I started a blog, then I started another blog. One is about the daily and the ranting and raving and whining and moaning, and the other is about fashion and style and fancy things.
I reconciled with Snow. I used to vehemently despise snow, but in the last few years, we have come to an understanding and that’s a good thing.
I also reconciled with Summer. Where I never had a love for snow and recently gained an appreciation for it, I used to love Summer the most and since moving to Utah had a major falling out with it. I’m happy to report that we are back together.
I tried and failed to lose weight and get healthier. Nothing has changed, nothing at all. At least things haven’t become worse.
I took a grown man down with my awesome boots and broke his wrist. All by accident.
I cut all my hair off and have kept it off. Usually once I cut my hair off I instantly miss all my cute hair accessories and immediately start growing it back. Sometimes, I even cut it all off with the sole purpose of growing it back out. I’m a weirdo, I’m okay with this. This time, I’ve been able to keep it short for three whole haircuts!
Nail polish has become my best friend.
I lost the cord to my laptop and wasn’t able to use it for five months.
I tried to write a novel and a book. I’m still trying.
I got bit by ants and discovered that I am allergic to all bug bites, not just bees and spiders.
I read a ton of books, I loved all of them except for Interview with the Vampire.
I took an unexpected and unscheduled trip to Vancouver and LOVED it.
All my other vacations sucked.
It’s been five years since tragedy hit our family and we’re all still alive.
I went blonde.
Huey turned twelve and Dewey turned eight which are banner years for kids belonging to our church.
Looking over this list, it looks like things were pretty okay. For the most part, they were, but things also really really sucked. There was a lot more whining and moaning and fighting and crying than I would deem necessary. I’m done with this year and so looking forward to lucky 2013.
Physically - Not sick, not that tired, my back hurts, my hips are stiff due to the weather. I went off the Dr. Pepper wagon for Christmas, but I'll be back on the wagon after the new year. It will be okay.
Emotionally - Happy. Had a good Christmas overall. My hair looks cool, my nails are pretty, and my skin feels great. Things with DH and are not the greatest right now, but it's because he's sick and grumpy and likes to pick fights with me to get attention.
Spiritually - Feeling the reason for the season. Sacrament meeting was a Christmas program by the choir and they did an amazing job.
Goal - Last week's goal was to enjoy Christmas. Since I only had to yell twice, and I didn't lose my mind, I'm considering this a goal accomplished.
This week's goal is to organize my craft room on New Year's day.
I have discovered that the one and only thing that gets me in the Spirit of Christmas is having the presents bought and wrapped. Not ugly decorations. Not lame music. Next year (as with most years) I plan on having Christmas presents purchased early. I think by Halloween would be a good goal this year.
This is how my Christmas went:
Plus: I had ordered some shirts for Huey online and was worried that they may not arrive in time for Christmas. They were some good shirts (one Monty Python, the other Dr. Who) and I was really excited to give him the Monty Python shirt. I had checked my email Sunday morning to find that they were delivered on Saturday. We had not had a package come to our door, so Dewey and I got dressed in our coats and boots (over our jammies) and made the trek to the mailbox. Happily, the package was there and we skipped home to wrap presents. I have found that the boys get really excited with what they are getting for each other and their dad (and probably me). We had a blast wrapping presents together; even though I am extra-specially anal about how packages are wrapped. Dewey and I had a great time acting like little elves running down the block in our jammies and scampering home with our treasures and wrapping them up and putting them under the tree.
Minus: DH was bound and determined to have Christmas morning in the family room this year. It would be a first – we’ve only been in the house six years. I had put up the tree in the front room (lights, minimal decorations, only for Dewey’s sake), and had hoped that DH would take care of the family room while I was running around in Canada. Came home, nothing done. Weekend after week after weekend and nothing. I did what I could to contribute to the cleaning so that decorations could be brought out, but the majority of it was DH’s stuff-that-shall-not-be-touched and he was the one that was making a big deal about having this awesome cozy family room Christmas, so I left it up to him. Saturday night with Huey’s help he cleaned up enough of an area to put the tree up, but left it. He asked me to “fluff” the tree while he was at work on Sunday and when he came home from work for dinner he would put the lights on. I was really tired after taking care of sick Dewey and church and feeding everyone, that I just sat down to close my eyes for a minute. Huey got all kinds of mad at me for not helping things along and took it upon himself to finish the decorating. When DH got home he found Dewey watching TV while Huey was attempting to put the outdoor lights on the tree. DH took over and got the tree lit and the boys decorated the tree Sunday night. There was still the issue of clutter everywhere and no room to open presents. By the time Christmas Eve came around, I had given up and was planning on just having Christmas in the front room, but DH assured me that he would finish taking care of things. I had made the trek to Smith’s in the snow with the rest of Bountiful and back and DH was still lying around. I had a bit of a temper tantrum as I was fed up with his procrastinating and listening to the boys nag me about the lack of presents under the tree. After dinner, he meandered downstairs and got to work. I thought I was going to lose my mind. He was done by 2 am Christmas morning.
Plus: When I went to Smith’s at noon, there was major traffic. There was a huge line just to get into the driveway. Genius that I am, I forgot that they are doing construction on one of the driveways, so I had to turn left into the other driveway. I waited an eternity for my turn to have someone coming the opposite direction stop and block traffic so that I could turn in. That really put some spring in my step. I got everything that I needed for my Christmas dinner and Christmas baking with a smile on my face. I was in such a good mood that I almost did a victory dance in the middle of the canned vegetable aisle.
Minus: DH stores all the purchased gifts in two of the safes, so I was unable to get to them in order to have the boys wrap their presents to each other and to their dad. With our schedules being what they are, I never had a chance to have the safes opened early enough for there to be lots of presents under the tree and for my peace of mind. I don’t know the combinations, nor do I want to. I started on Friday asking him to open the safes for me so that I could pull out the presents the boys were going to give each other and some of the presents DH bought for himself that the boys were going to give to him. Huey and Dewey kept nagging me because they wanted to wrap presents, and I had to keep putting them off because DH kept putting me off. I had to have a tantrum to get DH to open up the bloody safes. I really did not want to do any yelling at Christmas, but I only lasted until Christmas Eve.
Plus: I have new hair and I really, REALLY, really love it.
Minus: The boys think I look like Draco Malfoy, and DH thinks it looks “not natural” so none of the boys like it.
Plus: The snow that started while I was at Smith’s on Christmas Eve continued to fall all day, so we had a White Christmas.
Minus: I told DH that I didn’t need any presents because I got to go to Vancouver. I had sent him a couple of wish lists in November; all he had to do was click on the thing and purchase it. He’s home during the day and would be there when the packages were delivered so I would be none the wiser. I’m not sure I could have made it any easier. A) I told him I didn’t need or want anything, but if he wanted to get me anything, he could get me something from here. B) I told him I didn’t need or want anything. C) I made it as easy as possible for him to get me something. D) I really hate shopping for myself, so it would have been really nice for him to just bloody well get me something from the lists. E) I’m really picky. He kept telling me on Christmas Eve that he felt bad that he didn’t have very many presents for me. I kept telling him that I didn’t want anything while reminding him that I had sent him lists with links over a month ago and he had no excuse for not having “much” for me and if he had really wanted to get me some nice presents then he had plenty of time and opportunity. We went through the same thing last year – I told him not to get me anything because we had spent so much money on our (my) trip to Kauai; to just focus on presents for the boys. He ended up feeling guilty because I didn’t have much to unwrap, so he bought me a $200.00 guitar. A guitar that I don’t know how to play, don’t have time to play let alone take lessons to learn how to play, and have only touched three times since I got it. It’s beautiful and I love it, but all it does is collect dust, torture me with the reminder that I don’t have the time to learn how to play it, and haunt me because it was such a waste of money. I was so worried that he was going to do that this year, so I kept reassuring him that I didn’t need any money spent on me. I ended up receiving an ugly pair of slippers and an even uglier candle warmer thing. I already have two candle warmer things that I rarely use that are NOT ugly. Not wanting to ruin Christmas or make a big deal out of it, I said nothing and kept it to myself. I was wishing that if he was going to get me ugly crap for Christmas that he would just not buy me anything at all. I was also musing about how we’ve been together for sixteen Christmases and we still can’t buy gifts for each other; me because he can’t be patient and buys things for himself whenever he wants them, and him because he’s stupid. Being that DH loves to poke bears with sticks, he confronted me about it after all the presents were opened and the boys were off building their Lego sets. I was still trying to get over myself and move on, but still pretty upset because he hadn’t taken anything that I had said to him to heart, and disappointed that we suck at buying presents for each other. (he got a shirt, cologne, Lawrence of Arabia box set on blu-ray, and a Blu-ray player – the Blu-ray player and Blu-ray box set he had bought for himself). He kept poking and prodding me and trying to get me to fight with him, and I kept trying to end the conversation so that I could move on and not be a sad cat, but he kept poking and poking until I said some not-nice things and told him I wanted him to return the gifts and to just drop it.
Plus: I ended up getting over myself rather quickly.
Plus: He told me to go buy some things for myself and I am SO going to take him up on that.
Plus: The boys loved all their presents and they made out like bandits.
Plus: I made a delicious Christmas dinner. So much so that the two hours I spent on my feet cooking was totally worth it.
Minus: The boys complained about dinner. I made ham and vegetables and didn’t even make them eat any of the weird vegetables (like Brussels sprouts, turnips, and sweet potatoes) that I made just for me.
Plus: When I told Dewey, who was the loudest complainer, how long I had been cooking and how hard I had worked on this dinner and how much it hurt my feelings that he was complaining about dinner, he apologized and stopped complaining which inspired Huey to stop complaining too. Later that night when we were finishing The Prisoner of Azkaban he gave me a big hug and told me again how sorry he was for complaining about dinner.
Plus: Other than the fight that DH picked with me, there was no fighting and peace for the whole day.
Plus: I was able to take the time for a full body facial/hair removal session/manicure and try out a bunch of products I had received from Sephora but hadn’t had the time to sample yet. This was very relaxing and made me super happy.
Minus: I wanted to spend some time writing, but I didn’t have time because I was cooking.
Plus: Nanaimo Bars
Overall, I am putting this Christmas in the Win column.
We don’t live around any immediate family members, so our Christmas is all about us and the boys. Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. We are able to be just the four of us and there’s no drama or rushing around. Even though I get homesick this time of year and feel a need to be around extended family and would especially like for my boys to know their cousins better, I really do prefer how we have it. We have been able to set our own traditions and keep to ourselves, which is our favourite thing to do.
We have a few traditions:
Christmas eve we open a present. The present consists of a new ornament for the tree and new jammies. This is a tradition that DH and I always wanted to have but have just in the past few years been consistent enough to make it a real tradition. We’ve always been a little late to the party on these things.
The boys are allowed to get up before us and open their stocking and play with their gift from Santa. Santa doesn’t wrap gifts. This is a tradition that I had as a child that I am passing on because it’s awesome. It makes it so that the children do not wake up their parents at 4am in order to open presents. They get a mini box of cereal in their stocking so that they can have breakfast. We were never allowed to have “sugar” cereal growing up, but our stockings were an exception to this. This made it extra special. Each of us had our favourites; mine was Frosted Flakes, Mrs. Bowie’s was Corn Pops. I can’t remember what Brother’s or Baby Sister’s was. This way, our parents could sleep as long as they wanted to. The major rule was that there had to be a fire lit and we had to be ultra quiet. I always thought this was a brilliant tradition, especially now that I’m a parent that is up half the night filling stockings and putting together Santa gifts because the boys take for-freaking-ever to get to bed on Christmas Eve. Mama needs to sleep!
The funny thing about Christmas morning – I can’t sleep in. I have never been able to. Not as a kid, and not as an adult. There’s just something about the magic of Christmas morning. Everyone’s quiet but excited and happy. The boys want to show me what Santa brought. As a parent, Christmas has become more magical because I see the light in the boys’ eyes. I love seeing their reactions to their presents more than anything. I don’t even care about my own gifts. This year we’re supposed to have snow on Christmas Eve – I’m really excited about that.
None of my siblings can sleep in either. I wrote about our first Christmas as a married couple and how we drove up to Canada to surprise my family for Christmas. I still got up at the crack of dawn. I heard voices downstairs, so I knew that someone was up, so I tip-toed downstairs and Baby Sister and her boyfriend were already up. Soon after, Brother got up and Mrs. Bowie and her husband arrived. DH slept in through all of this. It was after ten and he still wasn’t up. My family made me go up and drag him out of bed. I could not believe how he could sleep in on Christmas morning! He’s still the last one up. I have to lure him out of bed with waffles.
That’s another tradition: I always make waffles for breakfast (after presents are unwrapped, of course). I make waffles on special occasions and sometimes for no reason at all, but on Christmas morning, I have special Christmas plates for the waffles.
Christmas Day is usually spent in our jammies. The boys always play with their new toys together, and there is rarely any fighting. We don’t have a turkey because DH’s cousins always have us over for Christmas dinner a few days before Christmas, but I usually make a roast “beast” (like in the Grinch) in the crock pot.
Depending on what day Christmas falls on, we will go and see a movie. Before we had kids, DH and I went to see a movie on Christmas Day a few times. I loved it and wanted to make it a tradition. We don’t always go on Christmas Day, but we normally go and see a movie some time during the holiday. Santa usually gives us a movie for Christmas, so we definitely watch that movie on Christmas Day. We also watch the Christmas Story marathon, and pull out the old classic Christmas specials that we have on DVD and watch those.
I always have time to read on Christmas. I don’t have anything that I’m craving to read right now, so I think I’m going to write this year.
DH always takes a big long nap.
I absolutely love our low-key, mellow, just-us Christmases.
I was wallowing in Scroogeland for quite some time, and after my Bah Humbug post, I decided to put on my big girl Santa socks and suck it up and enjoy the holiday for once in my life. Plus, I got Huey this really great shirt that I think he will totally dig and I can’t wait to give it to him!
I’ve been hearing everyone blogging and posting about the worst Christmas songs in the world, but I have decided to focus on the positive and list my favourite Christmas songs. I had been meaning to put together a playlist for some time to help me get in the Spirit this year, but I had just never got around to it.
The Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack – Vince Guaraldi This is the penultimate collection of Christmas music and the only thing I will tolerate at this time of year.
There are, however, some honourable mentions:
Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses
Little Drummer Boy – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Do They Know it’s Christmas? – Bandaid. And yes, I do own the recording on a 45” record as I purchased the single when it came out.
Winter Wonderland – Annie Lennox
Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana. Don’t ask me why, but every time I hear the Nevermind album, it reminds me of Christmas.
Dirty Boots – Sonic Youth. See explanation above.
We Three Kings – Sarah McLaughlin and the Barenaked Ladies
Silver Bells – Anne Murray. Don’t you judge me, I’m Canadian!
Oi to the World – No Doubt or the Vandals whichever, you choose.
The Little Drummer Boy – Bing Crosby and Davie Bowie.
Christmas Baby Please Come Home – Death Cab for Cutie
Mele Kalikimaka – Elvis Presley
Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
Hazy Shade of Winter – The Mamas and the Papas
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Bullet with Butterfly Wings – The Smashing Pumpkins. See explanation for Nirvana above.
I also remembered that I bought red jeans! I put on those bad boys, cranked my special Christmas playlist, and got Christmas Spirited all up in here!
Holy crap! With all the bah humbugging I’ve been doing lately, I almost forgot to Check-in!
I really love the check-in.
Physically: Sick. I have a cold. My sinuses hurt so much and my nose won’t stop running and I can’t breathe. Other than that, though, I am okay. I’m not tired or dying, my face just hurts. A lot. DH just got a prescription for a sinus infection. I REALLY don’t want a sinus infection, so I’m drinking plenty of water and sucking on lozenges and getting enough rest. I’ve also continued to avoid caffeine although today was very tempting.
Emotionally: Happy enough. I’m grumpy about Christmas but not nearly as much as I could be. Things with DH continue to be good even though we’re both sick and avoiding each other because of germs. We’re both looking forward to his new schedule so that we will be able to sit beside each other on the couch and watch TV together. I’m also looking forward to Christmas and having time off and time to spend with my boys.
Spiritually: The same. I didn’t go to church last week because Saturday and Sunday were my worst days and all I did was sleep. I think that’s why I don’t feel as bad as I could this week.
Goal: My goal last week was to have Christmas wrapped up. With the cold knocking me on my bum the goal did not get accomplished. I still have to get a couple more things, but it can be accomplished in one trip. If only I could get out of my house!
Hot chocolate is one of the best things in the world. An added bonus; Huey has informed me that I make the world’s best hot chocolate. He rarely tells me that I do anything right, so this is a very very good thing.
I bought a pair of Sorrels a couple of years ago and a whole new world has opened up to me. I had no idea that you could be out in the snow and NOT have cold, wet feet! Those boots are the best. I can wear them with pantyhose when I’m shoveling the driveway and still stay toasty warm.
Winter is fireplaces and snuggling and staying in. Winter is evergreen trees weighed down with snow.
Winter is bundling up and layering even more. Winter is wool socks and sweaters that are so cozy and warm. Winter is reading and writing and hunkering down with movie marathons.
Winter is an excuse to bake so that you can warm the house up.
Winter is snowball fights and throwing snowballs for the dog to chase and search for. (Where did that white ball go?) Winter is getting an excellent cardio workout by shoveling the driveway. Winter is finding a good hill for sledding.
Winter is coming in from the cold.
Winter is “Mom! Can I go outside? Please please please?”
Winter is Christmas Holidays.
Winter is a new year and new opportunities and hope.
Winter is remembering getting married to the man of my life.
Winter is Valentines day.
Winter is remembering the holidays we have taken in order to escape winter.
Winter is more reasons to walk the dog because he’s been cooped up inside all day going crazy. It’s watching the joy and wonder and sneezing as Orso snuffles through the snow. It’s the joy of watching Orso act like this is the best thing ever!
Winter can be dull and boring and blugh and cold and there is much to whine about with winter, but there are many awesome and beautiful things about winter so let's just focus on that, shall we?
