday night, there was definitely a man in a chicken mask playing drums to Tom Sawyer by Rush....sometimes I get the feeling my house is a strange and surreal place. Put up the Christmas tree on Sunday, and it took only a day for the pets to believe I installed them a personal jungle gym to swing and play on...I need to invest in a tazer. I been watching the news and I realized why a man would spend 750 million to win a job that only pays $400,000...because Holy Cow, you can spend trillions!!! Stop chanting U.S.A. and begin chanting A.T.M.....you now, I've overdrawn my bank account at the ATM many times, those overdraft fees can be real killers. I toast GM, Ford and Chrysler, they finally convinced someone to buy American....Nancy Pelosi. OK, enough of that I'm going to Orlando next weekend to see Janine and Joe Fatone Sr. star in a production of Annie...indeed I'm laughing already.

And then there's this: the Pogues with Kirsty MacColl. I've heard this track a few times over the last few holiday seasons and for some reason I wanted very much to dislike it. But each year I give it more personal airtime. And here I just found the video: