Lev Butts' Christmas Wish List
When I was a kid, this was my favorite time of year. Not really Christmas, per se, but the weeks leading up to it. I loved the TV specials, especially A Charlie Brown Christmas , How the Grinch Stole Christmas , and Frosty the Snowman . I also liked the Rankin-Bass stop-motion specials, but they often scared the hell out of me (especially the Abominable Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ). I loved the sappy smell of the Christmas tree, and I especially loved the electric candles my parents put in the windows every year (they provided a better than excellent light by which I could read in bed without anyone paying heed to the brightness in the room). Seriously, these things could light up a bedroom like St. Patrick's Cathedral. My favorite bit, though, was none of these things. It wasn't the opening of presents either: After all, by noon, that joy was spent to be replaced by having to clean up the piles of wrapping paper and then go to some relative's house fo...