The Book of (Holiday) Awesome Read online

  I loved Uncle O’Grimacey because his annual visit in the TV commercials meant it was time for Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s. These bright green minty milkshakes were always an elusive and delightful break from the other flavors. And slamming back Shamrock Shakes was the childhood equivalent of drinking Guinness at the bar. Sure, maybe it wasn’t good for us, but somewhere between the dangerous plasti-mold play-grounds and dimly lit corners by the bathroom existed a magical world full of childhood memories, neon green milk-shakes, and greasy wrapped packages full of

  AWESOME!

  Giving up something really easy for Lent

  That’s it.

  No more skydiving.

  AWESOME!

  When mom buys the solid chocolate instead of the hollow chocolate

  Do you love your kids?

  Well, according to Terrible Parenting magazine, giving your child a hollow Easter bunny means you don’t. Honestly, it ranks up there with obliterating them at ping-pong, stealing their chicken skin, or making them go to bed while the sun’s still out.

  Don’t be that mom.

  Because as much as we enjoy watching bunny’s hollow skull crumble into a pile of chocolate crumbs on the kitchen table, the truth is the solid bunny has so many advantages. It lasts about five times as long, it’s more fun to gnaw on, and it doubles as a weapon against the very sister who tries to steal it.

  So come on! Get us a solid bunny this year, mom.

  Then we’ll know you’re

  AWESOME!

  Stocking up on clearance chocolate the week after Easter

  It’s like panning for gold.

  Bundle up and head north to your local Megamart before combing shelves with patience and care. Windy days, cold nights, and a diligent work ethic should be rewarded with finding that hidden patch of clearance candy at the back of the store.

  Time to load your cart with solid bunnies, little mesh bags of chocolate eggs, and anything filled to the gills with creme.

  Nothing tastes as good as a deal.

  AWESOME!

  Finding a hidden chocolate egg way after Easter

  Surprise!

  While mindlessly dragging your hand between the couch cushions, sweeping the backyard patio stones, or searching for extra batteries in the junk drawer, a tiny foiled egg suddenly appears like a sugary gift from the heavens.

  And when you score that surprise chocolate dropping, just remember there can be absolutely no stopping before quick-peeling and quick-popping that chocolate straight into your mouth. Time of day, hunger level, age of chocolate—none of this matters. Frankly, if you’re stuffed on breakfast pancakes and the chocolate is powdery white and tastes like foil from two Easters ago . . . that is victory.

  Yes, finding a chocolate egg way after Easter is an eyes-wide moment of taste-based wonder.

  Finding a chocolate egg way after Easter is

  AWESOME!

  Getting served breakfast in bed

  Happy Mother’s Day!

  It’s 7:30 am and your kids wake you up with a plate of cold toast, runny eggs, and a short glass of lukewarm OJ. Sure, it may not be the best-tasting meal in the world, and yeah, you might fill your sheets with crumbs, but don’t tell me getting served breakfast isn’t the greatest.

  I mean, there you were just sleeping there. And someone else said, “Let’s go downstairs and cook up our best possible meal, toss it on a tray, and bring it upstairs and serve it to you.” Yes, serve it to you! Cook it up and set it up and serve it to you. I have to say you’re pretty lucky if this happens to you.

  Plus, breakfast in bed can also help accomplish the exotic get up and eat up and get back down move, a brilliant Saturday or Sunday feat that involves filling your belly with breakfast and then immediately crashing back into a post-fiesta siesta. Yes, it’s a great feeling to go back to bed with that full stomach. And who knows? Maybe there’s a lunch in bed just waiting for you on the other side of those sleepy dreams. But really, it’s a good question—has anyone ever actually scored lunch in bed? If so, I’m pretty sure they win the World’s Greatest Mother’s Day Ever contest.

  Now, the Trump Card for turning a good breakfast in bed into a great one is when it includes one or more of the following:• One of those tiny, miniature glass bottles of ketchup or jam

  • A homemade greeting card wishing you a Happy Mother’s Day or Happy Birthday

  • A breakfast dessert of any kind

  • Butter painstakingly carved into a perfect sphere

  • Cute, restaurant-style folded-up napkins

  Because let’s be honest, people. We sure do love eating. We sure do love sleeping. And breakfast in bed is the closest we get to combining both at the same time. And around here, you know what we think of that.

  Say it with me now.

  AWESOME!

  Cool moms

  I love cool moms.

  When I was growing up there was a Sunny D commercial on TV where a gang of kids in backward caps and jammer shorts roller-skates home before helping mom bring in the groceries. When they go inside they search between a fridge packed with cola and purple stuff before pulling out a jug of Sunny D to big cheers. Later they’re chilling under a tree when mom returns with an armload of Sunny D. As the scene closes one of the kids screams out, “You got a cool mom!”

  And despite the cheesy cheese quality of this old commercial, there really is something sweet about finding out your friend has a cool mom. Cool moms are often found upstairs at that one house everyone always hangs out at displaying some of these familiar characteristics:• Anywhere, anytime sugar. Cool moms have candy and sugary cereals you don’t have at your house, and they’ve got no problem filling your bowl with Corn Pops after a sleepover or letting you drink a big cup of Coke with dinner.

  • Grease runs for fun. Loud cheers from the back of the station wagon and the Minivan Applause-O-Meter guide cool moms to ice cream shops and McDonald’s drive-thrus. Six-year-olds on soccer teams get sundaes or chip truck fries whenever cool mom is driving them home.

  • Steady behind the wheel. Cool moms drive your friends all over the place. She’s your taxi to the mall food court, baseball diamond, or movie theater. Cool moms also take care not to embarrass you in front of your friends by controlling the bad jokes and goodbye kisses. Sometimes they slip you an extra fiver too.

  • Lax sleepover policies. She knows you and your teenage friends will watch the R-rated movie in the basement anyway, so cool mom doesn’t fuss much with the ratings or the extra half hour of TV before bed. Let the kids talk a bit during the sleepover, she figures. Nobody’s getting hurt.

  • Anonymous phone-a-friend always open. Cool moms give off sparkly vibes of open-mindedness that let kids know their questions won’t be judged. Cool moms help draft the apology letter, call the neighbor after tossing a ball through their window, and are always around to chat about anything serious.

  When you have a friend with a cool mom, you’re loving it lots. And if you’re a cool mom, your house is full of big smiles, loud laughs, and happy kids. You value the best things in life and live to love for years and years and years.

  Hey, cool moms! Guess what? You’re

  AWESOME!

  Your mom’s love

  My mom was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950.

  Growing up the youngest of eight kids in a small house off the downtown hub, she was quiet, shy, and always the baby. Her three older brothers received the bulk of the family’s praise, attention, and money for education, while the girls were taught to sweep floors, work the stove, and scrub the work clothes clean.

  My mom used to sit on her front porch and memorize all the license plates of cars that drove by. She’d guess the numbers from a distance, silently congratulating herself when she got one right. Quiet nights in the corner of the clattery kitchen, she’d study math under dim lights and curious gazes.

  In 1963, she took the government’s standard National Exam with every other thirteen-year-old in the country. And she
aced it.

  Suddenly a fat scholarship dropped on her and she was whisked off to a preppy English boarding school in the countryside. The next few years were full of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, memorizing Shakespeare passages, and eating soft-boiled eggs in the corner of the school cafeteria.

  After hitting the books hard away from friends and family, she graduated and started correspondence classes from an accounting institution in England, eventually earning her letters, moving to London, and auditing the books of big companies. It was there she met my dad while he was visiting from Canada, and it was there that they got married before moving to a small, dusty suburb an hour east of Toronto.

  She got a job at General Motors, saw her first dentist, ate her first hamburger, and signed up for a subscription to Reader’s Digest. When I was growing up, she’d tell me her coworkers always asked what she was doing there. “Let me get this straight,” they’d begin. “You lived in Nairobi. You lived in London. How’d you end up in this small town?”

  But it was in that small town she had my sister and me, and it was in that small town she showered us with love every day since we were born. Although I never knew my grandparents, my mom filled the void with unending praise and patience.

  She took me to the library Saturday mornings and helped me slowly finger-read Hardy Boys books. She signed my sister and me up for camps and let us quit if we came home crying. When I routinely got pegged first playing dodgeball at Boy Scouts or broke my glasses playing soccer, she was always there, ready with a hug and an “It’s okay, Neil, it’s okay . . . it’s okay.”

  For a good chunk of the past year, I was getting three or four hours of sleep a night balancing my day job, writing my blog, 1000 Awesome Things, and working out the stresses of life. Every few weeks over this time, my mom took the commuter train to my downtown apartment with a big canvas bag and loaded up my freezer with homemade food.

  And before she left, she’d reach up to give me a big hug and say, “Don’t forget to take a break.”

  So this one goes out to the moms of the world. This one goes out to the people who raised you. I know I wouldn’t have made it without that love and support, and I’m sure some of you are in the same place. So moms, thank you for teaching us to read, thanks for cheering our dreams, and thanks for helping us grow up to become a little more

  AWESOME!

  Getting homemade crafts from your kids

  Admit it.

  You gave your mom some horribly ugly craft when you were a kid. I hope it wasn’t as bad as the giant life-sized Play-Doh model of my mom’s face I made in seventh grade. Even though it looked a bit like she was a cross-eyed ogre wearing a shiny helmet, she told me she loved it and kept it sitting on her dresser for years.

  And that’s what it’s all about.

  Whether it’s the pipe-cleaner-and-glitter construction paper spelling out I love you, the tiny day-care handprints with the cheesy poem, or the marker-smeared hat made out of a paper plate, the point is the same.

  Somebody little loves you.

  AWESOME!

  Total control over the remote

  Sorry, kids.

  We’re watching golf and that’s that.

  Go play outside.

  AWESOME!

  When someone else mows the lawn

  I bought a house a few years back.

  Basement apartments, cramped condos, and old rooms at my parents’ place all suddenly faded into the distance as I finally enjoyed the freedom of owning my own pad.

  Of course, the only problem was that I massively underestimated the amount of work involved in taking care of the place. Shoveling sidewalks, vacuuming basements, and pulling weeds from the garden sounded fun until I was suddenly spending every waking hour doing them.

  That lawn was the worst of all.

  After pushing a rusty mower across the front and backyards, I was left with dirty brown patches of dead grass and blade-resistant dandelions standing fiercely by the fence. Yes, I was slaving away for the worst-looking lawn on the street.

  Dads, that’s why I’m going out on a limb and saying you’re loving it when someone else mows the lawn. Kids, listen up—dad will take the golf balls and that new polka-dot tie in the morning, but if you really want to get on his good side, you know what to do.

  Start the engine and get pushing.

  AWESOME!

  Actually finding a good present for dad

  We love moms.

  They’re so easy to buy for! Hit the kitchen store, stop at the jewelry shop, and order some flowers. But dads, well—not so much. See, as much as dad loves polka-dot ties, the truth is that he’d love something a bit more creative.

  So I’m going to be honest here.

  You need to get your dad a gift basket.

  Yes, stuff one full of golf ball sleeves, universal remote controls, and power tools.

  And suddenly you’re the favorite son.

  AWESOME!

  Big crowds enjoying big fireworks together

  Fire trickles and drips across the sky, old folks huddle and cuddle and babies cry, teenagers squeeze sweaty palms and look up, up way high. Because light fills the night, ka-booms bang in the air, conversations stop, jaws drop, we all crane our necks up . . . and stare. Yes, when those fireworks erupt, when they splash in the dark, when those bright waterfalls drip down into our park, we all oooh and ahhh at them big beautiful sparks.

  AWESOME!

  Catching the ice cream truck

  Candy doesn’t deliver.

  Since Emperor Nero sent slaves into the mountains for ice to mix with honey and nuts two thousand years ago, we’ve all enjoyed cooling off with big bowls of the sweet and icy treat.

  Yup, Arabs started adding milk to the mixture a thousand years later, the Chinese invented an ice cream maker, and our friends in France were first to write it down in a cookbook. Basically, everybody around Team Planet contributed to the unparalleled levels of creamy deliciosity we all enjoy today.

  Nowadays maybe you get your fix when the soccer team screams at mom from the back of the station wagon till she peels into the Dairy Queen parking lot. Or maybe you sneak down to the basement freezer for a few sneaky spoonfuls after bedtime.

  Or maybe you actually catch a truck on the Fourth of July.

  You know how it goes.

  Scribbling on your stomach in your bedroom, playing Bubble Bobble with your brother in the basement, throwing baseballs with your dad in the backyard, your ears suddenly perk up to the sound of a distant and familiar jingling. And for once those bells ringing don’t mean classes about to start at school.

  Eyeballs pop, eyebrows raise, and big smiles curl on your face, because now the race is on.

  Booming down the hall, bouncing down the stairs, you scramble for spare change as those jingling bells get louder and louder and louder. Forget socks, forget shoes, forget closing the front door—it’s time to blast out of the house and risk the Burning Blackfoot as you sprint as fast as you can down the street toward that slow-wheeling, rainbow-colored truck . . .

  . . . and once you score your sweet and creamy plunder, it’s time to get licking before diving into a hot dog and coleslaw dinner and heading to the park for the fireworks show.

  Can’t you just taste it?

  AWESOME!

  Really, really selling it while barbecuing

  That thick, smoky barbecue smell floats through the yard and everybody starts salivating for dinner.

  Yes, sizzling sides of beef and burnt-black wieners are coming right up when the sun’s dropping, the party’s hopping, and your friends are all chilling with ice-cracking drinks on your backyard patio. And if you’re in charge of grilling up dinner, then there aren’t many things that scream I’m Serious About This more than really, really selling it to all your friends. Oh sure, some things come close, such as:• owning a shiny, oversized nine-piece barbecue tool set and having it folded open on the picnic table.

  • not leaving the barbecue at any point and even
holding on to the handle when the lid is down to make sure nobody attempts to flip burgers when you aren’t looking.

  • wearing a giant apron with your name on it.

  • asking everybody constant questions at all times, such as “Did you say medium or medium-well?” and “You’re toasted, you’re toasted, you’re untoasted, right?”

  Yeah, don’t get me wrong, all those things shout I’m Serious About This, too. But nothing quite screams it like really, really selling it to the crowd. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever hammed it up with any of these classic moves:• “Dog up, I gotta dog up, who wants a dog?!”

  • “Come on Andrew, you’re not eating salad, are you? Come on, how many more can I sign you up for? Two at least?”

  • (Walking around the deck with raised eyebrows, holding a cold cheeseburger on your BBQ flipper, and occasionally waggling it in someone’s face.)

  • “Okay, I got a slightly burnt one. Who likes them nice and crispy? Nice and crispy one here, everybody. Niiiiiice and crispy.”

  Yes, if you’re getting your barbecue groove on strong and you’re rocking the sales pitch long, then kudos to you. Every deck party needs somebody to tell everybody else to eat more hamburgers. So today we salute you for embracing the job. You sold it. We bought it. And now we’re all feeling stuffed, bloated, and completely

  AWESOME!

  Driving around with the windows down on late summer nights

  Kids cruise on wobbly bikes, toddlers race on tipsy trikes, and you drift deep into the hot summer night. Swerve and curve on windy roads as darkness slowly falls and stars pop out to reveal a twinkly twilight glow. As you hit the gas and drop your windows the warm beating rush of summer air makes you smile and makes everything else in the world just fade away . . . fade away . . . fade away . . . fade away . . . f