DISEMBODIED PIXIES AND THE EGGNOG CHALLENGE

So ... Thursday night. You know what that means! Dinner at Aunt Sally's place with Chris (the old folkie), Joel (the groovy old hippy), Charlie (the old math phd, who is visiting from Purdue), and of course, Sally herself. Tonight was a particularly special pre-Christmas event. Joel brought eggnog. But Sally already had some. More on this later. Charlie buttered the bread (as is his custom) with safflower oil galore; which he managed to spill all over the place. But he sopped it up like a pro, and with almost mathematical precision, onto each of the bread slices. Bravo! Well done! Then Sally brought out some new ornaments she had bought for each one of us. An elf for me. A little red pixie for Chris. A Santa Claus for Charlie. I forgot what she gave Joel. Sorry. And a mini-replica of London's Big Ben for herself. I resisted making any self-aggrandizing jokes (for once) about what Big Ben might really mean. Actually - that's a lie! - I couldn't resist! And then Chris exclaimed that his little red pixie looked awfully Will and Grace (if you know what I mean). "This thing screams 'Elton John'!" he exclaimed with a dramatic hand gesture, which caused the poor little fella (the pixie, not Chris) to slip from his hand, soar through the air, and tumble to the floor where it shattered into a million little pieces. There were pixie parts all over the place and neither the kings horses, his men, nor any amount of patience and super-glue could put them back together again. Among the wreckage, however, we were able to salvage its head. We posed for a photo with its sad remains, then Chris hung its head on the tree; the world's very first disembodied pixie Christmas tree ornament!

Next came the mystery program, and a right good one it was; Trevor Eve in Waking the Dead. I only slept through a bit of the middle part. Then came dessert. Brownies and ice cream. And Joel decided to give our duo of eggnogs the Pepsi challenge. So it was Schepps versus Albertson's Gourmet. The Schepps had a thicker and more pleasing texture, but I thought it tasted too tangy. The Gourmet was thinner, but had a more buttery, nutmeggy flavor. It was texture vs. flavor. A toss-up, in my mind, but both Joel and Sally insisted that their eggnog was the better of the two. And Joel reminded us that his was 5 cents cheaper. We decided, there and then, to make it a yearly tradition - the battle of the eggnogs!

Charlie (quite the virtuoso) played Christmas music for us on Sally's piano, while Joel and I chanted "Play 'Freebird'! 'Stairway to Heaven'!"

And he did.

All in all, it was a very fun night at Sally's house. What else can I say?

Caught in the act: Sally steals food from

Joel's plate! Or is she shoveling food onto

his plate?

Charlie and I contemplate Sally's lack

of table manners.