Arthur Harold

There were times when my son Matt was young when I seriously wondered if he would ever outgrow his over-the-top, all-consuming, bordering on needing to see a child head doctor obsession with Christmas. I know he was my first kid, which meant I had nothing to compare my son's completely weirded-out year-round Christmas infatuation, but come on ... he plugged and unplugged Christmas candles at my mom's house while he danced around them singing Silent Night. That's enough to send any new parent straight to "there's something seriously wrong with my kid" land for sure. And if you add in my dear Mr. Mattie wearing a makeshift Santa outfit complete with black boots, furry white beard made of cotton balls and red stocking cap all summer long when we lived in South Florida ... and ... if you add in his insistence that his stuffed animals were really reindeer in disguise ... and ... if you add in him listening to Christmas carols on his Fisher Price tape recorder every single day for months on end ... well ... suffice it to say I'm still surprised that he grew up to become a professor instead of a toymaker.

Before my granddaughter C.J. was born, I purchased two Hallmark recordable story books for her ... you know, the ones where you record yourself reading the book. Over the years, Matt's obsession for all things Christmas was replaced by an even more extensive and consuming infatuation for all things Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang ... yep, he really is a Ph.D. professor now, believe it or not. But back to the recordable books for C.J. ... one of the two I bought and subsequently recorded was "A Charlie Brown Christmas," per Dr. Mattie's request, of course. And guess who listens to her Ghee reading "A Charlie Brown Christmas" every day year-round? Yep, little Boo is most definitely her father's daughter ... she flipping loves that book. I like to believe it's my voice reading the story that keeps her coming back day in and day out to the Charlie Brown gang ... okay ... maybe it's the combination of hearing my voice and being genius enough to combine her dad's love for Christmas and his love for Charlie Brown into one nice neat package. 

A couple of weeks before I went to visit them in Canada, Becca sent me a video clip of C.J. singing ... yep, a Christmas carol. Since Matt no longer listens to Christmas music year-round, he and Becca couldn't figure out where in the world C.J. could have heard the song. It wasn't until she was listening to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" for the millionth time that they put it all together. At the end of the book, the Peanuts gang gathers and sings the first verse of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," and that's where my super intelligent genius granddaughter learned the words to the song ... well ... her version of the words anyway. I cracked up the first time I heard her singing at the top of her lungs ... "Arthur Harold angels sing ..." oh, yes, you can bet I laughed until I cried at her rendition of the old carol. For the rest of my life, I will never again hear that Christmas song without thinking about Arthur and Harold and my adorable granddaughter.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my volume of hate mail has had a huge upswing over the last few days because of what I wrote in the post "Ears to Hear." Though I try really, really, really hard not to let the mean people get to me, I don't always succeed in that endeavor. And before you write in to tell me not to read the hateful and mean messages, I never know they are hateful and mean until I'm already reading them. I've written previously about how there's no way I can ever read all the emails I receive, but I try to read as many as I can. I choose the ones I read at random ... I just click and open and read. I don't have a system or a formula or some kind of high-tech software that chooses for me. It's a completely random process ... just click and open and read. Many of the ones I read are positive, encouraging and supportive while others ... geez ... others are just plain old downright mean, and their intent is to kick me down and hurt me. And quite honestly, some of the things people say to me ... well, I'd never in a gazillion years say them to another human being. Heck, some of those things people say to me I wouldn't say to a bug, much less to a person.

After reading some particularly vicious messages last night, I made a decision ... a decision that is already helping to soothe and comfort that big old kick in the gut that comes from the hate and negativity. I decided that each time I open an email or a private message on Facebook that is not nice, I'm going to sing "Arthur Harold" at the top of my lungs. Yep, that's right ... whenever I open a message that's filled with hate, I'm breaking out the Arthur and the Harold and I'm going to sing my heart out. You see, here's the thing ... when I sing the C.J. version of the song, it reminds me of precious granddaughter. It reminds me that she and her sister will love me ... no matter what ... for the rest of my life. They don't give a rat's rear end about anything other than I'm their Ghee and I love them with all my heart. And when they are old enough to care, they will still not give a rat's rear end about anything other than I'm their Ghee and I love them with all my heart. They really are geniuses, you know, and all the rest of us could learn a whole hell of a lot from them ... you bet your rat's rear end we could ... you bet your rat's rear end we could indeed.

"Arthur Harold angels sing ..."