Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 17, 2023

At least it’s not about a woman named Holly.

Guessing at what Danae did next is like pinning a tail on a cloud.

I prefer “Bark us all bow-wows of folly”

I wonder what her take would be on donning the gay apparel.

Hey, I used to think Frank Sinatra sang about “That Old Bill Bowel Moon.”

Calvin would have wished he had thought of that

I wondered why the angels were so hairy, as in “Hark, the Hairy Angels Sing,” imagining them like Cousin Itt.

I’d have liked to have heard the rest of her song!

And she never even got to the fa-la-lah-la-lah part.

One holly bushes’ scientific name is Ilex vomitoria. I’m glad she wasn’t singing about bowls of holly.

In the words of Walt Kelly:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie, / Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo! / Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley, / Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

Don’t we know archaic barrel / Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou? / Trolley Molly don’t love Harold, / Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!

Sorry, being a non-native English speaker, I don’t get the joke. What was she changing in that song?

This is a cute reminder of Sally Brown’s occasional classroom reports.

How about exposing that “Jingle Bells” was written by a Major in the Confederate Mounted Calvary and should therefor be banned as being offensive to sensitive Liberal losers rewriting history.

It would make making garlands easier.

And for gentile overnight relief, there is Holly Golightly. Take in the evening, guaranteed to work before your Breakfast at Tiffanys.

We Three Kings of Orient are, we’re all smoking a rubber cigar. Very popular when I was 6 years old.

Kinda lowered the level today. Not funny

♫ Deck us all with Boston Charlie ♫

This time of year , I miss Pogo. Gone too soon.

When Mr. Miller goes off on one of his political tracks, he loses me, but when he comes up with a gem like this, it is a reminder why I fell in love with his humor and why he may someday be destined for the comics hall of fame.

That’s almost as good as the song “Heavenly Holsteins sing Allalueya..”…

Too colorful.

There’s lots of things banned from the other side of the spectrum. This year the cit of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin banned the color combination of red and green because it apparently could potentially offend someone. They also banned the use of the word snowmen, now it’s snowpeople.

I love the stories on misunderstood song lyrics!

I…I thought it was “deck the halls with bowels of looseness.” All these years, I had it wrong…sooo sad.

I like my Hollys to be long, cool women in black dresses

I’m just going to give this a ROFL.

This has the makings of a Christmas classic, Wiley.

I may have thought it ‘bowels of holly’ as a kid. Then I learned better.

I think “bowels of holly” is an improvement.

Don’t forget the line of “Now we don our Gay apparel!”Fa la la la La La La!! Enjoy the season everyone.xD

“Chipmunks roasting on an open fire,

Hot sauce dripping from their toes…"

As one, I would say gays are happy in pretty much the same number as any other group. Varies daily, welcome to life.

It sounds like a scene from a holiday slasher movie.

Fun fact: while it’s not a Christmas song, the ninth stanza of Charles Wesley’s hymn “Come Thou O Traveller Unknown” contains the lines:

The morning breaks, the shadows flee, Pure, universal love Thou art;

To me, to all, Thy bowels move; Thy nature and Thy Name is Love

And yes, it is found in the Methodist hymnal, though rarely do we sing all nine stanzas.

Similarly, Isaac Watts wrote a hymn whose title and first line are “Blest is the man whose bowels move.” As in the case of Wesley’s hymn, in this context the word “bowels” refers to the seat of emotion and compassion; today we would use the word “heart” in that place.

(senses a misunderstanding of the word “BOUGHS” in this cartoon; imagines a solution involving a certain pronunciation of the word “BO”))

“BOUGHS—SCHMOUGHS… I SAY MY VERSION IS A LOT MORE ENTER-TAINING”

(imagines a different version of this part of the dialogue of this cartoon)

I DON’T CARE IF IT’S BOUGHS; MY VERSION WAS MORE ENTERTAINING

I can give her “holiday” but “fun” and “fact”, it is not. Perhaps she will get a botany coloring book for Christmas.

Hey, does anybody have any actual holiday fun facts to share?

Here’s my fave: Even in olden times (like 2000 years ago) in a Mediterranean climate, winter was not a happy time for shepherds to be watching their flocks by night. They typically only inconvenienced themselves like that during lambing season in the spring, typically around April. So to the extent that any part of the Biblical Christmas story can be taken seriously, we should probably be celebrating Christmas and Easter at about the same time as each other every year.

But other civilizations of that era had big feast days for the winter solstice, as the unconquered sun (sol invictus) started heading back north again. The Greeks called theirs Kronia, and the Romans named theirs Saturnalia, and both were occasions for widespread merry-making, perfect cover for the socially disfavored Christians of the time to disguise their own purpose for celebration, which is probably why Christmas migrated to Dec. 25.

At least she didn’t sing baby it’s cold outside.

I’m sure that the original words were “Deck the hall,” as in “Dress the Great Hall” of a castle or grand dwelling. Not at all related to the words of the Welsh carol used.

Truth to tell, most people would never know the difference.