Author: MichelleMcHatton

I'm a writer. I'm also a wife and a parent who works too much and lives too little. In addition to writing I also love to read, listen to music, travel, cook, I enjoy looking for bargains at flea markets or thrift stores, Christmas, football and of course writing! How did I come up with the title of my blog? Two things: 1. I live in New England (duh) and 2. Canadian singer Alan Frew once arrogantly told me to "get a New England life"--again--DUH! I already HAVE one!
Love This Sweater So Much, I Received It Twice!

Love This Sweater So Much, I Received It Twice!

by MichelleMcHatton

I received this as a Christmas gift last year. Remarkably, I also received it as a Christmas gift a few years ago.

Last year I had been wearing this sweater. Because, like I said, I got it a few years ago. It went through the wash and for some reason was never seen again for the month of December. I destroyed the closet looking for it. Could not find it anywhere. I figured I must have accidently gave it away to Goodwill.

Christmas night. My husband and I are opening our gifts from each other. Lo and behold, what do I open? But this very sweater. The same one I already owned and had been missing. No, it was not a duplicate of the one I already had. IT WAS THE ONE I ALREADY HAD!!!!!!!!!!

The only thing we could figure is that somehow when it ended up in the wash and was waiting to be folded, it somehow fell into his bag of gifts he had for me and he ENDED UP WRAPPING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, wait until this year when my husband opens up the Patriots T-shirt he already owns! Won’t HE be surprised! HA!

The 25 Shirts of Christmas

The 25 Shirts of Christmas

by MichelleMcHatton

I thought it would be kind of cool (or not) or at least–different–to celebrate the 25 days leading up to Christmas by posting a daily photo of a Christmas shirt that I own. Because I have many. In fact, I have way m ore than 25.

So for today, December 1, here is shirt #1.

As you can see it depicts the infamous red Christmas truck with the Christmas tree in the back and the words “Merry Christmas”. Very festive. Like many of my shirts, this was a Christmas gift a few years ago from my husband. Of course it sucks getting Christmas shirts as gifts because the holiday is already there and you can’t wear it until the following Christmas.

Or can you? Hm…

“A Christmas Story Christmas”

“A Christmas Story Christmas”

by MichelleMcHatton

Like so many others, I am a huge fan of the 1983 classic “A Christmas Story”. The movie stars Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker, a young boy whose dream Christmas present is a Red Ryder bb gun. The entire movie is based on whether he is going to receive it for Christmas and his on-going fear and anxiety that, for one reason or another, he won’t receive it. As we all know, Ralphie does receive it.

Fast forward almost forty years. Ralphie’s Old Man, that of the “frag-ee-lay” leg lamp fame, has passed away. Instead of the Old Man and Ralphie’s mother visiting Ralphie, his wife and two kids for Christmas in Chicago, as they normally do, Ralphie takes it upon himself to pack up the clan and drive home to Hohman, IN to spend Christmas in the house he grew up in with his mother.

While there Ralphie meets up with his usual old crowd of friends: Flick and Schwartz. He even encounters his childhood bully Scut Farkus.

The film is filled with lots of nostalgia from the original film. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It made me wonder why Mrs. Parker (not the original–this one is played by Julie Hagerty) was not more tearful over her husband’s death. Maybe she was relieved of the Old Man’s passing? Finally she is rid of his complaining of the Bumpus’s dogs. Or the furnace. Or his winning odd, useless prizes that she can only roll her eyes at. Although no Melinda Dillon (who, I feel, did a fantastic job as the mother in the original), Hagerty gets us by. I was a little taken aback with her paranoia of the Christmas carolers. It’s not something I felt Mrs. Parker would be paranoid of. It also seemed Mrs. Parker had become a bigger fan of liquid spirits than she had been in the original. Which may be what has led to her great paranoia of carolers.

Other than the lackluster portrayal of Mrs. Parker and Ralphie’s roundabout way of obtaining a Christmas star for the tree, I thoroughly enjoyed “A Christmas Story Christmas”. The ending was just right, as I kept wondering when they were going to have any kind of funeral or end -of-life celebration for the Old Man. They honored him just right.