It’s the Wonderful (or at least not terrible) Parts of Christmas

In a development that is not at all surprising, I have been accused of passing on poor values to Monkey Boy for, among other infractions, failing to waller around in Christmas garland. To most critics, I offer the simple explanation of: Bite Me.

However I think it’s only fair to say, I do believe this holiday has three redeeming qualities. Since lists seem to be appropriate for the season, and again, it’s my blog so I can do whatever I want, here’s the 3 reasons the Christmas season hasn’t yet killed me.

Juud Family Ganeshe

1) Absurdity: There is something about the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day that causes people to just get silly. I am not referencing poor, often career limiting, decisions made at company Holiday parties. I mean people being overcome with an unconventional Christmas spirit that has no clear basis in logic. I like it. I like it a lot.

2) Cards: I actually really like Christmas cards. I like getting them and sending them. I like the creativity that goes into these expressions of kindness. (Yes, I have some of both creativity and kindness in me.) I also like the Christmas Card competition that exists pretty much only in my mind. Whoever gets their cards out first, wins! It’s important to clarify that there are rules to this contest, as all civilized societal activities demand. Cards cannot go out before December 1. That’s a false start in clear violation of the calendar order of holidays. All cards must have some hand written component to them. So you cannot slap printed address labels on your printed cards and call it good. All cards must somewhere have YOUR NAME on them. One would think this was learned in primary school, but not so much. I couldn’t care less what salutation they bring: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Holidays, whatever makes your heart happy, send it. I’ll receive it with gratitude.

3) Selected Movies: There are two Christmas movies, which have become part of the tradition for our family and I like them. I watch Miracle on 34th Street the day after Thanksgiving. I watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve. Somewhere in the middle, I try to work in White Christmas and Christmas Story, but they are not required viewing. These movies generally make me feel good about my life, which keeps me from hanging people by tinsel when they criticize how little faux Christmas spirit I bring into my home.

For genuine Christmas spirit, you need hot chocolate, George Bailey, Zu Zu’s petals and a bell ringing because Clarence got his wings.

And a leg lamp never hurts.

Thanksgiving 2009

This year my mother declared that she was “past her cooking years.” My sister works in the food service industry. So naturally, it was decided Thanksgiving would be at my house. Normally, this sort of event would send me into a tailspin, but really I was kinda glad to have it at my home.

After 13 Thanksgivings together, I decided it was time to pull out the wedding china. I figure Baby Daddy is probably sticking around at this point, so we might as well celebrate our wedded bliss, such that it is. We actually had to pull the stickers off of some of the dishes and wash them. They truly had NEVER been used. It’s also really not a joke that I used pots I didn’t even know I owned to make this meal. That’s how little cooking goes on in my house. We’re more of food heaters as opposed to cookers.

In my hands, chicken tastes like chicken and beef tastes like beef, but there’s not much to brag about. However, I make one thing really well: Mamaw’s dressing. She’s not even my Mamaw, she’s Baby Daddy’s Mamaw. She passed before I ever met Baby Daddy, so the recipe was handed down to me with a great deal of reverence. I respect the heck out of the women in Baby Daddy’s family and would never dare disrespect something as sacred as their food. That’s why I always make sure this is done properly.

Step 1: Boil a chicken. Actually, that’s how almost all of Mamaw’s recipes begin. This would be Reason 1 I rarely break out these recipes. Reason 2 is they all require a fair amount of prep: chopping veggies, making biscuits from scratch, actually visiting aisles in the grocery store that don’t have doors on the front of the them. That’s why it was a bit shocking to see food so fresh as to still have a FLY in the package. Really Kroger?!

Because I really wanted to feel like an overachiever, I decided to make silly cookie turkeys. This dumb plan sent me to two stores before friends on Twitter helped me locate candy corn. How can it be that hard to find candy corn two days before Thanksgiving?! (I would also like to take a moment to point out the startlingly precise location they were able to give for where the candy corn was located in the store. I’m not naming names, but it’s possible someone has a sugar problem.) Poor Monkey Boy tried really hard to keep his hands off. He kept walking by them and greeting them while he waited for lunch. “Hi, turkeys. I’m gonna eat you later.” Eventually, the temptation was just too great and he snatched the beak off of one.

The family was reasonably well-behaved. No one had to call the law. (This has not been out of the question in years past when more relatives were still being invited. These are the same relatives who sent us home with fleas a few years back. We didn’t eat the leftovers that year. We were pretty horrified we’d eaten the food the first time.) No one threw a fit, except children under the age of 6, and, if you can prevent that, then you know where the good sedatives are stashed. My sister and I rolled our eyes at our mom several times, but since we’ve been doing that since puberty, I don’t think it even registers with her anymore.

The only real glitch was the delay in service. For some inexplicable reason, someone (almost certainly me) turned the oven off in the middle of cooking. I know, totally brilliant move. So our poor children were about to eat their arms off waiting for lunch to be served. I offered them snacks, but when my niece realized that all of our food was sorta healthy, she opted to draw pictures of people eating and asked God why she didn’t get an aunt who stocked fruit roll ups in her pantry?

We had a good day. We have a lot to be grateful for. Mostly, I’m grateful we all came away from a Thanksgiving almost insect free.

Grateful

Mater

This Sunday at church, Monkey Boy’s teacher reported they went around the room asking each child what they were thankful for. Each child in turn dutifully claimed they were thankful for their Mom and Dad. They obviously had proper home training. Each child, until they got to Monkey Boy, who reported he is thankful for… Mater. (For the uninitiated, Mater is a character in the Disney/ Pixar movie Cars, a movie that has been viewed no less than 200 times in our house)

Monday, his school sent home a paper bag turkey he made with construction paper feathers representing what he is thankful for. I’m reasonably sure he was coaxed into adding Mom and Dad to his gratitude for trucks and cars. But it was a nice gesture all the same.

So on this day before the Big Eat, my incomplete list of gratitude:
*Monkey Boy who makes me laugh, cry, scream and smile
*Katy Kat who makes me proud, worry, happy and hopeful
*Baby Daddy who’s kept me saner than I have any right to be and stuck with me for reasons that defy explanation
*My Family (the whole lot of them) who despite their flaws have loved me all my life despite mine
*Old Friends who come to my home, help themselves to food and drink and flop on my couch and relax
*New Friends who inspire me with their creativity, challenge me with their views, and make me a fuller, richer person
*Enough work to keep a roof over our head, food on our table, and clothes on our backs with plenty left over for luxuries
*Coffee – let’s be serious, I would be intolerable without it, so maybe that’s more what YOU should be thankful for

One Day

One day when he is bigger than me and a smart mouthed teen instead of a smart mouthed toddler and I want to kick him out because I can’t take it anymore, I will look at these photos and remember a time when I had no need of any entertainment. I just wanted to watch him breathe in and out while he slept.

I will laugh when I think how he kicked off his covers every night no matter how many times I put them back on and no matter how cold it was in the house, he felt like an oven when I checked on him. I will smile when I think of how he would hold on to his pillow yelling, “Nooooo!” and “Don’t want to!” when I tried to get him to wake up in the morning because I know exactly how he felt.

One day he won’t want to lay his head on my shoulder in the morning while he wakes up. He’ll be far too cool for that. So I’ll be the one to remember that he slept with his bum in the air and even after I brushed it, his hair looked exactly the same as it did when he first woke up.

But today, when I sent this guy off to school he stopped on the porch steps and yelled, “LOVE YOU MOMMY!” at the top of his lungs.

‘I Don’t Like Christmas’ List

Thanksgiving is next week. Although you wouldn’t know that if you walked through any retail establishment or public space. The Christmas season has been thrust upon once again with its garland, tinsel, and sparkling madness.

So here it is, people, the cold, hard truth about me and my dark heart: I don’t like Christmas. There, I wrote it where everyone can see. Now before y’all start fussing at me and questioning if I’m good Christian girl, let me be clear, I have no issue with church Christmas. I’m down with Jesus. I have long contended there are two Christmases: church Christmas and mall Christmas. I don’t like mall Christmas. I have a list of reasons and since it’s my blog I’m writing them here.

1) Feelings - I am dark humored, sarcastic and generally a malcontent. Eleven months out of the year, people find this to be among the reasons they like me. You’re reading this, aren’t you? However, December 1st, suddenly the whole flipping world is concerned about my feelings. Am I happy? Am I happy enough? Do I have love for my fellow man? Am I moved to tears by poorly written TV movies about going home for Christmas? No one cares about my feeling any other time of year, and I’m comfortable with that arrangement. I don’t care that much about your feelings; stop being concerned about mine.

2) Music - Christmas music SUCKS! seriously. It is schmaltzy. It is overdone. It is designed to elicit cheap tears and false nostalgia about bygone times that really weren’t that great either but because it’s the past we can romanticize it and dress it up any way we want to make it more than it ever was or hoped to be. Some of my worst emotional lows happened at Christmas. I don’t care to drag up my feelings about Christmases past, thank you very much. (See: Feelings) And it’s everywhere. You can’t even buy your groceries in peace. They pipe those silver bells into Kroger too. By the way, whoever let Mariah Carey record a Christmas album has a special listening room in hell where they pipe in puppies yelping for all eternity.

3) FFF – Forced Family Fun could be the worst part of the entire holiday season. UN negotiators have nothing on the Herculean efforts of compromise to get this family together for a meal. This is a group of people, but for DNA, would never have anything to do with one another. On one side of the family, you could be challenged to a footrace or arm wrestling competition if you don’t first have to clean up squirrel guts. (a story for another time) On the other side of the family, a pink elephant twirling a fire baton could walk in and sit down to join us for supper and no one would acknowledge it, we are just that WASPy. Unfortunately, neither side will let me drink. A person should not have to endure Force Family Fun sober.

4) Lists – Every year, about a week before Thanksgiving I start making holiday to do lists. Last year, things got so ridiculous, I handed off a big section of mine to Katy Kat who graciously took it for me. Now you will never know if the gift you got last year was selected by me or her. Hint: it was probably her. There’s absolutely NOTHING fun to do on to do lists. Worse than to do lists are the lists people make to tell me how to manage the stress my to do list causes me. They usually include really helpful hints like “improve your attitude” or “manage your expectations.” I have a bad attitude because I expect this is going to be another disaster. A favorite tip is always “take something off your list that doesn’t have to get done.” If it didn’t HAVE to get done, it wouldn’t be on the stupid list!

5) Thanksgiving – I really like Thanksgiving. Not the Pilgrims giving small pox to the Native Americans while they stole their land part, but the modern day ritual of taking a day to be grateful. This is holiday I can get behind. There are no gifts. There are no parties leading up to it I have to buy clothes for. There are no songs, save a few hymns, which I like. It’s as uncommercialized as a holiday in America can be. It totally gets stomped on by a bunch of elves selling Tickle Me, Elmo. It deserves more reverence than that. It’s a really good day. At my house, we have no expectations of good behavior by the previously mentioned family, so we just invite holiday orphans and let them have dinner and a show. It. Is. Awesome.

I know many of you actually like Christmas. You are allowed. I won’t take that from you. But every year I have to explain why I don’t. So I have conveniently written it down for all to read.

Now take it away Oscar!

Birthday Recap

The birthday haul

I ended up having a sensational birthday weekend. I played with Monkey Boy at the park, had lunch with Katy Kat, and old friends came over to watch some football, eat and just breathe the same air for a few hours. I could not have asked for more.

Despite being told very specifically not to give gifts, some gifted anyway. My haul was a bottle of Marker’s Mark, four tubes of Burts’s Bees and a fancy wine stopper. I love them all.

Pink Elephant Cake: one bite at a time

I also happen to know several donations were made to Our House. My heart is full, friends… and so is my stomach. I thought a pink elephant cake would be hysterically funny. Sadly the notion of eating an elephant one bite at a time if less gross when you’re just saying it in a joke. To quote Steel Magnolias: People were hacking into this poor animal like it was autopsy or something.

It. Was. Awesome.

My Birthday Wish: Dignity

celebrating my birthday

My birthday is this week. Except for my parents when I was young and Baby Daddy because it’s funny, I don’t ask for gifts. (I have always accepted them, but never asked) This year I’m making an exception. Times are hard all around. We are blessed. We have a warm, dry place to sleep and food on our table. So for my birthday, I’m asking for contributions to Our House Shelter for Working Homeless.

This center helps families get back on their feet. They help parents get job skills and then jobs, find permanent housing, provide basic necessities for their families. I cannot think of a more worthy calling than giving people their dignity.

There is an amazing project with Mass Communication students at UALR called Project Our House. You can find out how to meet immediate needs for this organization on Twitter or Facebook.

Do what you can. Not because of me, but because no one reading this blog is worried about how to feed their kids tonight. Too many other people are. My birthday wish is for the dignity of work for every parent trying to raise their children the best that they can.

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween Recap

Sweep the leg, Johnny!

I'm a RACE CAR DRIVER! He insisted on yelling this every time he said it.

Tactical Error: I let the Monkey Boy put on his costume early in the day. He wouldn't take it off.

Monkey Boy's Auntie Meggan don't play! She made these eyeball cupcakes.

In honor of my presence, Auntie Meggan also made witch cupcakes

Wordless Wednesday: Reunion

We made it through the reunion!

 

I got to wear Baby Daddy's 1989 face on my chest all weekend. It sounds dirtier than it was.

The Crazy Wife Fit

When we told people we were going to build our house, they all looked terrified. We heard horrific stories of house building disasters: couples driven to the brink of divorce, bankruptcy, insanity… It was a pretty bleak picture of the home building world. Every story had a common thread: The Crazy Wife. I made a decision that just once in this marriage I would absolutely not play the role of The Crazy Wife. With one small exception, I succeeded.

Overall our experience was smooth. I can’t recall any significant fights with Baby Daddy. Expenditures were kept more or less in check. I had just one meltdown. But it was a humdinger. I threw a spectacular fit when we went to the nursery to pick out trees and bushes for the yard. I wanted an oak that would turn orange in the Fall in the front yard. I had my heart set on it. I could imagine decades in the future kids would be climbing this tree and it would have orange leaves. I’m not sure how all my hopes and dreams about future children got tied up in orange leaves on the tree at that particular moment, but it became imperative that this tree have them.

At the nursery, the woman said she “believed” the tree I was looking at would turn orange. Believed? BELIEVED?! I told her she better KNOW! I was cranking up to mortify myself and Baby Daddy in complete The Crazy Wife fashion when the owner rushed over to assure me it would. He knew The Crazy Wife fit when he saw it coming.

I should not have acted like that. I could have gotten what I wanted without the fit. But yesterday when we turned the corner on our street, Monkey Boy gasped, “Look at Mommy’s tree!” At that moment, The Crazy Wife fit seemed kinda worth it.