toot toot!
When you go to an event called “Tuba Christmas,” this is what you get: Tubas. Christmas.
note the kid wearing shorts in 30 degree weather. CRAZY
I’ve been wanting to go to this every year, but it’s always at like, 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday in December, and damn if that wasn’t always prime homework/final timings. But this year! No more grad school, biznatches! And by “biznatches” I of course mean “tubas”! It was so cute and weird and Christmasy, seeing this group of tuba (and miscellaneous brass instrument) players in front of Boise’s equivalent of the Rockefeller Center Tree, belting out Silent Night on their tubamaphones. Christmas Carols actually translate to tuba really well. Who knew!
The conductor was adorable, he was this little old dude who’s the Tuba Professor at BSU (Tuba Professer!!!!), and he kept encouraging the crowd to sing, and he danced along with the songs, and sang solo himself for the holiday classic “Santa Wants a Tuba for Christmas.” I went with my bud’ Erica, and after every song she turned to me and said TUBA CHRISTMAS in the voice most people would reserve for the phrase FREE CHOCOLATE. So that is two hardy votes for the awesomeness of it, and now you are convinced that your Christmas won’t be complete without tuba carols, right? I agree. It won’t be.
So, that was Saturday. SUNDAY I spent literally all day (except for two glorious hours of watching the Muppet Movie for the second time) making stockings for my dogs. Yep. My dogs have stockings, which are now hung by the chimney with care.
those are really more like moose antlers, but you get the gist
I was so excited to make them. As I bought the fabric I had all these dreams of making a ton of them and selling them at Cosmo’s ritzy doggie daycare, all proceeds going back to the Humane Society, and doggie stockings and I would SAVE THE WORLD. Then I realized it takes 8 hours to make two of them . . . and even though I love these two, they are very homemade looking. Homemade looking makes me love them all the more, but no one else would buy them (rightfully so). So, yeah. I will have to save the world some other way. Maybe with cookies? Somehow?
Cosmo's stocking. My mom did the "C" embroidery for me, because I don't quite have those skills. It's funny because I can totally tell it's her handwriting, just from that C (that looks ever so slightly like maybe a G, right? That's mah momz C)
Julius stocking
Notice the nails on Julius’s stocking? Want to know why Julius stocking has nails, but Cosmo stocking doesn’t? This is why:
CLAWS OF DEATH
Poor Julius. He is bald and blind and extremely lumpy, but mother nature made up for all those deficits by giving him KILLER CLAWS OF KILLING DEATH. Unlike normal dogs, who can have their nails clipped, Jules has nails that have veins full through. So if he was a human, his full nail would be the pink nail bed. No white clippable part. His feet are terrifying. So his stocking must represent that, natch.
Luckily he doesn't use his deadly weapons for anything other than prancing (much like a little reindeer prancing on each tiny foot).
Doesn’t Cosmo do a pretty good imitation of the dog from The Grinch?
He's as cuddly as a cactus
he's got garlic in his soul
Bonus to the stockings: hanging next to each other, they are the initials for a certain Jesus Christ, who I’ve heard is a Christmas birthday boy. That’s gotta win some extra presents from Santa, right?
Antler outtake
Camalittle 
I am so, SO going to see tubas next year!!! That looks awesome! And *fabulous* job on the homemade stockings too!!
YES! We will go together and drink hot cocoa and do Christmas jigs! Apparently they have TWO shows: one outside by the tree, and one in the capital rotunda where the Tuba Professor says the acoustics are “outstanding.” And if a Tuba Professor says it, you know it’s got to be true.
And thanks for the stockings compliment! I am pretty proud of myself, I admit. 🙂 It’s a Christmas miracle they aren’t completely lopsided!
OMG Cosmo looks so cute in those antlers! His expression is so earnest.
The stockings came out awesome! I like your fireplace full of candles.
OMG YOU SAID MY DOG IS CUTE!!!! My life is complete. I told him you would be seeing the picture, so he posed extra-adorable-y. Does this mean I can send you a ziploc bag of his fur?
And thanks! I can never light the candles, since they are dog level, but they are all ornamental and shit. I will have to remember to take them out before Santa comes, or he’ll trip on them and the stockings will be filled with coal! Which would be sadder than having no stockings at all.