12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

10 Books you'd like to read in 2014 (3rd January)

Here are the top 10 on my Goodreads Up-Next List:

1. Perfect Escape - Jennifer Brown
2. Trapeze - Simon Mawer
3. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ben Fountain
4. The Fear Index - Robert Harris
5. The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen - Thomas Caplan
6. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
7. Five Days at Memorial - Sheri Fink
8. Tenth of December - George Saunders
9. Fosse - Sam Wasson
10. With or Without You - Domenica Ruta

There are 25 on that list and 97 titles on the To-Read. I'm never, EVER, going to catch up!

11 Memories from Christmastide throughout your life (4th January)

These are purely random.

1. The Christmas of the Barbie Dream House
2. The Christmas I Got the Flu AND a Sickroom Visit From My Dad
3. The Clothes Christmas (no toys, nothing fun---it was either the year before or the year after the Barbie Dream House)
4. The Christmas I Got No Books (Beast never did that again!)
5. The Christmas of Revere-ware
6. The Christmas of 1994 (two family funerals the month prior to December 25)
7. Sparky's Third Christmas (his grandparents sent so much that he actually got bored with opening presents...smh)
8. The Christmas Katherine Went Gonzo
9. The Christmas I got a The Huge Box (it was big enough to be my coffin ... filled with newspapers and bricks--with a record album taped inconspicuously to one side)
10. The Christmas When Death Trumped Both an Emergency Hospitalization and a Ransacked Hotel Room
11. The First Christmas My Mother Ever Spent Away From (her) Home (at age 50-something)

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12 Days of Christmas Challenge

2 Foods you can’t get through Christmas without (26th December)

Well, there's peppermint. And fudge. And cookies, and more cookies, and cookies out the wazoo! Usually I get a bag of Sour Patch Kids in my stocking, but Santa brought me Ghirardelli this year instead. Obviously, Christmas for me has nothing to do with meals, just dessert. ;-)

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12 Days of Christmas Challenge

1 thing I got for Christmas (25th December)

Hard to pick one material item. My best gift is a drama-free day, but I got some good books and silly things too:

• A Chia cat grass planter (for the guinea pigs, ostensibly)
  
• Two packages of Ghirardelli's Holiday Impressions chocolate squares
  
• The Complete Beat, all of The English Beat's recordings on CD [squee!]
  
• A Cash Cab daily calendar 
  
• Jesus Christ Superstar on CD
  
• A Hogwarts snowglobe kit
  
• Now Panic and Freak Out
  
• Salt & Pepper Shaker price guide [Beast says he ordered it at Amazon and it was sent from a town 10 miles from us--and it's a withdrawn library book. Wierd....]
  
• Kirk and Spock magnetic salt & pepper shakers [squee! and cue the K/S fanfic] 
  
• National Geographic's Who's Who in the Bible 
  
• One large, fat candycane  
  
• The Last Week
  

So yeah, I cheated but by far the best gift is the one that isn't pictured.

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Holidailies

12-22 -
Show us your favorite holiday decorations.

I don't usually do photo posts, but I did take a few pictures for this one. Sparky refused to let me take his picture in spite of sitting on the couch next to me wearing a Santa hat. So aside from that....here are four things that mean Christmas to me:

Santa, as painted on porcelain-ware about 40 years ago by my sister Ellen.

"The Beginning of the Birds"--a gift received from a former coworker of Beast over 25 years ago. It's about the size of my fist and made of china.

As far as Beast is concerned, Christmas can't happen unless this candle is burning as we open our presents. It's a German tradition, and this is a German Christmas candle which has burned for about an hour every year for the past 27 Christmases, a gift from FIL and MIL for Beast's and my first Christmas together.

Our crèche. The "stable" is from another set, but I painted all the porcelain-ware figures in 1994.
No Jesus yet--he will arrive overnight on Christmas Eve.

We only put up about half the decorations and ornaments this year. We could probably start a shop with all the stuff still packed up... sigh

Holidailies

12-21 -
Today is the winter solstice - the 'shortest' day of the year for the northern hemisphere (the 'longest' for the southern). Do you do anything special to mark the occasion?

I worked today. And it was foggy and gross weather today, as we await being slammed by a serious storm this afternoon and overnight, with exactly zero sun peeking through. I'm all for the days getting longer, but I didn't really celebrate. If you did, happy Yule to you!

Holidailies

12-19 -
What is your favorite group or family activity to do during the holiday season?

Hmmm. I guess decorating the tree, or that New Year's fondue. Or Christmas Eve traditions: church and Chinese dinner.

12-20 -
Share your holiday crafting skills. What do you make, either for gifts, or for your yourself?

Ha ha ha ha. Funniest question of the month. I don't do crafts.

Holidailies

12-17 -
Elf on a Shelf - adorable childhood tradition, or creepy stalker? Discuss!

I only heard about this for the first time about 3 years ago (at most). I think it's bizarre. The Elf isn't even cute, and the concept is vaguely annoying. Then again, I know someone who moves the Wise Men into the creche, closer and closer, all throughout the Christmas season till they actually arrive on Three Kings Day. That's equally bizarre, to me. Way too much heavy thinking involved in both of these traditions. How long has this Shelfy Elf actually been a 'thing' anyway?

Holidailies

12-16 -
What is something you did / experienced for the very first time this year?

Does the complete lack of Christmas shopping spirit count? I may be shopping on Christmas Eve at this rate. I was in Kohl's today and got completely nauseous from anxiety. Ugh.

Holidailies

12-15 -
What do you miss the most from your childhood holidays, now that you are an adult?

The fact that I didn't used to have to plan anything, and things just happened magically (through a lot of hard work from my mom, mostly). Now I realize how much effort she put into things, and I don't even come close to that level of work. And I'm not interested in it, since there are no little kids around. Sparky couldn't care less, and Beast isn't in a great place for celebrating this year, so we're kinda doing the bare minimum.

Holidailies

12-14 -
Grinch Week: To whom it may concern. Write a letter to the person / company / group annoying you the most this holiday season (examples - the radio station that keeps playing that horrible song; the guy down the street with the excess of tacky decorations; whoever it was who thought adding peppermint to a mocha was a good idea).

Dear Victorians,
Thank you for all the lovely traditions you began in your erstwhile earnestness to see that everyone had a job to do during the Yuletide. However, now that we no longer have servants up the wazoo, I curse you every year for instituting the Christmas card tradition, the Christmas pudding tradition, the tree-decorating tradition, the making-of-cookies tradition (though I'm not sure if this is truly Victorian), the giant freaking Christmas dinner tradition, the massive commercialized gift-giving tradition, and all the other things that absolutely require servants to do "properly" without losing one's mind for the entire month of December. Everyone now thinks that' all of this is what Christmas should look like, but there is pretty much no one out there who can accomplish the whole thing while keeping a good sense of joy and anticipation on tap for the, y'know, reason we celebrate in the first place. The only thing I'm on board with you-all about is Boxing Day, which we in the U.S. at least have conveniently forgotten about under duress from the "Post-Christmas-Sale" crowd.

In the inimitable words of Waylon Jennings, who probably didn't do any of this stuff, y'all can just shove it!

I remain, with a large and very full glass of wassail, yours,
Cat.

Holidailies

12-13 -
Grinch Week: Holiday pet peeves. Everyone's got at least one. What's yours?

I wish people would listen to the message of Christmas more than they participate in the rest of the Christmas folderol. I can't really understand the point of celebrating Peace on Earth if you're busy causing LESS PEACE. ...sigh.

12-12 -
Grinch Week: I cannot stand "It's a Wonderful Life". Now it's your turn. What beloved holiday movie / TV show /play just leaves you cold?

I've never seen that movie. Beast loves "Scrooged" but I just think it's hokey. I'm pretty much over Peanuts/Rudolph/Grinches/Frosty and all the others too--have been for years. I'm kind of Grinchy about the whole Hollywood thing.

I should probably link so people can figure out where these are actually coming from:

Holidailies

12-11 -
Grinch Week: Kids these days! (alternative title - "Back in *my* day...)

I try very hard NOT to say either of these things without deep irony-slash-sarcasm. Kids are kids, regardless, and I'm sure when I was a kid a lot of people felt I was an entitled toerag. I will say that I'm glad I am not a kid today, specifically a teenager, because the stresses and fears and pressures seem so much greater than they did when I was younger. Maybe that's just having a larger worldview than I did then, and maybe it's partly that I wouldn't want to revisit those (teenage) years under ANY circumstances.... Regardless, there really is nothing new under the sun, and most kids are awesome. Only the small percentage of really horrible kids get most of the attention from crabby adults, which is a shame; they'd be less crabby if they noticed the thousands of pretty cool people they ignore!

A Week's Worth of Holidailies

12-03
Share your favorite holiday recipe. Where / when did you first try it?

During the 70s we, like everyone else that decade, discovered fondue pots. So from that point on, on New Year's Eve, we had a family fondue. Not cheese, not chocolate, but meat and veggies in peanut oil as we sat around the pot on the kitchen table. Mom made about half a dozen different kinds of sauces for dipping after things were cooked, and we had other stuff to eat while we waited for our food to cook. It was always fun because there was plenty of time for conversation and laughter--and for first aid for fork-stabbed hands. I miss the big crowd around the fondue pot, but we still do it here every year, even with just the three of us.

12-04
What is your favorite holiday tradition?

I really love advent wreaths, but I haven't done one at home in years. By the time I remember to get stuff together, it's usually past the first Sunday, so I don't see the point. Maybe next year I'll get my act together.

12-05
What is the best gift you have ever received?

I guess the Christmas of Pots and Pans was pretty good, mostly because we have pictures of me being stupid with them after opening each one. I'm just grateful for all the gifts, small and large, remembered and forgotten, that were given from the heart from people who really 'get' me. I even enjoy white elephant exchanges when everyone is on the same page.

12-06
What is the best gift you have ever given?

As above, I love to see that I've hit a bull's-eye on a gift. It doesn't really matter so much what the gift actually IS as long as the recipient's eyes light up and they forget to say thank you or anything much else because they're so stunned/excited.

12-07
Time to channel your inner child. Write a letter to Santa.

"Dear Santa, I have tried very hard to be a good girl this year. Please don't bring me anything but a changed attitude and a bag of Sourpatch Kids, but if you could manage a few days of Peace on Earth at some point in 2014, that would be so wonderful. Thank you."
To be honest, I'm much better these days at writing letters from Santa. Just as Sparky! ;-)

12-08
Grinch Week! What holiday tradition do you wish would please just go away?

Christmas cards. Not because I don't like receiving them--I absolutely do!--but because I hate doing them. They are hugely stressful and a giant waste of resources especially those that arrive with no letter or pictures. We aren't sending any this year again for the second year in a row. Maybe the third. It feels wonderful not to have that hanging over our heads!

12-09
Grinch Week! What currently popular meme / trend do you just not get?

Well, the whole "Christmas music 24/7 starting in November" thing annoys me. People have completely forgotten that religious Christmas songs are meant to be sung in the Christmas season, that is, AFTER Jesus' birth. And Christmas season lasts, yes, just 12 days, till January 6. So singing "Silent Night" in November is a million kinds of wrong. [this, of course, doesn't mean I cheat every year, but not 24/7 for a month!]

12-10
Grinch Week! Tell us about that traditional holiday food you just can't stand.

My mom used to make a kazillion kinds of cookies and candies for Christmas--a tradition I did away with years ago, by the way. She rarely made fruitcake, though, because...YUCK. Who the heck eats those things?? Actually, she did like a slice or two, but she was literally the ONLY person in the house, and even she couldn't justify making a fruitcake just for herself.

I'm really hoping to get back on this pony on a daily basis tomorrow. We'll see how that works out!

Holidailies

What is your favorite holiday song (and why)?

"Silent Night" for the win, every time, at least when it's done right. I also like "We Three Kings" when performed by someone with the perfect voice for it. And "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" which is just fun to sing. Basically, toss me a hymnal and I'll like most of them. I'm kinda over (understatement) secular songs, primarily because they are played TOO DAMN MANY TIMES, but I have a soft spot in my heart for "Feliz Navidad" because it reminds me of my childhood.

Holidailies

Welcome to Holidailies! Introduce yourself!

I am Cat. It's not my real name. It a nickname of a nickname, chosen to use online instead of my actual name. Because my real name is extremely unusual--I just Googled it and found only me--I only use it for 'real stuff' online. I'm a librarian, a wife, a mom, a Presbyterian, an Al-Anon member, a reader, and a Sudoku nut. I also like crosswords and jigsaws. I teach Sunday School, volunteer at the high school from which my son graduated, and I love kids.

Thanksgivukkah

Your Thanksgiving Name Is: November America

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.

What's Your Thanksgiving Name?

My gratefulness list:

• My families: of birth, of marriage, of choice, of friends and neighbors.
• ...especially Sparky, who noticed last night at dinner that I got my hair cut. OK, so it's been 19 months since I whacked off about 10", but he did notice...!
• Oatmeal baths. 
• God. 
• Being able to celebrate Hanukkah today. So cool.
• Healing and people who are wise in the way of cures and medicine.
• Quick-prep breakfast food.
• Options.
• Central heat, indoor plumbing, and a pretty fabulous house.
• Guinea pigs.
• Ridiculous parades. And football.
• Life.

My wish for all is that you can make a list like this one of all the lights in your surroundings. Blessings upon you and yours today and always.

It's too early to go to bed

I woke up this morning at 9:15, so it's far too early for me to hit the sheets. However, the rest of the humans are already in bed, and even the guinea pigs are eerily quiet. I'm a little bored. A little antsy. And little...piqued.

My mouth hurts. I wasn't able to get hold of the dentist today, even to leave a message, because their phone tripped right over into that fast busy signal that indicates problems on the line.

I can feel several things hanging off my shoulder to be worried about soon: new insurance in 6 days, new prescriptions need to written and sent for mail-order delivery, new schedule at work, family arriving this weekend. And there are the more immediate worries that I'm adamantly trying not to dwell on because they are more serious than any of the above, with no real good solutions. I'm in a quandary about some stuff and don't like any of the outcomes I see. The fact that I can't control any of it, not really, is making me cranky, bitter, sad, and defeated. And it's all just in time for the onset of the worst part of the year in terms of SAD. This must be the part of middle age that just sucks: the reality that the easiest years of life are over and everything to come is complicated and potentially difficult, with traps and mires everywhere both visible and sneaky. I don't like it.

This week is going to be a little bumpy at work as well. There are quite a few people on vacation, so I'll be pulling more public hours. The boss is probably back in more regularly after several weeks off on vacation and then ill, so she'll need hand-holding as she gets up to speed. My desk is a mess--I haven't properly cleared it off and cleaned it in months, possibly over a year, and it is making me a little nuts. {And let's not even discuss the state of my desk at home...because it's at the point that a lit match may be the only way to deal with it...}

I want to get my plane ticket and hotel sorted out for ALA Midwinter next month. It's another one of those things hanging off my right shoulder about ear level, floating, waiting to pounce and cause a total mental meltdown.

I miss my dad today, too, and Beast's dad. And, more unusually, my mom. There are a lot of days that I think of her--this is one of them--and wonder how the hell she did it. As fraught as our relationship was, I knew she didn't have a particularly easy life. How did she manage to keep her body and soul together when things were falling apart around her so often? That is something I never thought to ask her, and now, when I need to know the answer, it's a little hard to hear her voice. Yeah, right: my tooth hurts, so I want my mommy, OK?

And all of this on a day when I actually accomplished some stuff: Sparky has two new pairs of shoes (Christmas presents) purchased at Famous Footwear this morning, I have 'provisions' in for the week, I actually cooked dinner tonight using a new recipe for something I can't find my old standby recipe for--and even though I boiled over the white sauce in the microwave, I managed to salvage dinner well enough for it to be edible--and we watched Harry Potter...Hallows...2 so I can return it to the library tomorrow FINALLY. It's only 2 weeks-ish overdue!

Perhaps it is time for me to go to bed. I think two Tylenol PMs should help me immeasurably: take away the tooth pain and relax me enough to banish the bogeymen (i.e. worries) for a few hours.

Merry (belated) Christmas

...and happy Kwanzaa and Boxing Day.

Sparky and I are going shoe-shopping (for him) today, and we need some groceries. The shoes are part of his Xmas prezzies, but I don't buy shoes unless the wearer has tried them on. So...off we go, in a bit.

Meanwhile, I'll just write that yesterday was a most excellent day. Lots of very good presents for me, Beast and Sparky both seemed happy with their haul, and we didn't do ANYthing all day. Skyped with the Tennesseeans for a bit, noshed our way around the kitchen, I took a nap, we all played with our new toys and read and lounged. The Packers beat the Bears in the evening, and we all headed to bed feeling that all was right with the world.

Then I brushed my teeth and ended up with tiny pieces of molar floating around my mouth. Yup: broken back tooth, basically one of the cusps on one of my 12-year molars sheared right off. So, I get to go to the dentist this week (once they get their phones fixed--right now, I just get the 'out-of-service' honking noise when I call--and I can't eat any of the candy Santa brought, or much of anything else, really.

So, off we go to the store to distract myself from a mildly achy mouth. If this is the price I have to pay for a really superb day, I'm ok with it.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas with no broken body parts.

As posted elsewhere, my list of things to do today looked like this:

• Make cookies
• Wash bedspread
• Wash lingerie
• Finish wrapping presents
• Christmas cards
• Clean our bathroom (the one in our bedroom)

I could probably send a few last Christmas cards, but otherwise every single thing is done, and done well. This is unusual; I usually have an unrealistic view of my time and energy and create lists that are insane. I wasn't sure I'd actually finish all 6 things today, but I did. Yes, there are still a few gifts to wrap, but the recipient won't be around tomorrow, so I did procrastinate on those. And technically, Sparky made the cookies--throwing two kinds of prepackaged chips in a graham cracker crust, sprinkling with coconut and baking them for a half hour hardly constitutes "making cookies."

All that's left to do is get my hair sorted out (post-shower) and then the evening's activities can commence: Chinese food, Christmas-light viewing, and church. I should be in bed by 12:30ish. I just asked Sparky if he's leaving a note for Santa, and got a negative-sounding grunt in response.

Abdicate

As usual, my family is proving to be much more lovable in theory and at a distance. My sister is due to arrive in the area the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She and Jan will be staying with their daughter (my niece Katherine) and her (long-suffering) husband, Alan. We have hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the majority of the past 8 years. Katherine and Alan, Alan's mother and step-dad, and my two nephews (another branch of my family) have been the usual contingent, along with FIL the last few years. And Amy, if she's willing to tolerate my family's insanity. My assumption--uh-oh, right?--was that I'd do the usual thing this year again, with Jan and Marie added to the crowd. So I ordered a fresh turkey. We're all good to let the festivities commence.

Then Katherine decided she wanted to do Thanksgiving at her house for Alan's family. Because, after all, Mom will be there to help (i.e., do all the planning and work).

Except that's not going to work because ... I don't really know why. So then the plan was to host everyone from Jan's family (he grew up in this area and his sisters and their families still live here), and us.

Keep in mind that if there are more than 8 people in their living room, we will have to go outside to change our minds. It's a teeny-tiny house. With fucking long-haired cats in it, to boot. {{aah-CHOO}}

Katherine works Friday morning and Saturday morning. I work Friday all day. The backup plan my sister has hatched is to have a leftovers kind of meal on Saturday afternoon at our house. Uh, no. See above re turkey, all 20 lbs. of it.

By the way, no one has mentioned any of this hullabaloo to my nephews to find out if they want to come on a weekend instead of Thursday. And, oh, yeah, FIL is falling through the cracks a bit here. [I couldn't really care less about Alan's mom and stepdad.]

Here's the email I just sent Marie and Katherine:

I'm not sure how this is all going to work, honestly. I need to check in with [Beast] yet, since he has not yet returned after his dad's surgery, but just so everyone knows, I have pre-ordered a turkey, so "just leftovers" on Saturday isn't going to work for us. I actually don't mind cooking the whole meal; it's the one time each year I make a big deal in the kitchen.

It seems that everyone's schedule is completely incongruent with other people's. [Beast] will be out of town earlier the week of Thanksgiving and may be traveling other weeks too. One of my coworkers will be on maternity leave starting any day and that means that I will need to pull extra hours if I have any chance at all of keeping my head above water. And we're doing fundraisers at church for youth group.

As for my schedule at this point, I work [weekdays]. I also work Sat 12/9. I put in a few hours every Monday morning at [Sparky]'s school library as well. We will be taking the youth group kids [shopping in the Big City] on Sunday 12/5, and I'm sure the bell choir will be playing on 12/12 for music Sunday. Those are the definite dates. I think we'll be doing fundraiser stuff at a lock-in at church on 12/10. Maybe. We might be able to push it off till the following weekend if necessary.

OK, I'm off to figure out something for [Sparky] and me to eat while [Beast] cools his heels at CVS with everyone else who needs scrips filled tonight.

Do I sound a right bitch? Well, fuck: I don't care. I'm so very tired of people just assuming that my time is infinitely juggle-able. It's not. I'd love to be able to drop everything and reschedule because of other people's emergencies* or brainstorms, but I just can't. Things are literally cram-jammed into a general semblance of coherence that is frequently upset by our own personal "course-corrections." Like FIL's surgery. Sparky's work schedule. Car problems.

Gah. I want my private island now. Me, my nephews, Amy, Jenny, FIL, and my own household. That's ALL! Oh, and any of my blog friends. And if that makes me Queen Bitch, so be it.
______________
* My attitude was not helped in any way earlier today by having to cover for the sudden departure from work of Miss W. for an emergency. Her grandson fell and banged himself up. She had to go hold her daughter's hand. How the hell did I survive Sparky's childhood without any local hand-holders besides Beast? I mean, really.