Did everyone get what they wanted for Christmas? One “Burt Bachrach & The Village People Christmas Medley” CD, two sock puppets, three toes sloth, four pounds of fruit cake…and so forth and so on.

I was fortunate enough to get exactly what I wanted. No, not a lifetime subscription to the “Flatuents Is Funny” newsletter. I guess my hints weren’t ‘strong’ enough. What I got is something that has steadily risen to the top of my want list as I’ve gotten older, stool softners and time with my family. Not necessarily in that order.

Ten days in Lignite allowed me to visit and catch up with many friends and family. That is the gift I am most thankful for. Yes I know that’s about as sappy as a fresh cut Christmas tree, but I guess I’m just a sentimental old fool. ‘Old’ in my children’s young eye’s and a ‘fool’ to all.

Speaking of “fresh cut Christmas trees,” I’m pretty sure we’re going to be faced with a glorified tumbleweed when we return to Rapid City this week. One year Mom let us burn our tree to see how fast it would go up. After we took the decorations off and moved it outside of course. When I say that she ‘let’ us I mean that she didn’t stop us. It went up in flames faster than I could snap a picture of Jarvis rolling around in the snow trying to extinguish his scarf.

One year Dad had sat an expired Christmas tree by the driveway to haul out for disposal later, but I beat him to it. I was running late for school, as usual, and only had time to scrape my windshield enough for one eye to see properly. As I drove to school with one eye on the road and the other starring at frost I noticed an annoying dragging noise. With my acute mechanical know how I swerved back and forth a few times to see if the noise would stop.

Swerving didn’t seem to have much effect, going faster made it worse, and turning the radio up didn’t help much either. I think Allen Larson was standing outside his house watching me pull over to wrestle a blue spruce out from my front wheel well and toss it along the road. There it lay next to the extension cord I had drug the day befor after forgetting to unplug my car.

“Thank You” to all of you that let me know how much you enjoy reading this column. Even if you were just being polite all of your kind words and encouragement are greatly appreciated and motivational. A word of caution: Praise and or encouragement of idiotic behavior perpetuates continued idiocy. It’s a viscous circle.

I suppose you’ve spent the past few days fine tuning your list of New Years resolutions for 2007. Or possibly quietly incinerating last years resolutions before someone else takes a gander at it and points out the fact that you never accomplished any of them. Success or failure isn’t as important as trying. Someone once said, “It is better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.”

So make your list, give the resolutions a shot, and keep your discarded Christmas trees a safe distance from my driveway.

Happy New Year.