Well, it is that time of the year again.  Christmas and Christmas songs.  And, every year that golden oldie, White Christmas, gets played to death.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do like the song.  But some how, I don’t think it represents everyones Christmas dream.

For some people, a white Christmas would spell disaster.  After all, snow in LA or Miami would be a nightmare.

I guess if you live in the north, snow at Christmas is a holiday tradition.  As for the folks in the south, well, they can just enjoy our tradition on the nightly news.

This may not be PC but Merry Christmas!

I guess you could say that my grandmother Swift was one of the original “re-gifters”.  Every year at Christmas, my parents and my aunts and uncles would receive gifts from my grandmother.  Unfortunately, these were not gifts that she had made or purchased, these were gifts that she had taken from our houses.

For example, she might find a pickle dish buried in that back of my mothers cupboard.  And, since it hadn’t been used in awhile, she would take it.  Then at Christmas, she would wrap up the dish and give to my aunt.

It wasn’t until we had a family gathering at my aunts that the truth would come out.  My mother would look at the pickle dish and comment that she has one just like it.  Then, everyone would get a funny look on their faces and the gift would be returned to their rightful owner.

Eventually, it became a Christmas tradition.  My parents and aunts and uncles would get together after Christmas to return the gifts that grandma had given them.

Every now and then, grandma would forget whose house she had taken the item from and would give it back to the original owner as a gift.  This, of course, was a dead give away as the owner of the gift would recognize it right away.

But, after a few years, she was giving gifts that nobody could claim.  So, we had to wonder where she was getting them from.  The neighbors perhaps?  She traveled a lot visiting distant relatives so it was hard to say.

My grandmother Swift was a very generous person.

Meijer’s (regional grocery chain) likes to hang items off of their shelves.  And, usually, these items coincide with the items on the shelves.

For example, the fruit juice sections usually has funny straws hanging off the shelves.  And the alcohol section has fancy cocktail napkins and colored tooth picks.  But, I was a bit surprised to see vegetable steamers hang in the shelves next to the adult diapers.

I am not sure about that relationship.  I could see vegetable steamers hanging in the produce section.  After all, if you are buying produce, you might want to steam it.  But the relationship between adult diapers and vegetable steamers escapes me.

Oh well, I am sure that they have marketing research to back up their location choices.

Every now and then, I get a request to be someones friend on Facebook but I don’t really want them as a friend.  While I don’t want to seem rude, I know these people by name only.  We were not friends in the past nor are we friends now.

And yes, I suppose we could end up at best friends.  But it is not very likely since they don’t even live in the area.   So, I guess that I am suspicious of their motives.

Facebook presents a whole new set of social challenges.

After you join Facebook, you get constant requests to be “friends”.

At first, I thought that every “friend” request was submitted by the “friend”.  But, then I came to realize that it was Facebook sending out the requests and not the actual person.  I guess that would explain why some people wanted to be my friend.

Now, since I didn’t want to offend anyone, I accepted every and all “friend” requests even if I didn’t know them.  Then, I accepted a request from some kid, whom I didn’t know.  All he did was write about eating feces.  And even though I thought sure he was the son of someone I knew, I deleted him.

Then, I started getting “friend” requests from women who were exposing their breasts in their profile pictures.  That is when  I decided that not everyone who wanted to be my “friend” actually knew me.

One my biggest annoyances with Facebook are people who only post a fragment of the story.  So, you know that something happened but you don’t know just what.

For example, someone posted that they were really proud of their father for what he did.  And, others endorsed his actions.  But the posting never stated what it was that he did.

Another person posted that they were shocked by someones actions.  And, others responded.  But, again, no body stated what happened.

Now, whenever I read these posts, I can’t really respond since I don’t know what has happened.  Others apparently have the full story but it never makes it to my page.  So, all and all, most of the postings on my Facebook are worthless because there is not enough information.

Maybe some day Facebook will get it fixed.  But, in the mean time, I can only guess as to what has happened.

Facebook finally decided that it liked me I guess.  At least it seems to be working for me with out the login problems of before.

Unfortunately, some of my fellow bookies have discovered the games.  At first, it was comforting to know that these people were willing to share their crops and jewels with me.  But after awhile, receiving their constant blow by blow accounts of their successes became, well, annoying.  Short of praying for a crop failure or a mining disaster, I discovered that I could block these messages and save my sanity.

So, they can enjoy their achievements without having to share them with me.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  It began over a year ago. Someone listed me as their friend and I agreed. This was the beginning of the friction.

In order to be “your friend”, I needed to join Facebook. Fine. Email address and password, no big deal. But, when I gave them my email address and password, they told me that my account already existed and that I needed to login.

Fine. I didn’t remember registering with Facebook but what ever. I typed in my email address and password. It came back that my password was invalid and to please try again. After several attempts, I concluded that something was wrong with my password.

Then, I saw the “forgot your password” option and decided to give that a try. It asked for my email address and I entered it. It came back and told me that no such address existed and to please register.

Fine, I will register. I entered my email address and password. It came back saying that my account already existed and that I needed to login……….!!!!!!!

Well, this happy horse sh*t went on for over a year and a half. People would ask me to be their friend and each time that I accepted, I went through the same “not a member, are a member, not a member” routine. Then, suddenly, it started working. What ever.

I was now flooded with friend requests. No problem. Approve, approve, approve. It seems that Facebook now liked me.

But, the next day, I tried to login to my Facebook account and guess what? “Your account does not exist. Please register”. EEEERRRRRHHHH!!!!

Life is too short and I really don’t need this hassle. Sorry Farmville. I never had the opportunity to waste my time on you but I hope you have a total crop failure.

The other day, when I was in Walgreens, I noticed how they had the shelves laid out on one of the isles.

First, there were the feminine hygiene products.  Then, there were the pregnancy test kits.  Finally, there were the diapers.

I guess this all makes sense.  When you discover that you don’t seem to need the hygiene products, you might want to purchase a pregnancy test kit.  And, if the test kit comes back positive, you will need to purchase some diapers.

I guess you could call it the order of life.