Today is Sunday, December 11 and there are only 14 days until Christmas. Yes, in two weeks it will be Christmas and all the packages will be unwrapped, dinners will be prepared and eaten, everyone will have spent time with family members that they never really liked and won’t have to see again until the next free meal and we will start binging on baked goods so that they are gone before Easter.  Today we remember the birthdays of Manuel Cardoso, Sir David Brewster and Big Mama Thornton.  On this day in 1620 103 Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, in 1790 there was the first recorded display of the Aurora Borealis in the US and in 1975 the cost of first class postage rose from .10 to .13.  In Geneva, Switzerland it is Scaling Day, in Upper Volta it is Republic Day and in the US it is National Noodle Ring Day.

I know that many of you are thinking that if you don’t ask maybe I won’t go into National Noodle Ring Day.  Wrong!  Bear with me, this won’t take that long. National Noodle Ring Day celebrates the pasta dish which is formed in an 8 or 9 inch ring mold or bundt pan.  It is usually made from noodles, flour, bread crumbs, cheese, eggs and other seasonings.  When baked, the noodle ring is removed from the mold and served on a platter.  You can find a number of recipes on cooks.com.  There, now, that wasn’t that painful was it?

Recently I have noticed a number of ads and commercials from stores touting their BOGO sales.  However, when you read the ad or listen to the commercial, they are not offering a buy one, get one deal.  They are offering a buy one get one half off deal.  So it is not really a BOGO.  I thought about why they would do that and decided that the only reason would be that they would have to call it a BOGOHO.  That could be misleading and cause people to think they were buying into some kind of strange ménage a trois.  Exciting and interesting for some, upsetting for others.

We have just come through a very tough election.  Politicians were making all kinds of outrageous claims and promises.  Each candidate assured us that he or she was the best and they would do wonderful things for us and the country.  We all knew they were lying and probably would not or could not do many of the things they were claiming.  But, we voted for them anyway, I guess in the hope that they will at least do something.  At this point you are probably wondering where I am going with this.  Well, here you go.  I promise that, if elected, I will outlaw glitter on holiday cards and gifts.

Yes, you read that right.  I will outlaw glitter on holiday cards an gifts.  Why?  Because it is extremely annoying.  The minute you open a card or gift with glitter on it, the glitter starts to come off.  It is almost like it is designed to separate from the card or package as soon as it is opened.  Now the stuff is all over the place.  There is glitter on the table, on anything that was on the table and on any surface that you put the item on.  The next morning you get up, go into the bathroom and as you look at yourself in the mirror, you notice specks of red glitter on the side of your nose and on one ear lobe.

I think glitter on cards is a way for the people at card companies to have fun at our expense.  They know that the glitter will come off and be everywhere and they find it amusing.  They probably talk about it and laugh during the office Christmas party.  You watch!  Next July, you will go into your living room to dust and you will find glitter on the duster. Or, you will be in the dining room moving something and there will be glitter on the buffet.  You will wonder where it came from, but it will probably not occur to you that it was from Christmas and has been lurking for months just to make you crazy.  Go ahead, mock, but when the glitter comes back to haunt you in seven months, remember that I warned you.

This weekend I am preparing to decorate the house for Christmas.  I plan to put lights up outside to add to the wreaths and trees that we had last year.  I will also be putting up the tree later today.  My son has said that my grandsons would like to help.  I don’t know if they are aware that they want to help, but it will be nice to not have to do it alone.  I am pretty sure that I will change the location of some of the ornaments because there are some that I feel need to be in a certain place on the tree, but generally, I am sure they will do a great job until their electronic devices lure them away.  It will be interesting to see how they feel the tree should look.

The other day I read this little piece of advice and I think it is good – Don’t break anybody’s heart, they have only one.  Break their bones, they have 206!

This week our fact tells us that beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts and worms like fried bacon.  This brings up several questions.  Why was somebody tasting beetles, wasps and worms?  Is there a need for these flavors because the actual items are not available?  What, exactly, are we supposed to do with this information?  And finally do we want to see beetles and wasps in our salads and does anybody really want to eat a WLT sandwich?

Frankly, I would rather have a noodle ring.