Christmas Spiders, Grammar Brain, and Jesus in the Yard.

So you know how things circulate on the Book of Face, right? This meme, that political statement, stories meant to manipulate your religious side (then, the wild-eyed man began to cry, "My kid is really sick and I just needed the money." The gas station owner was really an angel, ya know..)

Oh, and little video clips. I don't have a lot of patience for video clips. I don't like the news websites where their videos are set to auto play and no matter what you click or how forcefully you swear, you still get some fluffy bimbo nodding and head-shaking and looking sincerely into the camera as she explains the latest tragedy. It's often difficult or impossible to find the little button to click to shut her up. Which is why the sound on my computer is often turned all the way down.
Just shut up and let me read it.
Shit.

I particularly hate going to a news site, seeing a link to a story I'm interested in, clicking on it and instead of being able to read it, it's another damn video.

Of course on the other hand, the written form of the story is often full of typos and grammatical errors and drives me insane about halfway through and I don't finish reading it anyway.
I think a large part of my aggravation is the fact that people who have graduated from journalism school should be able to communicate effectively in writing. Without a ton of errors. I understand that none of us are perfect, but spell check would catch a lot of those errors.

Two of about 10 from a single story last week were 'boarderline' and 'coyotet'. Both have been queried by spell check, as they should be. You'd think the writer of the piece would pay attention to that squiggly red line.

So one of my friends posted this link the other day.
Christmas spiders.
It's a fun little video, but if you're like me, you might get exasperated and not want to watch.
But it's short and cute.

 


Now the reason I had this on my mind was twofold.

First, we're into the season of making a project a day until school is out for the holidaze. Something I haven't done in years is the little Christmas spider ornament. Last time we made them in a program was about 2010, I think. There are several little stories that one can print out to go with it.

The story originated in the Ukraine by most accounts. Some stories have Santa or Father Christmas and some the Christ Child. In some cultures, that's who brings the presents. So I was looking up stories to combine and make my own to print out to go with the ornaments.

While I was doing that, I looked to the left of my computer screen and right next to the charger cord for the laptop was this adorable little black jumping spider, rubbing his little pedipalps together. Probably in anticipation of a meal, as I'm pretty sure every spider in my home wants to eat me for dinner.

I had to keep an eye on it, because the damn things have a habit of disappearing when I go look for a cup to catch them in, so I called Eric in to get it. He put the little guy outside, where he probably froze his little spider ass off, but I can't keep them in the house. Can't.

And.
Jesus.

This time of year, there's a lot of that going on.

Jesus on the roof, in the living room windows, on lapel pins, in the grocery store. And in the yards of friends and neighbors everywhere.

Our neighbors across the street have a lighted scene in their front yard, the big plastic blow-molded people. It's tawdry and over the top and tacky. But I love it. It makes me smile every time I get into my car and glance over there. Almost as much as Santa's baby.

Here are a few more nativities (Lyssa made both of the ones I just linked)
that made me smile.

The holy ghost?

This one should include a unicorn looking on, don't you think?

And this one needs more beastly critters, I think.