Under the Tree.

       It was a typhoid Merry Christmas around these parts, as the party I went to on Christmas Eve seems to have spread a nasty flu virus around to almost everyone who attended.  It did not rear its ugly head until Boxing Day, thus saving my Christmas dinner, but it has since rendered me useless as a functional human being.  A couple of days of Tylenol Cold and hot & sour soup have at least made it possible for me to sit up and type at the laptop.  Thank heaven for small favors.

       This bought of deathflu kept me from posting about what Santa left under the tree for me.  And I mean this literally, as my brother plays Santa Claus every year for my little cousins (and when we get him dressed, my joke is "every year, we use less and less padding" He does not like that joke...), anyway, he was nice enough to have procured this for me:

Drink that in.  It is a 1983 Mets Blue Throwback Tom Seaver jersey.  The levels of awesome of this present are hard to measure.  First of all, it is Tom Terrific, The Franchise; the gift that keeps on giving.  Second of all, it is obscure, from his all-too-brief triumphant return in 1983 after a five year exile in Cincinnati (and I love it obscure).  Third of all, the Mets are bringing back the blue this year as their alternate jersey, finally mothballing the kinda cool but mostly gimmicky black ones.  This year, I will be strutting around in the coolest blue jersey there is.  I also now have a wonderful trifecta of throwback Mets jerseys: a 1986 home Gary Carter, a 1987 away Dwight Gooden and now, this beauty.  Being a grown up sometimes makes Christmas morning a bit a of a downer, but not this year.  Thanks Santa!