Mukilteo Musings

Christmas Is Not Over!

Every year I am bugged by the fact that on December 26th, all Christmas themed items are moved off of the shelves to make room for Valentine's Day junk. Ok, all of you folks who believe in the ficticious "war on Christmas", where are you now? Why are you not complaining about stores who wipe every little bit of evidence away midnight December 25th. December 25th is the first day of Christmas and it lasts for twelve days thereafter. January 6th is the official end of Christmas time with the beginning of Epiphany. If my trees are not too dry, I like to leave them up until then along with my decorations. I hate this feeling that it is all over with when it has just begun. Remember the song, the twelve days of Christmas---yes?

At any rate, a couple of articles grabbed my attention which fit the idea of "Only In Seattle" so here goes:

1. Only in Seattle do they measure what ends up in our great Puget Sound. I have written before how all of our coffee is caffeinating our water. Evidently at Christmas time along with the coffee, we add vanilla and cinnamon. Our orcas and our fish are now experiencing a full fledged Starbuck's Christmas latte without having to go through the drive through. All is delivered right to their noses compliments of our storm drains and sewers. I do not really want to think about exactly how the vanilla, cinnamon and coffee ends up--well, you know.
http://www.king5.com/localnews/environment/stories/NW_122506ENBcookiesKC.44fff1d7.html

2. Only in Seattle do we require names for our storms. In fact, there is now a contest to name our freakishly powerful December 14 storm. You see, in the past our storms seemed to be connected to a memorable day---like the "Election Day" floods of 2006, the "Thanksgiving Day" windstorm of 1983 when everybody's turkeys went bad when the power went out, or the "Inauguration Day" storm of 1993 when the power went out the minute President Clinton began his speech. Someone suggested the "Twelfth day before Christmas" storm. I like this choice because it reminds people of the twelve days of Christmas issue. I will post the winner when it is chosen. But it seems to me it needs to be an immediate moniker and not made up a month after the fact.
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=namethatstorm30m&date=20061230&query=Name+the+storm

3. And finally, only in Seattle can we purchase fire place logs made out of coffee grounds. Supposedly, your house will smell like Starbuck's. Mine does anyway. I am not sure about this idea. Because if we start burning our coffee grounds instead of washing them into Puget Sound, our fish, our orcas, our crabs and possibly the sea lions will all revolt. I do not think they will be happy with simply vanilla and cinnamon without the buzz.
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=tester07&date=20041107&query=coffee+grounds+fireplace+logs

Happy New Year! And remember, it is still Christmas!