The Slice: Remembering way back to the yule of 2017

Many of us recall long-ago Christmases as our favorites.

Not surprisingly, a lot of those recollections focus on childhood. So it’s probably fair to assume the same will hold true for kids today when they reach the rocking chair stage of life.

When, many years from now, they are asked to recall their favorite Christmas, perhaps 2017 will come to mind.

“Well sir, I remember the Christmas of ’17. I was just a little shaver. Spokane had just been named one of America’s hippest cities. And this loopy ice rink had just opened at Riverfront Park. I went skating and broke my arm in several places when I fell on the ice. So I got all sorts of extra sympathy loot at Christmas. Yeah, good times.”

Or … “Yes, way back in 2017 we had a real old-fashioned consumer-blowout Christmas. It was something. My sister and I got so many presents it was ridiculous. My parents put so much debt on their credit cards that they never really recovered. Frugality would soon be the order of the day in American culture. But that had not happened by the Christmas of ’17.”

Jay Leipham’s question: “How many leftover containers can you stack on each other before they come cascading out of Fibber McGee’s refrigerator?”

And here’s his follow-up. “I wonder how many of your readers would recognize the reference to Fibber McGee.”

Care to guess?

Today’s tannenbaum infestation tale: “We didn’t realize until we got our Christmas tree home and inside that hidden in its branches was a hibernating ball of ladybugs,” wrote Marc Harvey. “We set the tree up and decided to let it rest for a while before we decorated it. My wife and I were baking cookies in the kitchen when I heard my daughter screaming in the living room.

“We ran out of the kitchen and into the living room to see what was going on and it was total chaos. My 83-year-old grandmother was going in circles swatting at the air with The Spokesman-Review. My son was hiding under the coffee table and my daughter, who was barely visible through the swarm of ladybugs, was jumping up and down on the couch, flapping her arms and screaming: ‘Mommy Mommy, look at the ladies!’

“Apparently, to the little ladybugs, spring had come early that year.”

Today’s Slice question: What’s your suspicion when you start noticing that an increasing number of hairs have fallen onto your computer keyboard?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. A Slice Reader of the Year has been selected. Stay tuned.