The Dragon-Muse Christmas Photo Shoot Incident of 2010 (by Jerry)

The more time I spend with humans, the more I really start to like their human holidays and traditions. Take Thanksgiving. I have often chased turkeys, but I never considered them to be tasty snack options. As Thanksgiving approached and I learned that turkeys were the traditional Thanksgiving food, I offered to go get "Mom" a nice fresh turkey, but she said she had already purchased a frozen one. It was already defeathered and everything. Can you imagine NOT wanting to pluck out all those lovely feathers by yourself? I mean, that's like half the fun! FEATHER FIGHT! (By the way, Bion is extremely ticklish).

So "Mom" cooked (she declined my offer to roast it via Dragon flame) up her lovely turkey, and it turned out quite nice.

We called him Mr. Sizzles.

She also had pumpkin pie, but she wouldn't let me have any. She caught me trying to steal some.

It just looks...so...tasty...

But she did let me have some cranberry sauce. What I neglected to tell "Mom" is that Dragons tend to get a little silly when they've had cranberries. In ye olden times, cranberries were actually referred to as Dragon Nip. Since both Pneuman and Tai also had some Dragon Nip...I mean, cranberry sauce, we were in for an interesting evening.

(Please note that Bion had NO cranberry sauce whatsoever. We just dragged him into our cranberry-induced silliness for the fun of it.)

Fuse bead hearts are the perfect way to say "Merry Christmas."

Pneuman "This hat clashes with my beautiful scales" Claus

Tai "Do I look like an elf or what?" Claus

Bion "GETITOFFGETITOFF" Claus

Jerry "COOL! I look like Princess Leia" Claus

GODZILLA VS. BABY JESUS!

(Please note I was heavily under the influence of cranberry sauce)

Jerry: I'm a bucket of JOY!"

Bion: Shut up, Jerry.

Serious Family Christmas Photo Attempt #1:

Jerry: Does this hat make my nostril look fat?

Serious Family Christmas Photo Attempt #2:

Bion: I don't WANT to wear the hat.

Tai: But it balances out the picture.

Bion: Believe me, there is NOTHING "balanced" about ANY of this.

Serious Family Christmas Photo Attempt #3: (Third time's the charm??)

Everyone: Merry Christmas!

Jerry: Now how about a hug!?

Bion: NO.

The End.

Thankfulness (by EVERYBODY)

The Human here. I thought it would be fun this Thanksgiving to ask all of my Dragon-Muses what they're thankful for.

Tai:
What am I thankful for? Well, this is an easy question and a difficult question. I'm thankful for pretty much everything, but I'm sure our readers want a more specific answer than that. So I guess I'll just say that I'm thankful for the ability to be thankful. I'm thankful for those times when it seems that things aren't going the way we want them to go. I'm thankful for the ability to still find something to be thankful for. I'm thankful to be able to see, in time, the way things are worked out. I'm thankful to be known by the Creator of the universe who is able to work things out while we wait for Him. There's beauty in the waiting, in the trusting, in the hoping--and I'm thankful for the ability to thankfully wait on God to bring about what He's planned.

Bion:
This might surprise you, but I'm actually thankful for Jerry. I'm thankful for Tai, Pneuman, and my human, as well, of course, but I'm particularly thankful for my brother Jerry. Yes, he annoys the fire out of me--literally. Yes, he steals my tail cap and pours hot chocolate in it for no apparent reason. Yes, he bothers me by never taking anything seriously. But I've found that we all need a little Jerry from time to time. I get caught up in my editing and work. Work and responsibility are very, very important. Sometimes, though, I forget that it's also important to rest. It's important to take a few minutes to laugh and just be the tiniest bit silly. While Jerry annoys me and will always annoy me, I must admit...well...that I kind of like the guy. I'm glad he's my brother. Don't tell him I said that.

I'm also thankful that my scales don't itch. Sometimes that happens when the weather gets colder.

Jerry:
I'm thankful for warm hugs, grape nerds, fishing lure, rabbit holes, chocolate chip cookies, Star Wars, socks, teddy bears, tarantulas, gummy bears, llamas, juggernauts, astronauts, cosmonauts, other kinds of nauts, pickled herring, coo-coo clocks, ribbons, lazer beams, gingersnaps, VCRs, drumsticks, yellow, doorbells, encyclopedias, tacos, and your mom.

Pneuman:
Well, let me see. I'm thankful for writing and for inspiration, of course. I'm thankful for every breath we're given in this beautiful life that allows us to work, write, sing, pray, laugh, dance, eat, dream, and just BE. I'm thankful for the delicate taste of a roasted peasant and the sweet scent of lavender candles. I'm thankful to be able to create and help create, to do and to encourage. I'm thankful to be truly alive.
I'm also thankful that I'm such a good looking Dragon. While no good Dragon is unattractive, I'm glad I'm exceptionally handsome.

And The Human:
I'm thankful for being able to get closer to my goals (and better define my goals) this year. I still have a long way to go, but as Tai was saying, there's something to be thankful for in the waiting. I'm thankful for all my quirky muses and for the ridiculously wonderful life that I have. I'm thankful for the serious, grown-up parts of my life, as well as the silly childlike parts. This year I've been able to see God working more than I've been able to in the past five years. It's been amazing. I'm so looking forward to Christmas and for 2011. Life is amazing and weird and unpredictable and beautiful. Even if I don't know what's going to happen to me and my writing, I know that God's working.
I'm thankful that I have food on my table, money in my bank account, a roof over my head, a car that's doing really well at the moment, friends who I can rely on when my car isn't doing so well, three jobs that involve the most incredible kids/staff ever, the bestest nieces and nephew an aunt could ask for, an amazing large family whom I can't wait to see come Christmastime, and I'm thankful to have something to work towards.
My life isn't perfect. I think that's part of what makes it interesting. I am a blessed, blessed person. I'm very thankful.

Everyone:
Happy Thanksgiving!

Bion: Jerry, STOP HUGGING ME!
Jerry: It's a Thanksgiving hug!
Bion: Oh, all right. But just for Thanksgiving. And JUST ONE HUG.

How to Train Your Human (by Pneuman)

I haven't personally seen "How to Train Your Dragon." My human went to see it and didn't take me with her because she didn't have room to smuggle both me AND her snacks into the theater (What!? No Dragons allowed? That's a ridiculous rule). She told me all about it, though. Apparently, it is her kind of movie. She's all excited about buying it for her sister's little humanlings for Christmas.

I honestly don't remember much of what she told me about it, except she said that the Dragons weren't intelligent like my "brothers" and me. She said they reminded her more of kitty cats than Dragons. I'm all right with that, artistically. Cats are interesting animals. If Dragons are going to be compared with any other animal, I suppose I'd rather it be a cat than anything else. As long as everyone realizes that Dragons are actually ancient, intelligent creatures, I don't mind people imagining them to be like other simple animals.

However, I must caution anyone reading this to never accuse a Dragon of being "trainable." On the contrary, given the fact that I am the muse and my human is the writer, I'm really the one that "trains" her to write. This is much more easily said than done.

If I had a normal human with a normal 9-5 job, I would suggest establishing a writing routine. Since my human has three jobs and a schedule that changes every week, this is impossible. Some nights she comes home feeling super and just wants to write the night away. Other nights, she comes home tired and grouchy and just wants to play on facebook before going to sleep. Sometimes she has an hour between jobs where she can pull out the laptop and write a few paragraphs. Other times, she doesn't even have time to drive to one job to the other.

Time/routine is just one of the problems I have in training my human. Since she has three jobs, she has three different responsibilities that are greater than or equal to her writing. She is constantly thinking about these three jobs and the humanlings at her three jobs, even while she's writing. She tries to console me in this by telling me that while she's at work, she's always thinking about writing, but that's not much of a consolation.

Clearly, to adequately train my human, I must rid her of her three jobs.

I think a viable solution to ridding my human of her three jobs would be to find my human a wealthy mate. However, there is a trick to this. I want my human to find a mate who is wealthy and willing to pay the bills so that she can quit her jobs and write; however, I don't want a man so attractive to her that she will focus on HIM instead of her writing.

My ideal mate for my human would be a rich older man who just needs an attractive female at his side to make him feel young and successful. Now, I've expressed this thought to my human, and she said there are names for men (and women) like that, and she doesn't want any part of it. Her ideal man would be a 27-35 year old devestatingly handsome literary agent with a Scottish and/or Australian accent, who's about 5'8 and has "mad guitar skills." Though the literary agent part would come in handy, I think a man of that sort would probably distract her from her writing more than the 3 jobs distract her from her writing.

Therefore, if any 27-35 year old devestatingly handsome literary agents with Scottish and/or Australian accents, who are about 5'8 and have "mad guitar skills" ever show romantic interest my human, I will be forced to eat them.

My human doesn't like the idea of me eating her potential suitors, but I know what's best. I am training her, after all.

I have more to say on the subject, but I must break up a fight between Jerry and Bion. Jerry is putting jujubees in Bion's tail cap...again.