On December 23, I photographed Santa on Santa Rosa Drive in an Ohio suburb. When I was younger, he lived on Santa Rosa Drive and appeared in the picture window each Christmas season – and we’re talking about each evening for several weeks before Christmas. A few years back, he moved. No one likes to break tradition, so people begged and pleaded for Santa to return each year and wave at all the kiddies. So now Santa waves at all the kiddies, only it’s not his house anymore.
My parents and I went back to Santa Rosa Drive late on December 24 and did not see Santa. That’s likely a good thing, as he had work to do.
Lest we start to believe that Americans like only the secular aspects of Christmas, I thought I’d highlight a nativity scene of interest. My knowledge of the facts is incomplete – but I don’t intend to let the facts get in the way of a good story. On Christmas Eve we visited a nativity scene, entirely carved out of wood. We’re talking about chainsaw carvings, if I understand things correctly. The cows in the inn are wooden carvings that weigh around 1500 pounds (682 kilograms).
For some reason, Christmas traditions involve lots of animals. I can’t seem to get away from the “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” song. My blog referenced a video of the song previously; an alternate viewpoint video surfaced on a different blog; and I discovered a reindeer in a rocking chair when I arrived in Ohio.
Want a hippopotamus for Christmas? My sister always did. Well, she got one, compliments of Steeler Claus, her husband. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to help name the hippo. Let’s see if we can get more entries than I received during my previous creature-naming contest.
6 comments:
In naming hippos, the most important thing to take into consideration is if they are hungry hungry? To find out, perform a few tests:
1) Knock on them. Are they made of plastic?
2) Is the hippo pink, green, yellow, or orange?
3) If you feed it a marble, does it take it?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you must name the hippo something starting with "H."
From the picture, I'd say this hippo is at most hungry, definitely not hungry hungry. So I'd steer clear of "H" names and go in another direction. Since "hippo" sounds like "hippie" I'd go for a play on words. That said, my choice is:
Dirty Longhaired Hippo (DL for short)
how about a traditional hippo name like shar pei?
Let's name the hippo "Chrissy"
Howie. He's definitely a Howie the Hippo.
My sister (direct from the arctic north) said that you should name the hippo in Russian "BiggieMoat" (which is a transliteration of the russian word for hippopotamus "Бегемот", and it is also the name of a HUGE talking cat (who is Satan's jester and goes around Moscow burning down buildings) in a famous Russian novel by Bulgokov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_and_margarita)
Happy Naming!
Jeanine
herbert hoover
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