Christmas Letter 2007

December 2007

Our family could win a beauty pageant. How do I know? I’ve got credentials. Check my resume. Just below my credits as World’s Tallest Man Sitting Up and a Kermit the Frog Impressionist, you’ll now find “beauty pageant judge”.

Having been identified as a discerning assessor of character with a keen eye for potential in today’s youth, I was asked to judge South Kitsap County’s Junior Miss Program.

In truth, I originally agreed to participate because I misread the invite. I thought I was going to be judging South Kitsap’s Junior Mints program. Certainly if anyone has the ability to tell a good Junior Mint from a bad one, it’s me.

As judge, our most important job was to grill each 16-year old girl for ten minutes with ridiculously tough questions that nobody besides Mitt Romney would ever expect to have to answer in real life. My fellow judges took these questions very seriously, asking things like “Recent polls have shown that most Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Seeing the level of importance this was to have, I created my own thought-provoking questions to assess the contestants’ intellect and ability to think on their feet:

“Who would you want to win in a fight, and why: Superman or Spiderman?”
“What was the best thing BEFORE sliced bread?
“Who is the best looking judge on this panel?”

As I walked away from the event, I concluded that if put up against the contestants in this pageant, the Molen family would collectively thump the rest of the field. In fact, it would be so one-sided that I would fear for the self-esteem of the girls who competed. Here’s how the Molens would fare in each area of competition.

SCHOLASTIC

Those high school senior girls would shiver with dread when realized they’d be facing off against intellectual prowess of Cameron’s ilk. This third-grader is so smart that he has memorized the strength of every Pokemon and can tell you who would win between a Squirtle and a Bulbasaur (the answer is Bulbasaur). He’s such a golden academic that he reads the Harry Potter books before watching the movies! Who does that??

FITNESS

Those 16-year old dance team cheerleaders would pass out like Marie Osmond when they discovered they’d be up against Cassidy. Ten years younger than the rest of the field, this 1st grader is fit as a proverbial fiddle.

A master contortionist (okay, so she can do a backbend), a trained gymnast (she just mastered the round-off), a master of balance (no more training wheels) and a striker with more moves than Mia Hamm (she scored her first goal), we attribute her primo physical condition to her dietary discipline (just this morning she downed an entire box of Hostess “donettes” all by herself)!

VERBAL EXPRESSION

Kennedy will make her way to that microphone with confidence. This precocious three year old would have no stage fright. After all, this is the child who during the quietest moment at church breaks out in 200-decibels with this song:

Jingle Bells! Batman smells!! Robin laid an egg!!!Batmobile lost its wheel and Joker got away!!!!

And if given a tough question she doesn’t know the answer to, she’ll simply make up a song with nonsense words that all rhyme and leave the rest of us to ask ourselves if we’ve ever heard anything more profound.

POISE AND GRACE

This final category was tailor-made for my wife. Being the essence of elegance, style, and charm, Alisha would dominate in the nightgown portion of the competition. Huh? Evening gown? Right. That’s what I said, isn’t it?

Merry Christmas from the Molens!
Matt, Alisha, Cameron, Cassidy, Kennedy