Holidays

Holiday Hangover

After weeks of shopping, knitting, sewing, cooking, entertaining, cleaning, our first Christmas in the new house was a success. Here are some of the highlights:

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As I have been known to do, I picked out a Christmas tree with zero foresight or appreciation for spatial reasoning. That’s my 10 year old for scale. And that’s the tree that ate my entire dining room. It only took two vehicles and four neighbors to get said tree into my house and upright.

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I made a bunch of gifts, including the above hat that I finished on Christmas night. Note to self–start knitted gifts before November to avoid frantic knitting on Christmas night.

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The final tally of homemade gifts: 2 hats, 2 scarves, 3 pairs of mittens, 6 dishcloths, 3 t-shirt quilts, and 6 bottles of vanilla extract. Not too shabby.

Then, we have just a small fraction of why you will find me living in the gym for the next year:

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Yeah…my jeans may just suffocate me due to Christmas week feasting. If the tenderloin, shrimp, and bourbon meatballs weren’t enough, we also had a giant turducken, about 100 turducken paninis, cookies, cakes, sangria, margaritas and more. In spite of all the busy chaos, we still had fun:

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Now, I need to sleep for a week, diet for 100 years, and dig my laundry room out from under the pile that has swallowed it.

Battling the Post-Christmas Crash—Or What Happens When a Manic Woman With OCD is Suddenly Project-Less

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For the past several weeks, I’ve either been knitting, sewing, or shopping like a maniac. I frantically finished teacher gifts, only to cast on for the final hat I’ve yet to complete. While we are scaling Christmas down this year (in theory anyway), I still found myself more stressed and pressed for time than I had expected. With only two days left, I’ll be cooking, cleaning, and knitting on than infernal hat with the delusional hope that I can finish it all in time.

In the craziness that pervades the Christmas bonanza, I also start thinking ahead to after Christmas. We all have plenty of Christmas traditions, but inevitably still experience that post-holiday crash. The kids are bummed that it’s over, and my project-oriented, OCD subconscious feels cast adrift with no direction or purpose. To remedy this ennui, and help alleviate the kid’s stir-crazy antics, we try to incorporate a few post-Christmas traditions so that they still have something to look forward to once their gift-a-plooza ends. Here are just a few of the small things we do:

  • New Year’s Eve fireworks—This is Louisiana, after all, and it’s our God-given right to blow crap up in the name of celebration. For $20 bucks, we can get the kids enough firepower to annoy our neighbors and keep them occupied for hours.
  • New Year’s Day Meal—This last-gasp feast includes all of those foods that superstition tells us will bring good luck and fortune in the new year. Diets are for January 2nd.
  • The Feast of the Epiphany King Cake—As the official start of the Mardi Gras season,  Epiphany is a great excuse for the first King Cake of the year. If I have time, I make it, but if not, every store around here will have one.
  • New puzzle—Now that our dining room is empty of Christmas decorations, and we don’t anticipate formal entertaining for a while to come, we get a new puzzle to work on throughout the month.
  • Selfish knitting/crafting—Now that I’ve spent months on gifts for others, I’ll cast on for that sweater I’ve been eye-balling in a Harry Potter knitting magazine. I’m a nerd like that.

So, while the next two days will probably still be full of frantic holiday prep, taking time to plan for some type of small, post-Christmas something may help ease the sting that comes from knowing that we all have to get back to the real world next week.

For now, I’m going to make a cocktail. After all, that real world ain’t coming until next week, and I think that I deserve it for the kids’ bathroom I’m about to clean.

The Disappearing Thanksgiving—Teaching My Kids Why Retailers and The Media Have Calendar Confusion

We all knew it was going to happen. The day after Halloween kicked off the retail Christmas campaigns, and from the local stores to every other television commercial, we are bombarded with holiday marketing. In fact, if you need any fall-themed décor for your Thanksgiving (still weeks away, mind you), then you’re sh*t out of luck. Those shelves have been cleared to make room for Christmas, Christmas, and more Christmas.

Apparently, unless you sell food, Thanksgiving has become the invisible, neglected, middle child of the holiday season. It’s one step away from being locked in the basement.

Don’t get me wrong–I love the holidays, and I plan ahead and craft year-round to make them affordable. I’m not opposed to anyone who wants to get the jump on their plans by shopping early, and I’m adept at tuning it out and minding my own business. However, when the retail machine threatens the core of Thanksgiving, maybe we’ve gone too far.

The Heathens seem to really have taken notice this year. G-Man is baffled as to why we are seeing so many Christmas commercials already, and both boys have heard all about how some stores will be open Thanksgiving Day from the morning news. I’ve tried to explain to them how retail works and why retailers undergo an obsessive media drive to get us to spend, spend, spend, but the boys continue to see it as nonsensical moves by confused companies who cannot read a calendar. I think they are onto something. Even as kids, they see something wrong with this picture.

Shopping on Thanksgiving? Thanks, but no thanks big box stores.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that you will never, ever, find me out of my house on Black Friday. Nothing destroys the whole “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men” vibe faster than watching normally sane people fight like Roman gladiators to be first through the doors of a store, or to snag those “limited number” deals. Retailers spend a lot of money to create that sense of desperate mania in us, and we are supposed to feel like we are missing out on something important if we don’t hurry up and participate. If that’s your thing, more power to you.

However, Thanksgiving is an important holiday. Wherever you fall on the American history opinion spectrum, I think we can all agree that a day of fellowship and gratitude is a good thing, and those two traits are often scarce in our hectic lives. Instead, many will be forced to work, and will have little to no opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. Meanwhile, these mega-companies will continue to encourage us to abandon our tables, families, and traditions, so we can show up to their doors and spend, spend, spend some more. That’s just really kind of sad when you think about it. What is even sadder is that retailers have it within their power to avoid this. PICK A DIFFERENT DAY! They made Black Friday a thing. Then they made Cyber Monday a thing. Why not make “Second Saturday in December” a thing?!? Why does it HAVE to be Thanksgiving? I bet their CEO’s aren’t working that day…grumble, grumble.

So, that’s my soapbox for today. While I can’t stop the beast that is retail marketing, I can show the kids that we aren’t playing into it. The Thanksgiving decorations are up, and we’ll keep this month focused on learning, serving others when we can, and preparing for a holiday that is truly about togetherness. If you’ve got any better ideas, I’m all ears, but let’s save Thanksgiving from that basement, shall we?

Are Your Kids Climbing the Walls? Holiday Inspiration May Keep Them Occupied

We’ve officially hit the point in the summer when my kids descend into endless bickering and I’m missing school like my skinny jeans. We’ve also hit the point when the heat keeps them inside most of the day, so burning off energy through play isn’t happening. It’s definitely time to break out the big guns.

Last year, during the Worst Summer Ever, my husband was gone for nearly a month. Keeping the Heathens entertained during all the calamity was a challenge, so I came up with “Holidays in Summer.” Basically, on each weekend, we would have a mini-holiday celebration (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas). The idea was to give the kids something to look forward to and help plan. These celebrations included a special meal, a craft or activity, and holiday-appropriate movies. These scaled-down events ended up being a blast and the highlight of our summer. I also loved them because it gave me a chance to have small holiday experiences that did not involve the stress of hosting large gatherings. We have continued the tradition this year, and here’s how it’s going:

For the Halloween weekend, we made a pumpkin-shaped cake and got a bunch of snacks. For our craft, we made masks out of paper plates, paint, glitter, and popsicle sticks. Then, we watched scary movies and played with the glow necklaces I picked up for a buck. My husband was skeptical at first (especially when I broke out the glitter) but later admitted it was really fun.

For the Thanksgiving weekend, we made lovely Pilgrim hats (Ha-Ha!), and I cooked an extremely scaled-down version of the meal. We watched Charlie Brown and generally acted like sloths. The key to this one was to get the kids to help with the food, and we even used all of the Thanksgiving placemats and paraphernalia I have squirreled away.

We had to postpone the Christmas weekend due to a death in the family, but the plan is to decorate cookies, feast on appetizer-type stuff, have a small gift exchange (we drew names), and watch all our favorite movies.

So, if you feel like you may be one-less kid lest school start soon, try having a mini-Holiday. From the planning and shopping to the execution, they have something to focus on, even if it is brief and fleeting. If all else fails, put those boogers to work and sweat the whining right out of them.

Homemade Vanilla Extract and Why It Pays to Give Christmas a Passing Thought During Summer

It’s that time of year again. The time when I remind everyone that Christmas isn’t that far away, and it would behoove you to start thinking ahead. No, I am not one of those crazy Christmas people who count down the days like an obsessed fiend. What I am is a mom on a severe budget, and I’ve learned that pushing off Christmas until Fall/Winter means that I end up stressed out and financially tapped out. While it does pay to wait in some cases so that you catch those holiday mega sales, your budget will thank you if you start the small gifts now. I try to knock out teacher gifts, neighbor gifts and some extended family gifts during the summer. Most of my smaller gifts for this group are handcrafted, and by using those craft store coupons, I slowly put a major dent in that list. In the past, I’ve posted about some of my homemade gift ideas here, here, here, here, and my craft category is full of ideas too.

Today, the Heathens and I started homemade vanilla extract that will be used as teacher/neighbor gifts this year. If you are interested in this idea, start ASAP, as it really needs five or six months to marinate.

This is about the easiest, kid-friendly activity you can do. All you need are some glass bottles, vanilla beans, and vodka (the cheap, rot-gut, can-double-as-gasoline stuff…don’t waste good hooch here).

I picked up a bunch of bottles at my local craft store using coupons to get the already cheap price tag even cheaper. Looking at the size, I figured three vanilla beans per jar would suffice:

Better to have too much vanilla bean than too little. The kids were able to distribute the vanilla beans among the jars, so they got to feel some ownership in their teacher gifts.

**A quick word on buying vanilla beans. Your local grocery store is the MOST expensive place to purchase these!!! If you live around a specialty spice store or a World Market store, you’ll find better prices. Ordering online is a good option, but it pays to look around a bit. Don’t believe me? Two vanilla beans at my supermarket cost about $9.99, while World Market sells them for $2.99 (and I had a coupon for them too). See? Shop smart!**

Anyway, then I (not the kids, so don’t freak) poured vodka into the jars until the beans were covered. The kids closed the jars and we were done! Three minutes of effort:

And we got six teacher gifts that stayed firmly within my budget. Better yet, come December, that’s one less thing I’ll have to worry about. We are storing these in a cool, dark cabinet, and once a week, we will give them a quick shake just to keep things going. By Christmas, the vodka will be dark brown and infused with vanilla. We will do up some cute labels on the computer, and maybe pair them with a set of measuring spoons if I have any extra money in the budget by then. If not, no biggie. Regardless, we have a handmade gift that my kids helped create and will feel excited about. It also helps reinforce to them that it really is the thought that counts and that there is more care in “doing” than in “buying.”

So, what’s the moral of the story? Even if you aren’t particularly crafty, nearly every major craft store chain has weekly coupons of 40% to 50% a single item, so you can still pick up stuff on the cheap, including things like kids’ art supplies, home décor stuff, picture frames, and more.

Now, back to beating the heat with cocktails, fun times, and trashy TV that I’ll never admit to actually watching.

Fourth of July Week: Fun, Food and Biblical Plagues

We had a fabulous holiday weekend, full of food, fun and of course, sick Heathens. There is only a little sarcasm in that statement, I swear.

We started the week by buying a new minivan to replace the wrecked van (I won’t bore you with that tale of woe), and I swear that buying a car is medieval torture. See those smiles? We were just happy that the 7-hour car shopping/purchasing odyssey was over and we could go home and pass out from mental exhaustion. Car purchasing just ratcheted up on my list of “things I absolutely hate,” and it’s sitting somewhere in between going to the DMV and a trip to the lady doctor. However, the new minivan is nice, and we no longer have to cram our family of five into my tiny Sentra.

After the happy, happy car shopping, we tried to make the best of the holiday week, even though the kids fell one by one to the plague that infiltrated our house.

Two trips to the doctor later, I finally threw my hands up when G-Man also got sick and declared that we need a physical and spiritual cleansing in our house, lest this truly go down as the worst summer ever. Despite the black death of fever, rashes and other unsavory ailments, I still got to hang out with the extended family and Best Friend M, which salvaged what little holiday we could muster around here. I did manage to smoke some ribs just for fun, and paired it with a smoked Gouda pasta salad and grilled corn. My husband also made his homemade lasagna with garlic-parmesan breadsticks, so I will be dieting for the rest of my life now.

Now, however, my house looks like a tornado ripped through it, and I’m pretty sure Bean would stick to the kitchen floor if she tried to crawl on it. I better get to cleaning, so we can start this week off right.

 

A Vacation From My Vacation!

We’ve had a very eventful few weeks, and I’m finally pausing to catch my breath. We took a trip to Dallas for Bear’s 9th birthday, and it was two of the busiest days we’ve had in a long time. Since we rarely have the time or funds to travel, I always tend to overdo it when we do skip town. I feel like I have to cram as much into our vacation time as I possibly can, and I probably end up more tired and neurotic than when we left. But, that’s okay by me, if it means the Heathens get to explore something new. Culture is a good thing, ya know.

We managed to swing this trip by using our accumulated travel rewards to score a free hotel room, and I learned you can save a bundle on venue tickets if you buy them early.

We started at the Perot Science and Nature Museum, which was absolutely fabulous, even if it was a little too crowded for me. It was very hands-on and kid friendly, and I could have spent all day there.

 

 

 

 

We spent several hours exploring and I still feel like we didn’t get to fully see and enjoy a good portion of the museum. If I had the money, it would have been worth it to purchase a “membership,” because members can enter the museum a couple of hours before the actual opening time, and I bet we would have enjoyed the smaller crowds. Still, that was an outing that was just as much fun for my husband and I as it was for the kids. After the museum, and a dip in the indoor pool at the hotel, we headed to dinner. And ate. And then we ate some more. And maybe had a cocktail, but that’s beside the point.

 

The next day, we went to Legoland and Rainforest Café, and though the kids had fun, that won’t be something we’ll ever do again. Legoland was fine, but honestly, it’s more for 4-7 year-olds. We had about all the fun we could have there within an hour, and that didn’t justify the high price tag. As for the café, again, the extremely high price for mediocre food was painful. And I’m not a fan of the marketing ploy that required us to walk through a veritable toy store just to get to the restaurant’s entrance. Still, the kids had great time, so in the end, that’s what matters. However, my husband and I agreed that from here on out, if the vacation is kid-centric, we get to pick where we eat. That’s what you call compromise, right there.

 

 

Once we got home from the trip, I started kicking around the idea of doing a little freelance writing. The boys’ tuition is a painful, painful thing, and I’m hoping to alleviate some of the burden if I can. The good news is that I landed a couple of great clients right off the bat, but since then, I’ve spent every spare moment either writing, or juggling a demonic Bean. She has a big new front tooth, and the oh-so-pleasant disposition to match.

Be afraid…be very afraid…

Gingerbread Houses for the Icing Impaired

You know, I really consider myself to be a moderately crafty kind of girl. I may not be very original, but I’m not totally incompetent in the crafting department. However, even with the store-bought gingerbread kits, I have yet to attempt this project with the kids with any degree of success. Me and icing apparently aren’t on the same wavelength. The houses always resemble something akin to a drunken Picasso painting (and not in a good way), and my kitchen ends up looking like a gingerbread man slaughterhouse. How’s that for some cheery holiday imagery, for ya?

I know what my issue is; any type of decorating which involves icing is a skill that, no matter my effort, I just can’t master. Believe me, I’ve tried. I can’t tell you how many cakes and cookies have fallen victim to my overly ambitious efforts to replicate those picture-perfect decorations I see in magazines. Since my pseudo-OCD will accept nothing less that wow-worthy perfection, these vain attempts usually leave me frustrated and blistering my kitchen walls with my extensive vocabulary of swear words.

This year, I was determined to save myself from the anxiety-inducing experience of the annual gingerbread house construction. My plan? Mix up the icing, toss it at the Heathens and wash my hands of the whole affair.

And what do you know? They had a blast.

They did a great job, and I didn’t have to spend 20 minutes washing green icing out of my hair. They are extremely proud of their creations, and peace was maintained in my kitchen. We call that a Christmas miracle, ya’ll.