Christmas Eve Open Thread

Welcome to your Christmas Eve open thread. How many of you have to work and how many of you are enjoying some vacation?

I’m sure this question has always gone through your mind: how do we combine Friday bacon blogging with Christmas? Well wonder no more. It’s the bacon nativity!

Since it’s the holiday season, I thought we could all use a break from arguing to read a heart-warming story. This comes from Roger Ebert’s blog and the story is called “Grandpa Joe and Secretariat: A Christmas Story.”

I have videos that I’ll send to you following this email, of his opening the box, of his reactions after watching it. After the credits concluded and before I started the camera, we just sat and stared at the screen for the longest time, just me and my grandparents, in silence. I almost can’t say if I liked it. This was not just a movie. I don’t think “Secretariat” will ever be just a movie for me. You ruined it for me, in that way, Roger. You made it into something more than it could ever really be, something magical, something transcendent, an object of my love for my grandfather. The fact that this horse lived, and died, and did something wonderful in between…it became both a universal truth and a specific one, as if pinpointing this very Joseph R. Triano, of Staten Island, New York, who has lived, and who is going to die, and who made me possible, me and my mother and my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my children. All his life he has been wonderful only if and when he wants to be–but I can tell you, those moments are worth the wait. He kissed me on the cheek that night, something he hasn’t done since I was a little girl. It was 31 lengths and more. I am just so damn glad this happened. Thank you.

Just go read the whole thing!