I got this Christmas meme from my friend and fellow blogger BettyandBoo’sMom. Feel free to play along on your blog too.
Wrapping paper or gift bags? Depends on what is being wrapped.
Real tree or Artificial? Real, and we are getting ours today from the same place we get it every year.
When do you put up the tree? Usually the second weekend in December.
When do you take the tree down? New Year’s weekend.
Do you like eggnog? No.
Favorite gift received as a child? I had this ballerina doll that spun when you held her crown.
Hardest person to buy for? I’m actually having a hard time with many people on my list this year for some reason. That’s unusual for me. Normally though, I think it’s my father.
Easiest person to buy for? Kids, of course. Though I do find every year there’s one person — and that person changes annually — for whom I see unlimited possibilities.
Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. It’s made by Fisher Price and all the pieces are Little People.
Mail or email Christmas cards? Cards.
Worst Christmas gift you ever received? The guy I dated before I met Manfrengensen — His mom never really liked me for some reason (like she had mental problems), anyway, she gave me a battery powered screwdriver. What do you think she was trying to say?
Favorite Christmas Movie? It’s a Wonderful Life is of course a classic that I refer to often. Though of the more modern films, I love Elf.
When do you start shopping for Christmas? I usually start seeing things that might fit certain people on my list around Halloween. I might start purchasing then, but not always. I like to be more than half-finished by Thanksgiving.
Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No, but I have given things away as non-presents.
Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? This one woman in my cookie swap makes these peanut-butter-chocolate things (in the background hear Homer Simpson gargle), other than that — everything. Both my parents and Manrengensen’s are awesome cooks.
Lights on the tree? Yes. I like colored ones, though lately Manfrengensen has been into the white ones.
Favorite Christmas song? “Jingle Bell Rock.” Also, a good version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” has been known to make me cry.
Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Home.
Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
Yes.
Angel on the tree top or a star? Star made out of yellow felt and a recycled toilet paper roll. I made it myself a few years ago.
Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Manfrengensen and I exchange ours on Christmas Eve.
Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Traffic.
Favorite ornament theme or color? When we first got married, my mother-in-law gave me these really nice ones that have a NYC theme. I like pulling those out.
Favorite for Christmas dinner? Turkey and my mother-in-law’s twice-baked taters.
What do you want for Christmas this year? An inexpensive watch that I can wear every day. Other than that, everything I need is right here.
What is your favorite thing about the holidays?
I love being together with family. Both of our sides are fun and close. There are a lot of laughs every year, and it’s just good to have all of our siblings come home.
I also love the excitement of the kids. That magical belief in Santa Claus and all the anticipation of his visit. I love putting out the cookies and milk, how the kids check for that in the morning. I love how they climb into our bed first thing and wait for us to go down the stairs.
The Princess and I had to run to the grocery store first thing this morning. I was determined that we would have a good day today, especially on the heels of yesterday. We started with the potty training, and I just felt like we were fighting all day. She resented that I was trying to make her do this thing she has no interest in doing, and I resented the fact that she was making me mop the floor every couple of hours. But I don’t think I am being unreasonable. She’s more than three-years-old. It’s just time. Past time. I keep telling myself she will thank me later. Like when she’s in college.
Anyway, she was very into the whole baby doll thing right from the get-go today, so she got all decked for the trip with her little stroller. She has a little pink and orange purse, and that was filled with the many necessities that one needs when out and about: a compact, a phone, a blingy ring, a plastic hamburger bun, and a blob of plastic peas. We walked out the door with her wearing Clooney’s Go, Diego, Go! sunglasses…upside down on her face.
While I was waiting at the deli counter at the store, she took out the toy compact and pretended to powder her nose. She made sure her baby doll had a book to read. About half way through the trip, she lost steam and I had to fold the stroller and put her in the cart.
We finished the shopping and went out the car. As I loaded her into her seat, she sighed, closing her eyes and throwing her head back, “I not a mommy any more. It makes me tired.”
Apparently, the economy is affecting the market for recycled goods in a negative way. Plastics and cardboard are piling up in recycle yards, and too much of what could be recycled is ending up in landfills as a result.
In other news, I hadn’t mentioned this before, but it turns out that our house needs a new roof. We had a leak in the master bathroom ceiling, so I called a roofer and got the news. Have been taking bids all week, which is fun, you know, because I just love meeting new people. (Especially when those people come over and then ask me for five figures in cash.)
Then, last night, I was going to finish off some laundry and the start knob to the dryer broke off in my hand. Not a big deal, I mean, I’m part Macguyver, you already know that about me. I just reached up for the pliers in the box above the dryer and started the thing without blinking twice. Fixing that can certainly wait.
In terms of holidays, I started wrapping the extended family gifts last night. I’m kind of a remedial-speed wrapper, so at this rate, I will just get everything done by Christmas. Hey — when are you sending out your cards? Mine are ready to go, but I don’t want to send them yet for fear of seeming overly zealous.
This was kind of funny: At the kids’ school they do this “Secret Santa Shop,” and we’ve participated every year, but then, last year I was there with the kids, and I was thinking, Oh my God, what a bunch of crap. I mean, I want to support the school and all, but I don’t want my kids thinking that you just have to get any old crap for people as a Christmas gift, you know? Grandpop doesn’t really need, nor will he ever use a pinkie-sized screwdriver on a keychain just because it says “Grandpop” on it.
So, this year, I talked to the boys and told them not to feel badly when the rest of their class was shopping for that crap, that I would take them to Five Below and let them buy more personal and appropriate crap for their grandparents and siblings. I took Edison, and he did pretty well. He got acar for Clooney, a Dora thing for The Princess, something for his dad. He got lotion for one grandma and a cell phone cover for the other. Then, there wasn’t anything really for the grandpops, so I just took him over to the candy store where they sell old-fashioned candy in bulk and we got some licorice for the grandfathers. By Christmas, it will be nice and stale, just the way my father likes it. (That’s not sarcasm, by the way.)
Manfrengensen took Clooney later that day. He said Clooney was hilarious picking out the gifts. He wanted to buy my father something having to do with Hanna Montana, just because over the summer my father would repeat those words from time to time. They’d gotten stuck on his tongue while the kids were watching the Disney channel. He’d just say, “Hanna Montana” for no reason like the Rain Man. So, Manfrengensen steered our son away from the teeny bopper crap and Clooney ended up buying a pack of Chuckles for Manfrengen’s father, and a pack of Tic Tacs for mine. We thought that was pretty funny.
And it’s way better than last year’s screwdriver, which if it isn’t there already, is certainly headed for the landfill as well.
I had some time yesterday, so I took a ride over to Target to get a few things. I had had to rush out the door yesterday, so I was running around with no coffee in me, and that’s not a good thing, right?
At Target, my only option was Starbucks. In the past, I have eschewed Starbucks, feeling that it tastes like a heady brew of battery acid run through ground monkey balls, but I was desperate, and desperate times call for…you know what. Standing in line, waiting for those in front of me to get their venti lattes and grande mochachinos made by the one barista on duty, I told myself Just the House blend. Maybe it’s not as bad as I remember.
My turn finally came. I ordered and took the thing over to the mixing bar. When I took off the lid, I looked down into the black tar in the cup. This was going to be quite a chemistry project. I poured some of it out, added artificial sweetner and filled the thing with milk. It barely changed color. Not a good sign.
I tried again with more milk and more sweetner, took a sip, and chucked the whole thing in the trash. A failure of chemistry. How do people drink that stuff?
Last night Manfrengensen and I had a sitter. We went out to dinner and then…no movies out there at all. We’ve seen the James Bond. What else is worth shelling out for? We ended up doing some Christmas shopping.
It’s pretty sad out there. We drove up the main shopping corridor in our town. The first thing I noticed was this Mom&Pop hobby store that had been there since I was a kid: Out of Business. The place was dark, and the windows were empty. I can remember going in there as a kid (and as an adult) and being totally blown away by the selection of Lionel trains and other stuff they had in there.
We drove further, and I noticed that the oriental rug place that always advertised they were going out of business (and we always joked about that sales tactic — for years!), well, they actually have gone out of business now.
La-Z-Boy had two signs out front. One said: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS/DOORS CLOSING. The other one said: STORE FOR RENT.
We went to Best Buy, where there were more cashiers than people waiting in line. We went to the mall, and the place was empty. I stopped in KB Toys for a stocking stuffer, and on a Friday night, at 8 p.m. in December, I walked right up to the counter and paid. Even Target was empty. No wait in line at all. Nobody’s really buying. It’s pretty weird to see.
We’re going to see Santa later today. Even though I have kind of been shopping for gifts already, I feel like going to see Santa is really the “official start” of the holiday season. The visit will be a bit of a haul. I’m actually driving to a mall that’s 20 miles away to avoid the creepy Santa at the mall that is closest. Let’s just say I’m opting for the least creepy Santa, and leave it at that.
Anyway, I got The Princess all dressed in her red-and-white-striped play dress and came down to the kitchen for breakfast. Getting ready to make my coffee, I hit the iPod for a little morning shuffle. The first song on deck turned out to be Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Weird? To give you an idea of how infrequently my iPod puts that song into the shuffle rotation: I didn’t recall that the song was even on my iPod.
So, you know I just finished The 19th Wife, right? Well, the word apostasy was all over that book. “Since Ann Eliza’s apostasy…Everyone knew of her apostasy…etc, etc.” It’s a word I don’t use often, so it kind of stuck in my head, and I played with it there, much like you might run your fingers over and over a smooth stone in your pocket.
Last weekend following a disasterous Notre Dame football game, and after stewing for more than an hour over the “incompetence” of the coaching, Manfrengensen said to me relatively out of the blue, “Do you know what the word apostasy means?” And it just so happened that I did.
Oh, and I just thought of another coincidental thing: Edison took a test last Saturday to sort of bench-mark his intelligence, and it was like the SATs, with verbal and math parts and a break in between. Manfrengensen drove him, and right before Edison came out, Manfrengensen was reading a story about wind power in the Wall Street Journal or The Economist that he had brought along for his wait. The piece explored the power of gales and the challenges of harnessing them. Anyway, Edison came out of the verbal part for his break, and Manfrengensen asked him how it had gone. Edison said he thought that he did okay, though there was one word he had to guess at. It was the word gale.
SANTA!
Speaking of apostasy, Edison is beginning to have his doubts. The other night he asked me if I was the one who really put all those presents under the tree. So, I looked at him skeptically and asked, “Does that really sound like something I would do?” He saw the foolishness of his inquiry then and admitted, “No, not really.”
It’s the last one for him, that’s fairly certain. I just want to enjoy his beautiful innocence for as long as it lasts.
Last night Manfrengensen and I sat down to watch a little boob tube, and what do you know, boob is what we got. The American Music Awards were on. We tuned in time to see Christina Aguilera performing a medley of her hits, and we couldn’t turn away because it was such a train wreck. Put aside the lyrics, I can do that, but then what we’re basically looking at, when we watch Christina Aguilera on the American Music awards, is a bad lip syncer wearing Madonna’s old undergarments, prancing around with a lot of flash to disguise the lack of genuine talent. It’s not like the AMA’s weren’t aware that the lip syncing was bad. The camera kept pulling back to the wide angles because Aguilera’s lip sycing was so obviously fake. A few times, she even got the lyrics wrong.
I don’t mean to dis Christina Aguilera. There’s certainly a place for lyrics like I’m a genie in a bottle, you gotta rub me the right way, but if she’s such a great performer, why does she have to lip-sync? They’re lip-syncing, and then giving awards for it. Am I going insane? Don’t you think that as audiences we should start to demand an end to the industry-wide practice of lip syncing?. It’s a con and a crock. It’s what Milli Vanilli was vilified for. And rightfully so. It isn’t in any way genuine or real.
This wasn’t even an isolated incident. There are fans out there who pay three figures for tickets to shows where the artist lip syncs! That’s highway robbery in my book. It’s a common and disturbing practice. I really think that as fans, you – we deserve more.
There are thousands of bands out there who are actually writing and performing their own music, and these people can’t get any kind of recognition from the industry because they’re too honest. They’re too genuine. They should be the ones who get support, not these American Idol-type hacks. They’re not prancing in underwear singing into what might as well be a hairbrush because it’s really just a pre-recording that who-knows-who really sang. Face it, for all you know, Christina Aguilera’s voice could actually come from some fat lady with acne and facial hair, but what you see is Christina shaking her pert and ample ta-tas, singing along to the recording. That’s music? No. That’s crazy.
Hell, I can lip sync. I wouldn’t do it in my underwear in front of an audience, but if that’s all it takes to make millions of dollars and be called an “artist” then frankly, there’s something wrong with the system.
Demand more, people.
p.s. — Here’s another crazy thing. In researching those lyrics, I found out that Aguilera also has a Disney version of “Genie in a Bottle,” which I guess changes some of the lyrics. But the “you gotta rub me the right way” isn’t one of the lines that’s changed.
Yesterday The Princess and I baked together for the first time. It was fun. She was into pouring all the ingredients into the bowl and mixing them together, but for me, it meant so much more to do this mother-daughter thing. Nothing special, just brownies, which from what I have heard, turned out to be delicious.
I haven’t talked about the diet for a while, but to give a quick update, I am doing great with the Jenny Craig. I am more than half-way to my goal weight, having lost more than 18 pounds since I officially began the diet. More importantly, I went back to the doctor yesterday, and all of my numbers have come down. Since July, when I last saw him, I have lost 21 pounds. My cholesterol has gone from 252 to 175, and my trigycerides, which were embarrassing — over 700 — are now 122. It’s great to look in the mirror and feel better, but I have to tell you, when they gave me the numbers yesterday, I teared up. The numbers are the important thing. Overall, I feel pretty great.
Edison was in a play this week, written by his music teacher and performed by everyone in the third grade at his school. He spent weeks singing and dancing around the house, and even though there were times when I really wished he would stop, there will be times in the future, when other pursuits have garnered his attention, when I will miss that singing.
I am finishing up a book I had to read for the book club called The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It’s one of those books I can’t wait to be done with. The writing is just okay, nothing overly literary, and at times the narrative is cliche, or just doesn’t feel real, like the author is stretching a limited imagination. It tells two stories in two separate narratives that the author is trying to somehow relate to one another.
One is a historical fiction about Brigham Young’s 19th wife, who divorces him and sets about on a crusade to end polygamy in the late-19th Century. That part of the book I really like. It’s fairly well researched and feels authentic. The other is a modern sort of murder mystery about a 19th wife in a cult-like sect that split of from the Mormons after 1890 who is accused of killing her husband. Her estranged gay son returns to the small town and proceeds to investigate the case, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, but you know, the mother’s innocent.
But I had some real problems with that part of the book. First of all, the solving of the murder comes abruptly and totally from left field. There’s no building of the clues, only a bit of meandering around them. The explanation of the murder is less than a page, and the motive isn’t fully believable, especially given that the climax is the first we’ve heard of it. Also, the confession comes after a totally contrived scene where the main character is captured and seems to be threatened, but again, it doesn’t feel as real as the author had been hoping to make it.
My biggest problem was with the main character, who as I mentioned, is gay. Why? Because I guess that would make the story more interesting? The author tells us that the guy spent a little time selling his bod, and on more than one occasion mentions that he was paid by a dude to let him put his “arm in a place where no arm should go.” Ew. And then, about 2/3 through the book, he meets a guy who falls in love with him and wants him to stay, make a commitment after ONE NIGHT TOGETHER, and the author tries to kind of make a case that it’s hard for Jordan to do that because of how he was raised in the polygamist sect. He can’t love, you see. But I felt like — well, he did just meet the guy. Frankly, the love interest comes off more like a creepy stalker than a sincere life partner. (I pictured him as Kenneth Parcells from 30 Rock, only you know, as a creepy stalker. If they ever make a movie of this book, Jack McBrayer should totally play the character of Tom.)
But I keep turning those pages, because I do want to find out what happened to Ann Eliza Young, Bringham’s 19th wife. I’m not sure I will find out, and I also worry that we’ll never find out what happened to the son she left behind when she left Utah, though the fact that she misses him is mentioned several times in the course of the story. I have like ten pages to go. Then, like Ann Eliza, I will be free (to read something else.)
p.s. — just searching on youtube, I found these clips. Seriously, this is the funniest show on TV:
Don’t you worry. Obama’s not going to bring socialism to this country. Here’s your example of how capitalism is alive and kicking (as it turns out, my ass):
Saturday I took the kids to a birthday party at a local indoor playground. Only Edison was invited, but Manfrengensen was out of town, so I took the other two and paid for them to play. The girl behind the counter asked what exactly I wanted to pay for, and after a bit of back and forth, we determined that I would be paying for the soft playground as well as the “ball blaster” area, kind of a ball pit on steroids.
So the girl asked how old the kids were, and I told her five and three. She said I would have to go into the ball blaster area with the three-year-old, so I said fine, and she said, “It’s four dollars for you.” Seriously? Like I was dying to go into that germ-infested plexiglass bubble? Like it was going to be some kind of fun for me to be in there with a bunch of pre-pubescent kids hopped up on cake and junk food, shooting foam balls at each other with air-powered canons? Was she for real? As it turned out, she was, and I had to pay. I mean, The Princess was bound to follow her brothers in there, so I shelled out the four bucks.
But then, when I tried to go in there with her, another girl stopped me at the hanging plastic curtains. “You need to take off your shoes,” she said with about as much enthusiasm as anyone who had to spend eight hours in that kind of environment could be expected to muster. As I began to remove my relatively-new, black suede Mary Janes (and oh, did I mention that it started to rain torrentially while we were at the party?), she said again in her zombie-esque tone, “No, you need to have socks to go in there.” When I told her I didn’t have socks, she said that I could pay $1.50 for them at the front. This time she pointed to the front desk area, lifting her arm slowly and not much unlike the un-dead would.
And I’m sorry, but F- that. This place wasn’t getting another dime out of me, not because I was cheap, but out of just plain principle. I’m all for capitalism. I’m not a Communist, or a Socialist, or any kind of -ist that I am aware of, but come on. I didn’t even want to go in that freak-for-all ball pit! So I ended up just watching The Princess from the other side of the hanging plastic curtains. I even helped out by kicking the balls back into the pit for the staff. Technically, they owed me money.
Clooney wants to have his upcoming birthday there, but I am almost willing to pay double whatever that price would be to have it someplace else. See? There’s the beauty of capitalism! Supply me a place that’s fun without being stressful and you can Demand whatever price you want.
Other than that, I guess it was a fun party. The Princess got lost in the commotion a few times, but she was always returned safe and sound, albeit with tears running down her cheeks. And overall, the three of them were really good kids all day. I felt like a good mom, and I have to take that kind of feeling whenever I can.
My Son, Future President?
Apparently not. As part of their unit on the recent election, Edison’s class had to write a paragraph answering the question: Would you want to run for President someday? Why or Why not? He wrote:
No, I wouldn’t like to run for President someday. It looks like a really hard job. I would have to travel because I would need to campaign, and I’m not really a traveler! I would have to wait until January 20th for inauguration, and I’m not really that patient! No thanks for President!
Listening to Oasis this morning….Today was gonna be the day…
car for Clooney, a Dora thing for The Princess, something for his dad. He got lotion for one grandma and a cell phone cover for the other. Then, there wasn’t anything really for the grandpops, so I just took him over to the candy store where they sell old-fashioned candy in bulk and we got some licorice for the grandfathers. By Christmas, it will be nice and stale, just the way my father likes it. (That’s not sarcasm, by the way.)
ground monkey balls, but I was desperate, and desperate times call for…you know what. Standing in line, waiting for those in front of me to get their venti lattes and grande mochachinos made by the one barista on duty, I told myself Just the House blend. Maybe it’s not as bad as I remember.
Put aside the lyrics, I can do that, but then what we’re basically looking at, when we watch Christina Aguilera on the American Music awards, is a bad lip syncer wearing Madonna’s old undergarments, prancing around with a lot of flash to disguise the lack of genuine talent. It’s not like the AMA’s weren’t aware that the lip syncing was bad. The camera kept pulling back to the wide angles because Aguilera’s lip sycing was so obviously fake. A few times, she even got the lyrics wrong.
them. The explanation of the murder is less than a page, and the motive isn’t fully believable, especially given that the climax is the first we’ve heard of it. Also, the confession comes after a totally contrived scene where the main character is captured and seems to be threatened, but again, it doesn’t feel as real as the author had been hoping to make it.
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