Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Ola and her bear.
The stuffed animal may have been for a birthday, rather than a Christmas present, it remained her favored toy and possession, down through the years.
Almost Christmas. End of Winter. Worst gift wrapping Award 2019. Lots to get to, so lets get going.
1) Thanks to Kristi for another year of keeping the doors open and the lights on, here at the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop.
2) Phyllis for hosting the Annual Bad Present-Wrapping Contest.
3) Una for her support and encouragement in the course of the design and execution of this year’s entry. She sat and watched as I labored on this year’s effort. Didn’t say a word.
4) Some one say, “What is this Worst Wrapping Contest? I have never heard of such a thing. Can anyone participate?” Absolutely! To provide a context and sense of how tattered and frayed the bar is for ‘bad gift wrapping’, below is the Winner of the Worst Gift Wrapping for 2018
5) End of Winter! December 21st is the shortest day of the year. Starting tomorrow on Sunday, (the 22nd), the days grow longer. And what is the outstanding quality that possesses the days of Summer? Light in increasing amounts everyday, surely semi-Biblical mustard seeds for a time of warmth and light.
6) the Case of the Missing Starr is wrapping up. Chapter 28 is live!. There will be no Chapter 30
7) Six Sentence Story bloghop… like being back in grade school and English class, while retaining the knowledge of a lifetime yet to unfold, (this is a creative writing ‘hop, after all); excitement and wonder mixed with a feeling surely shared by gladiators running through tunnels in a Roman colosseum, about to find themselves on the sand-and-blood covered plain of the open arena, surrounded by cheering and jeering crowds of family, lovers-to-be and a half-indifferent world…
8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE. Come on! To quote Tony Montanya, “This is my gift to you.” (With an Al Pacino Cuban accent, of course)
9) And this years entry for the Worst Gift Wrapping of 2019:
10) Secret Rule 1.3
Being the holiday season, but not being a fan of traditional Christmas music, I thought I’d offer a couple of folky, semi-holiadistic* song as perform by Jeff Beck
* this might actually be a ‘real’ word.. either that or spellcheck is starting to make up words, for whatever electro-mechanical devious intents that may be growing beneath our keyboards… Remind me to tell you about ‘Blog Dominion’
About clarkscottroger
Love your wrapping tradition, i could be a contender. Merry Christmas to you, Ms. Phyllis, and Una!
Wonderful all! Thank you for #6 :)
Yes, thanks to Kristi! I’m glad she is keeping the doors open :D
I have often wondered what it is about a certain toy (always, in my experience, a stuffed animal) that dogs clearly show is their favorite…forever, lol
Thank you for the Jeff.
you are welcome… that second selection, being a live recording is, like, damn dude, improvisation like most people can’t compose over a week of Thursday nights
Was that photo of Ola and her bear taken shortly after she received it? Drexel has his favorite toys, too, but the stuffed ones invariably end up disemboweled. I’m impressed with dogs that can keep the stuffing inside of toys.
I love the idea of the bad wrapping contest. Is is a two-person contest, or does Phyllis make it a community affair? I could see that idea being incorporated into a white elephant exchange.
I do love Christmas music, but enjoy listening to the less-played songs. I had to put in a CD the other day, because Alexa had no idea what I meant when I asked her to play A Child’s Christmas by Tom Paxton. :-) (My, how technology has changed over the years!)
Funny store about Ola’s bear. She was about 6 months when I purchased the bear. I had gone to Toys R Us. After spending an hour or so looking at each bear in the Teddy Bear section, a fellow shopper came up to me and asked “how old is the baby?” When I answered 6 months, she replied that the bear (pictured above) was a good choice. And it was. Ola took it everywhere especially when she wanted to calm her nerves. (She had the habit of chewing it the way some kids chew their nails).
Aww that is precious <3
Yes. It (the bear) remained intact, if not needing the occasional trip to the laundry, saliva and dig biscuits, ya know. I am, as of this moment, apparently at the top of the field (being the only competitor in the bad wrapping field… with time. (Consider: no one faults a person’s gift wrapping skills or insist that every present be professionally executed. It’s the thought and effort that counts. Therein is the spirit of the WWC… )
I *KNEW* you’d say something about the longer days. Just knew it. Haha. And come the summer solstice, you’ll talk about the days getting shorter. I knew this so well that even at breakfast this morning, I was telling J about the longer days and how Clark would be celebrating…until the summer solstice when he’d be lamenting. HAHA.
As for the worst wrapping stuff, omg, that CRACKS ME UP. That plastic bag up there? Oh man, the Peanuts dude, Charles Schultz, could have used that for Charlie Brown. lolol
I don’t know how you’d define a “clark” Christmas, but since J and I are both Clarks (he’s like a Clark with a lil bit of Scott – is there any “Roger” in his worldview? – and I’m a Clark with a lot more Scott and some Roger) I’d say we’re probably illustrating it: no presents due to climate change and because it’s a great excuse to hang a single wreath, use a Charlie Brown Christmas tree we’ve had up for years, and have the box of lights sitting next to the couch with the intent to hang them up but shrinking from the effort it would take to hang them…we’ll probably make some pineapple casserole dish to take to the in-laws’ and go for a hike and call it a day. Now, the animals will get some extra treats and family will get some plants but…ring a ling and blink! The month is gone.
Have you ever heard that saying, “life is like a roll of toilet paper: It starts out slowly and gets faster toward the end.” I’m hopefully a lil under mid-way through this roll, but the Charmin “extra thick” variety seems to make the roll go by faster. By that I mean…when the hell did the pace pick up so much? Geez!
Anyways, I’m tangentalizing and so back to the TToT. Grateful for the Doctrine. Have a merry everything.
Not my official reply. That will come later. But what you said about toilet paper prompted a memory from one of my favorite comic strips, ‘Calvin and Hobbes’
let say, ‘as clarks we sense, on a fundamental basis, the ideal of Christmas, but, all too often, falter when it comes to execution, at least when (that execution) is in conjunction with scotts and rogers… all too often, we as clarks throttle back the energy (so as not to draw too much attention and run the risk of the worst of the worst thing, ‘scrutiny’)
But left to ourselfs… we don’t do so bad
That comic is on point. 😂 As for the “ideal of Christmas” you described it *precisely*.
Loved Calvin and Hobbes
I love that photo of Ola and her bear! Does Una have a bear too?
The Annual Bad Present Wrapping Contest sounds like so much fun!
I didn’t make it over to the SSS this week.
Thank you for introducing me to some of Jeff Beck’s music. Very pretty.
No, she has as many toys and such, but has never become as attached to one as Ola was to the bear. Interesting how different dogs can be in the basic things.
Amazing musician he is.
Maybe next year! (Nothing in the rules say that you need to enter all gifts into the contest! lol)
Bad present wrapping eh? I already gave my winner for the year! Next year, I will try to recall this and present one.
lol I’m certain it will be a nation-wide event by next Christmas!
Oh, you had me at Ola and her bear! We had a German Shepherd that looked very similar. I totally forgot that the solstice is upon us. Come and gone but it’s still dark outside. I love your gift wrapping award and I think you have outdone yourself. You know some people would be ashamed of that package, right? Hahaha. I’m curious about how much of your time you devote to writing. You must draw upon the disciplined one….
Thanks for keeping this TToT tradition going!