Top Comments: the Christmas Birthday Bash 2018 edition

An annual tradition we have carried-on for over forty years, after-the-jump …..

But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).

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This past Sunday, we held our annual Birthday Bash for three old friends (and now, one newer one) who have birthdays during Christmas Week (where you lose-out, in a major way, on presents).

In my mis-spent youth, my family’s house was a Saturday night “staging area” — friends of myself (and my brother) would come over, snack on some munchies … then decide which watering hole to visit (we could legally drink at eighteen). One December 1975 eve, those three old chums lamented their birthday placement.

My father overheard them and because he was born on December 30th ..... he could relate. So he told my sister Marilyn to “Get in the car” … to drive to a pizzeria, where he presented the guys with two of them ….. with candles on them.

Forty-three years later, we hold that party still. Small turnout (fifteen people) this year; attendance has been as much as thirty-four. And now, the wife of one of our friends (who sometimes attends) is in the same boat: so there are now four.

    2 of my 3 three sisters are seated …. my brother Pat and myself in the middle of the back row

This coming Sunday will mark my father's 100th birthday anniversary … and so at this year’s gathering, we had a photo montage to him: the inspiration.

   My father (circa 1925) w/sister

If you celebrate it: I hope you had a Merry Christmas.

And to all: a great 2019. We deserve it, and as the late, great Tim Hardin would say: “I've got a Reason-to-believe" ….  that we will have it.

x xYouTube Video

Now, on to Top Comments:

From Cecilia S:

In the diary by mlozaouk yesterday on Japan's withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission attracted comments good, bad, and ugly. Late in the day, when most of the activity had subsided, 20-year Japanese resident magurakurin posted a comment that included some valuable additional nuance and context to the sad news. And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........ In the diary by News Corpse about the Trumpster trying to utilize the federal government shutdown to avoid legal proceedings about the Emoluments Clause— Elwood Dowd suggests a rejoinder to the Trumpster’s claim as to who will be hurting during the shutdown … and rugbymom is the first to cite the old saw about the teenage murderer. 

TOP PHOTOS December 26th, 2018 Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. (NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.)

And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:

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