His 'n' hers bullwhips

Yannick Murphy shares her Christmas tales

1. What is your favourite Christmas memory?
My favourite Christmas memory is not mine.  It’s my husband’s.  (Yes, I had a miserable childhood and I’ve been able to successfully block out the memory of all my holidays!)  Anyway, my husband tells the story of his mother who had two trees decorated in the house.  One was the large tree, set on top of the rug on the living room floor and decorated beautifully with her prized collection of delicate, antique ornaments and the other tree was a small tree set in the window that was decorated with garlands of popcorn.  One year, as she was admiring the tree when she noticed that all over the popcorn kernels on the smaller tree were covered with a swarm of black ants.  She became intent on finding the source of the ants that had had the nerve to ravage her tree and she began to follow their trail.  The trail led her to the rug on the floor, which she threw back in her frantic search.  As she did so, the large Christmas tree, covered in her precious ornaments fell over, and untold numbers of the glass ornaments smashed all around her.  Later that evening, after the remaining bulbs had been salvaged and the broken ones swept up and thrown away and her roast that she had cooked to perfection was set on the dinner table, my husband’s father noticed that the sunset was a beautiful one.  “Come on outside and let’s look at it together,” he said to the family and so they all tromped outside and admired the glowing oranges and reds of the sunset.  Then they turned back towards the house, just in time to see through the picture window the family dog, a Brittany spaniel standing on the dining room table and devouring the roast that my husband’s mother had just cooked.  At least the dog had a good Christmas.

2. What is the worst present you’ve ever given or received?
There has been no worst present I’ve ever received, maybe the most unusual, though.  I received it from my husband and I am quite sure he really wanted it for himself.  It was an authentic handmade kangaroo hide bullwhip from Australia.  When I opened the package I couldn’t believe he had bought it for me.  I couldn’t believe how expensive it was, either.  I had never intimated in any way that I wanted a bullwhip!  He was grinning from ear to ear, of course, and was very excited to go outside and be the first one to try cracking it in the air.  Well, it turns out that cracking a bull whip is harder than you think.  You need to practice it wearing a hat and glasses (to protect the tips of your ear and to prevent smacking yourself in the eye and losing an eyeball!)  After he tried it a few times, it was my turn. At first, I couldn’t do it at all.  After a few days practicing, I finally learned how to do an overhead crack.  “I got it!”  I told my husband over the phone while he was driving home from work.  “Okay, meet me in the front yard and show me,” he said.  I ran out to the front yard wearing my hat and sunglasses and when he pulled up I swung the whip over my head and cracked the loudest crack ever.  It did sound like the proverbial gun shot.  Well, there was a construction crew working across the street on a roof and unbeknownst to me the guys on the crew were all watching me from up above.  After they heard the loud crack, they all started cheering and hooting and hollering.  I provided quite the entertainment on the street that day.  But really, I like my bull whip.  It’s actually a lot of fun to go out learn the different ways there are to crack it.  My husband was hoping that I’d lose interest in it, so he could keep it for himself.  But I didn’t lose interest in it, so he had to go and order himself his own bull whip from the same maker.  Of course his is bigger and more expensive, but now we have his and hers bullwhips. 

3. What are your plans for this Christmas?
This Christmas, after my kids open their presents and we have hot chocolate and sticky buns, my husband and I are going to sneak off into our woods and go grouse hunting.  We will probably come back empty handed (grouse are wily!) and then we’ll make the kids get dressed and go for a walk with us in the woods along with our two Newfoundland dogs.  There might be snow on the ground, considering we live in Vermont so when we come back from the walk we will hopefully be able to go sledding down our steep hill a.k.a. “Death Hill” and going down Death Hill, the two Newfoundland dogs will chase us all the way down and tug at our arms so that we fall off our sleds and so that they can jump on top of us and lick us and we will laugh and curse at them for cutting our ride short, but really we should probably thank them because at the end of Death Hill are a stand of pine trees that we would have surely hit at full speed if the Newfoundlands had not stopped us.  After that we will go inside the house, throw some more logs on the fire (we only heat with wood so it might be A LOT of wood we throw on the fire and if it were up to me and not my husband, I would throw a whole cord of wood on the fire!) and we will admire our gifts.  (see attached photo of my husband and my kids and dogs starting to descend Death Hill.)

 
4. Are you giving any books this Christmas?
I’m going to give my daughter “Heidi” for Christmas.  She’s eight and I read it when I was eight.  She’s a voracious reader, and when there’s nothing left in the house for her to read she starts reading all the Harry Potter books over again!  So hopefully she’ll read “Heidi” instead and broaden her horizons and learn that a good read doesn’t have to always include wizards and magic (which I admit are a lot of fun) but can just include beautiful writing and a dear grandfather. 

5. What book would you most like to receive this Christmas?
I’d like to receive “Big Dogs and Fly Boys” by Sam Michel.  He’s a buddy of mine and this is his new book and I know the writing will be good.

6. Any tips for surviving the festive period?
A good way to survive the festivities is to get sick.  Start sidling up to people who have the flu a few days before Christmas.  Then all you have to do is stay in bed and you don’t even have to talk to anyone or answer the phone.

Posted 14/12/2007 15:43:33 by Yannick Murphy with 0 comments.