Saturday, December 31, 2011

Togetherness


I love my family.

There are very few activities that don't become just a little better when we do them together.

Today I was reminded of one.....

Friday, December 30, 2011

Comfort and Joy



These two words from my favorite Christmas carol describe this week between holidays perfectly.  I  love Christmas, but the week between Christmas and New Year is my very favorite.

I love the joy of a day spent with family, the look on faces when they open new things they have been dreaming and wishing for. I love the comfort of no more rushing, no more wrapping and no more wondering.....

What did I get?
Will he like his present?
What if it doesn't fit her?

Now is the time to watch epic movies (LOTR is a favorite anround here), read new books (I've already finished one), eat up those cookies so you never have to see them again (until next year) and play with new toys. 

I am even looking forward to this weekend, when to start my new year I will be taking down all our Christmas decorations with Gone With the Wind playing in the background all day.  I have done this for years, even the girl is looking forward to seeing Scarlet and Rhett.

So party all night and nurse your first hangover of the year on 1/1/12 if that's what you love to do, but frankly I don't give a damn...

Monday, December 26, 2011

And then it was done....

Christmas was wonderful....

The joy on our daughters face when she looked at us was worth every minute spent in a mall. 

We shared our day with family and had laughs and tears. We held a brand new sleeping puppy and marveled at his cuteness. We ate delicious things we only eat once a year ( my sister-in-laws Christmas pudding) and we came home tired and happy to put on new Christmas pajamas and watch the best movie ever made, It's a Wonderful Life.  I cry every time Mr, Gower hits poor George's bad ear and each time I see his friends and family come together to help him at the end.

May we all be as blessed as George Bailey...

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Freedom…


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…is that moment when you admit to yourself you will not get those knitted slippers done in time for Christmas.


Ahhhhhhhh…..



They will keep his feet just as toasty warm for New Years.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Ten On Tuesday


10 Things To Do Before Christmas


  1. Giftcards - I leave these to the very end because I hate them. I understand they are easy, but something about them just rubs me wrong. They never seem like enough, $25, really? But when I have to buy 5 of them at once and shell out over $100, I am annoyed.
  2. Watch 13 Christmas Movies - We are woefully behind on our holiday movies. I have no excuse, other than our level of laziness must have decreased from previous years. We have a Christmas chorus concert tonight, so I am going to have to do nothing but sit on my ass all day and watch Rankin & Bass if we are gonna pull this off.
  3. Stocking Stuffers - Another little thing that annoys me. After 24 Advent gifts and paying out the national debt in chocolate chips to make every melty, peanut butter treat on pintrest, sticking a shiny new penny and a clementine in that stocking seems like a good idea.
  4. Knitting - I have 1.5 slippers to knit and felt. I have 5 secret knitted gifts to finish for my aunts and a hat to line and finish.....by Friday (this is where those movies come in!)
  5. Christmas Cards - My cards are done and have been for weeks. They are sitting on the back sit of my car, sorted and ready for stamps. See gift cards and stocking stuffers.....annoyed.
  6. Christmas Lights - All month I have wanted to go see the Christmas light show at the lake. Now we are into the last week before Christmas and I am running out of opportunities.
  7. Christmas Eve - We are having people over, I guess I should have a plan....
  8. Be Thankful - I desperately want a moment to sit in the glow of the tree lights and appreciate all that we have. I am too busy making it happen to enjoy it.
  9. Bruggers Bagels - These bagels have been a tradition since my mom died and my dad used them to replace a big Christmas morning breakfast. Our local shop was chased out of town by Tim Horton's and their crappy bagels. My husband will have to get us some from the "big city"
  10. Pickle Present - Every year we hid the pickle ornament in the tree and the kid gets an extra present if she can find it. It still must be hid and a special gift selected.
Well, I thought I was pretty caught up until I started this list. Thanks a lot, Carole.

***Update***

I HATE THE POST OFFICE. I finally psyched myself up to go in and buy $30 worth of stamps for my Christmas cards, only to be told EACH CARD required another .20 cent stamp because they were too small!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! This is why snail mail is dead. I will not be sending the "too small" cards at .64 cents each. To all of my friends and family who are waiting by their mailbox for our annual card, go inside and have a cookie and hot toddy because that shit ain't coming....

Friday, December 16, 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Hustle & Flow


 
We are in full holiday tilt over here and the month seems to be flying. Today is my one day off a week and I have so many little details to work on that I almost want to just sit in my chair and knit to a marathon of National Treasure, do you ever feel like that?

 
Here are some bullet points of the last 13 days....

 
  • The sun porch (cold room) is full of fudge, white trash, cookies, peanut butter balls and a Oreo/Reese's combo that is still in the works. Even with all that chocolate some people still ask me if there is anything good to eat, jeesh....
  • We are behind on our Christmas movie list, but we have not given up. We took a break to watch Friends With Benefits, JT was adorable.
  • We have been to one Christmas get together and we have another one this weekend, yay!
  • I am completely caught up with wrapping and now am just doing them up as they arrive.
  • We had a dusting of snow that is melting away as we speak and the child is getting nervous about her white Christmas.

 
Now I think I will go toss a coin to see what gets done today....

Saturday, December 10, 2011

And that's why I love him....

Yesterday was our sixteenth wedding anniversary and we decided, after many years of threatening it, to each take the day off and spend it together. After we shipped the teenager off to school and we got back in bed and snuggled under the still warm blankets to discuss what we would do with our stolen time.

  1. Definitely a big breakfast. ( I made french toast and fruit salad)
  2. An after-breakfast nap. (there was no sleeping hehehehehehe)
  3. Visit dad at the nursing home. (not very romantic, but we managed to have a few laughs)
  4. Make our first trip to the local Amish Country Store.

This is where I stop to tell you how adorable and sweet my husband is.  While I was bent over in the bakery isle, checking out the delicious goodies, he put a small box with a bow nestled in amongst the pies!  It was a complete surprise! (I know you started thinking dirty after "bent over", shame on you)

We finished up with a family Christmas shopping trip to the city and a very disappointing dinner at The Melting Pot.

A good day. After all these years together he still knows how to surprise me.

xoxo

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Ten On Tuesday



I am a sucker for traditions. I love them. I love the security and comfort that comes with the repetitiveness of them. Christmas traditions are the  best and we have many...

1. Christmas Music - I could, and sometimes do, listen to Christmas music 24 hours a day. I am one of those people that is super excited when they start playing them on the radio in October.

2. Christmas Movies - We have a list of our favorite movies for each holiday. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. The Christmas one is the longest, we try to watch one a day until the 25th and then A Christmas Story marathon on TBS is usually in the background of our festivities.

3. Christmas Treats - My daughter and I make the same stuff every year. Fudge, white trash, truffles, peppermint bark, mincemeat cookies and buckeyes. This year we have been swallowed whole by pintrest and have discovered some delicious goodies that we may have to add to our list.

4. Mimosas - Christmas is a long day and I truly feel that you can't give it your best with out a mimosa for breakfast and a bloody mary for lunch. Who's with me?!

5. Christmas Pageants - We use to go to our church pageant when our girl was little. She was an angel one year, a sheep one year and one year she even got to be the Virgin Mary with her baby doll ,Jermaine Johnson, in her arms as the Baby Jesus.  Now that she is older we go to her chorus concert at school and I am always brought to tears by it.

6. Christmas Stories - I read the Little House on the Prairie books every winter. Almost every book has a Christmas celebration in it and I love to experience the joy of the holiday with Laura and her family.

7. The Bailey Girls Christmas - When I was growing up Christmas Eve was spent at my grandparents house with the whole family.  These memories are still some of my very favorite .  Shortly after I got married and had our daughter my grandparents packed up and moved to Florida for the winters. My aunts get us all together each year to celebrate and moan about being left behind. I look forward to it each year.

8. Christmas Presents - I love to wrap presents. I am on a life long quest for the perfect gift label. I turn on my itunes, Christmas music of course, and wrap away in my present cave. It is one of my favorite parts of the holiday.

9. Hu-Lane Farms - My husband and I had a December wedding and we went to a small tree farm here in town to get our trees and wreaths to decorate our hall with. We have gone back every year and the sweet, elderly couple that own the farm never forget us. They always wish us a happy anniversary. We have taken our girl with us since she was bundled in a baby snowsuit to hike out into the field and help her daddy cut down a tree. Now our 6' girl smiles down on cute Mrs. D and could pat her on the head if she wanted too.

10. Christmas Morning - My husband and always get up  go downstairs first and make our daughter wait at the top of the stairs. She has to sit up there until our coffee is ready. It is pure torture. This year we have a Keurig, she is thrilled....

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Bury Christmess

The chaos of the season is upon us and I can hardly get a breath!  Between the confused Fed-Ex man that has left a door tag requiring a signature on each of the outside doors to our house, the tower of boxes brought down from the attic filled with our Christmas cheer and the Russian roulette of opening multiple Amazon boxes, I forgot to tell you about my prize!!!



Pam at Living Rancho Delux, had a little giveaway a few weeks ago and I won!!  She was giving away a copy of The Beekman Boys Heirloom Cookbook. I have always been interested in the boys, mainly because I have a little hometown version of my own.  I was so excited to win and I got a wonderful little package in the mail this week, complete with chocolate!!! 

Today is back to the chaos of setting up Christmas, but come happy hour I know I will get to sit and sip and glance through my new cookbook. Thank you Pam!!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Earth has no sorrow that heaven can not heal.....



Don't let this beautiful girl die in vain.
Please make a stand against bullying.



A freshman from Spencerport, NY committed suicide because of kids that had nothing better to do than bully her and bring her self-esteem down. Her name was Cameron Lee DeVeronica, She was born on 2.16.1997 and she passed away 11.29.2011. I did not know her personally but someone made a page for her and people got on it with fake facebook accounts and continued bullying but I'm going to be sure to do everything in my power to make sure that this does not happen on this page. People need to come together and shut down the bullies in any way they can, we need to make sure that this beautiful girl has not died in vain and something is done to stop them in any way that we can. Not the same way they bullied this beautiful girl though... I don't want you to use words.. no matter how hard it may be because you want to fight back.. Facebook has options to report for a reason, lets use them. I will delete and remove anything I see as soon as I can and if you see it before I do REPORT, REPORT, REPORT!!! The more you feed into this, the more they will come back. LETS MAKE A DIFFERENCE PEOPLE! Lets make this page about honoring Cameron and all those others out there being bullied! Lets make this a page they can come to and see that there are people out there that care, even if they haven't met them yet...

*That girl or guy next to you that may not have the best clothes, or the perfect hair or figure, or money, or may not look "good"... but they may have the best, sweetest, funniest, caring personality than anyone you will ever meet in your life...and you wouldn't know it because you don't want to take the chance to get to know them because of how they look... next time think about this...and walk up and start a conversation with them... maybe you'll come to understand that looks and clothes aren't everything...and that person could be your best friend*


This picture and description were taken from the RIP Cameron DeVeronica page on facebook.  These words are mine.

I know this little girl, she has been here in our home and laughed with my own daughter. I can't even imagine what her parents must be feeling right now. I can't imagine what she must have been feeling to do this. The sadness, the loneliness and the creeping doubt in herself must have been horrible.

Why? What makes kids do this to each other? How does it happen? Who's at fault? Does anyone think their child could torment another so badly that they would rather die than face another day of it?  I can't imagine my daughter being that cruel. But somebodies daughter was, somewhere there is a girl or more like two or three, that did this.  How do they feel? How does their mother feel?

My daughter has been bullied. She has been made fun of. She's been harassed. Each time it broke my heart. I held her while she cried and asked me why.  I tried to make it better and I tried to help her work through it.  Time passes and things change.

That's what I wish I could say to Cameron, that even though right now is bad, it will get better. 

I wish she had time for it to get better.....







Thursday, December 1, 2011

25 Days of Christmas


It is finally December and that means CHRISTMAS!!!!  My very favorite time of year is right now. I have been listening to holiday music for a month already. I have my grocery lists ready so we can start making all of our delicious treats and I have even got some shopping done!

We have had some sort of advent calendar since our teenager was just a baby. We started with one of those cardboard ones that you opened a little door and saw a little picture each day. We had the same one for years and she was just as excited to open that little door as if she hadn't seen it the year before.

Then my Martha Stewart kicked in and I made twenty five little felt mittens that were numbered and we hung one on a tiny tree every morning, another big hit that we used for years.

About two years ago we made a tiny matchbook tower with numbered drawers and put a tiny little gift in each box to be opened every morning. While she loved this one, I found it hard to find things that would fit in the small boxes.  No reason to add this kind of stress to the holidays.

This year I decided to knit twenty five mittens and hang them on a garland. I finished the 23rd mitten last night and had to admit to myself that I couldn't do them all before the first of December. So I concentrated on the ones I had and two will just be a little late to the party!

She woke up this morning and was thrilled, of course that might be because we can fit bigger presents in the mittens, but I like to think it's because she realizes all of the love her mother knit into each one. 

Yeah, it's the bigger gifts....