Christmas 2012: We Survived (Part 2)

After opening presents, we finally headed upstairs for dinner (probably around 8:30 or so). I look forward to this dinner all year. Why? Because my mom makes some killer prime rib. Sides come and go, but the prime rib is always the star of the show. We had a minor issue during the cooking process this year that led to opening some windows to dissipate some smoke, but all's well that ends well, right?

We sat down to a fabulous dinner of prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, Brussels sprouts, baby red potatoes and a tomato dish with fresh mozzarella. A few minutes into the meal, I had a plate full of amazing food and was about to dig in when my mom reached for something and knocked over her glass. Her champagne drink landed all over the right side of my lap. Mom started apologizing and Dad started working on clean up. In the meantime, I was told not to move, so I sat there, a little cold and wet, and waited. Meanwhile, Hubby and Mam-maw were trying to situate the rest of the food on the table when my rum & coke got bumped and promptly spilled all over the left side of my lap. What did I do? The only thing I could. I laughed. I laughed hysterically. Dad told me to go change, so I put on pajama pants and a dirty shirt (just in case) and headed back up to dinner. The rest of the meal was largely uneventful, but it was tasty and wonderful and I was happy (and dry).

After we cleaned up a bit, we headed downstairs to finish off the evening. When everyone else had headed to bed, Hubby and I grabbed the puppers and headed over to pick up K  to go through the local light display. Finally, a tradition that we could uphold! We went through twice, just because, and though it was short, it was nice to spend some more time with K. I slept a little better that night (probably because I started on the couch, instead of the floor), but morning still came too early for my liking.

Per our family tradition, Christmas morning is for Santa presents, so I handed out stockings and gifts for everyone (except the pooch; she'd already gotten all of her gifts). I got some fun socks and more puzzles (yay!!), and Hubby seemed happy with his new wallet and the sweet mouse shaped like a race car. There was little time to relax, though, as Mom's family was due over around two. After a quick shower and some setting up, we had a few minutes to breathe before the madness.

I should explain that I love my family to pieces. I don't mean to say that the madness was a bad thing. I'm just an introvert, and a group that big (all 14 or so of us) in one house (or sometimes in one room - eep!) can be a bit much for me. I tried to help Mom as much as I could (and as much as she'd let me), but there's only so much I could do in the kitchen with her. Around 2:30 or so we opened presents, and though the adults don't get much, I really liked what I did get. The ornaments that my cousin's kids helped make were adorable, and the hand warmers that my aunt made are perfect for shaking off a chill while I'm working. And, of course, the money from my Grampa is always appreciated. This year, we're using most of our Christmas money to go on a mini vacation up in Door County, just Hubby, the puppers and me. No work, no school, just us and a little cabin and whatever we want to do. :)

Even though she had cleaned the oven to prevent it, Mom had another cooking incident that led to windows and doors getting opened. This one was even smokier than Christmas Eve, and when Dad opened the garage door to get some air moving through, we definitely felt it downstairs. Even so, dinner was fantastic. Mom made a HUGE turkey (24 pounds!), lots of stuffing, potatoes, etc. We had left over salad and cheese from the funeral, one of my aunts brought rolls, my cousin brought green bean casserole, and with the massive amounts of cookies in the house, I strongly doubt anyone left hungry. 

After dinner, my cousin's kids wanted to play a game, so we played Words With Friends. Yep. They have a board game edition now. Picture Scrabble with a slightly smaller board, some differences in point assignments by letter, and change where the extra score points are. There you have it. We played with partners, for the most part. Me not so much, since Hubby sat on the couch and my aunt decided we were too mean to play with. We didn't keep score, but we still had fun.

By around 7 o'clock, it was back to the 5 of us (plus Maxi). We spent a little time chatting and unwinding from the day, but Hubby and I still had to drive back to Milwaukee, so we couldn't stay too long. The drive home wasn't too bad (at least I assume; I was sleeping for most of it). We got the car unpacked, but not much more. I was pretty tired, so I lounged a bit before heading to bed. Then it was lights out for Miss Riki.

Working the day after Christmas is always a bum deal, but at least it was mostly quiet. I still have some wrapping to do, since my Hubby's family Christmas is tomorrow, but at least I'm not helping to host anything else. As wonderful of a holiday as it was, I need a break from all that. In fact, tonight I plan to be my introverted self and enjoy some me time while Hubby goes to the cigar bar to use one of his gifts. :)

Hope you all had a great holiday, and that 2013 begins a new year with lots of love, health and happiness. <3

Christmas 2012: We Survived (Part 1)

Not the Mayan apocalypse; I already planned on surviving that. But the rest of the holiday, I just wasn't sure.

Let's go back to last Wednesday, the 19th. Things were going fine until I got a call from my mom. She had three things to tell me, and none of them were terribly positive. 

The first was that because of the snow Madison was about to get on Thursday, no one was going to be able to pick my Grampa up from the airport here in Milwaukee. OK, no big deal, we can handle that. Mom booked him a hotel room (we don't have a proper guest room, and I doubt Grampa wanted to sleep on our sleeper sofa or the futon) and all we had to do was pick him up when his flight landed on Thursday around 3:50. Sweet. Sad that Grampa would have to spend the night in a hotel in MKE, but at least we could help.

The second was that Mam-maw (my dad's mom) - who is staying with my parents right now - had gotten in on the 15th, but had already been in the hospital. Ugh. She was dehydrated and sick, but fortunately my dad was able to go pick her up that afternoon and take her back to their house. Again, not good that she was sick, but good that she was being released.

The third had no up-side. My aunt's husband (my uncle through marriage) had been in a car accident and had died. That one made my heart ache. My aunt is one of the nicest, sweetest people you could know (a lot like Mom) and to know something so terrible had happened made the world seem wrong. Even worse was when I found articles online about the accident; it wasn't really a car wreck, it was a "freak accident" that killed him. There are so many questions that might never get answered, and I'm afraid the hurt will stick around for a long, long time.

On Thursday, the snow storm hit Madison, but we only got rain here for most of the day. Regardless, Grampa's flight ended up getting canceled, and Mom had to make arrangements for him to stay at the airport in Orlando and to get another flight booked (which meant Mom was on hold for almost an hour and a half). After my lunch break, Hubby asked me to check our basement for flooding, since  a coworker of his was having some issues. I ran downstairs to check, didn't find any water, and came back to work, only to find that my internet was out. Poor Hubby spent about 2 hours trying to help me troubleshoot (via text and phone call), but to no avail. He called our provider, but they couldn't get out to the house until 2 PM on Friday. Great. There goes the rest of my work week.

Even better was when the guy came and figure out what had happened. Our internet amplifier is in the basement and, for whatever reason, is hooked up to a light switch in the back room. (See where this is going?) When I had gone down to check on the flooding situation, I had flipped the switch, but when nothing happened, I assumed the bulb was out and I just moved on. Instead, I had essentially turned off our connection. (Insert facepalm here.) Thankfully, it turned out that had been only part of the problem; we also had a cable that had gone bad, and had he not figured that out, I might've gone insane trying to make our internet work on my desktop. Aye yi yi.

On the plus side, I got to spend Friday wrapping presents and finishing up crafts. I watched a couple of movies on demand (Mr. Poppers Penguins was pretty sweet) and cleaned some things up a bit. That cleared up some time on Saturday, which means I had time to make all 3 kinds of cookies I'd set out to bake. I made Oreo truffles, peppermint pinwheels, and meringue cookies with mini M&Ms (they were out of the dark chocolate and mint pieces by the time we went shopping). Unlike last year's meringue cookies, these didn't turn out to be globs of gooey messiness, so that was nice. And the Oreo truffles are kind of like crack (my dad told my family that the first one's free, but the rest are $20 each). And Mom really liked the pinwheels, which made me happy. Saturday evening, K got into town, and that night, she and S came by and we went out for dinner. I love having time with my sisters, and dinner was just what I needed.

Sunday we drove into Madison. Our original plan was to have our traditional dinner and gift exchange with K that night, but instead we went to my uncle's visitation and funeral. It was actually nice to spend some time with my family and it wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I'd imagined (except for the chairs, which were terribly uncomfortable; Hubby's leg even went numb at one point). We also got to have some awesome Italian food after the service (thank you, Biaggi's!), some of which we got to take home as leftovers. That night, we had a fire in the family room and sat around to enjoy it, just Mom, Dad, Hubby, Mam-maw and I. 

Christmas Eve Day meant more cookies! My mom made the traditional sugar cookie dough, and I rolled it out, used the cookie cutters and baked them up. While we let them sit, Hubby and I headed to grab some lunch (more Italian food; I'm not Italian, but I think my taste buds are) and then to the grocery store where K and S were ringing bells for the Salvation Army. Mom gave me $5 to donate (I give my money elsewhere) and we picked up some raisin bread for Mam-maw. When we got home, I made frosting and Hubby and I decorated the sugar cookies. We got to relax for a bit after that, and then eventually we opened presents (before dinner this year; another tradition broken). Hubby got me season 1 of Sherlock on DVD, Dumbo on blu-ray, and a couple other fun things. I also got a puzzle, a beautiful scarf, and we got a ginormous generator. Dad told us the idea was originally for camping, but that the unit he got was a bit bulkier than he anticipated, so we were given the option of keeping it or returning it to Gander Mountain and using the money for other camping stuff. (We're not 100% decided yet, but I think we're leaning toward returning it and getting a new tent and some other things.) Everyone seemed to be happy with their presents, and that's all I could really hope for.

More to come.

The Gift Whisperer

I have a knack for getting people pretty good (if sometimes quite random) gifts.  I pick up on what people like and do my best to find something that I think they'll enjoy.  

My hubby's probably the easiest person to shop for (in my world, anyway).  I'm pretty good at getting stuff for my bestie and my sister (at least I think so; let me know if I'm way off, ladies!).  At minimum, I put a lot of thought and effort into giving presents because it's one of my favorite things to do.  Honestly!  I have more fun buying gifts for other people than I do shopping for myself.  

Unfortunately, there are two people in his world that I always have problems buying things for: my parents.  

Let's get some background, shall we?  Mom is a part-time physical therapist who works with small kids (infants to about 3 years old) in their homes.  She loves playing puzzle games on the computer (last year I got her hooked on Pogo) and is probably the nicest, most patient person on the face of the planet.  She loves spring (gardening is one of her hobbies) and on nice weekend afternoons, you're likely to find her on the front porch with a drink in hand.

Dad is a traveling sales representative (he pretty much covers the good ol' Midwest) who isn't happy unless he has a project to work on or something to fix.  Since he travels so much during the week, he spends most of his weekends at home with Mom.  He has a dry and somewhat twisted sense of humor (he loves Family Guy), is a history buff, and the first thing he'll probably do when he retires is get a dog.  He's right next to Mom on the porch on those nice evenings, drink in one hand and cigarette in the other.

So, you'd think with even that much to go on, that gifts wouldn't be too difficult, right?  Wrong.  So very wrong.  

Mom already has everything she needs for gardening, and has access to all the computer puzzle games she can ever want.  Dad can be hard to read sometimes, but for the most part, it's a good bet that if he really wants something, he either already has it or Mom will be getting it for him.

My mom's birthday is coming up next week, but we're going to see her this weekend, so we decided to celebrate early.  For the past two weeks, I've been scouring the internet for something that says, "Hey!  Your mom would love this!"  No such luck.  Spent a long time at Target the other night; got a bunch of stuff, but the only thing for Mom was a card.  Crap.

With time running out, I turned to Pinterest.  I figured either I could find a gift idea or there would be a craft I could work with, so I searched.  And searched.  And searched some more.  And eventually, I found something that looked fun and easy.

So, in all its nerdiness/goofiness, I present to you, the Bucket-O-Sun!

Inside this bright yellow bucket are a bunch of sunny gifts.

• A yellow sun visor.
• A yellow candle (scent is called: Eternal Sunshine).
• Sunflower clips (on the outside of the bucket).
• Sunglasses.
• Some yellow candy (suckers and Lifesavers).
• A sun stamp and orange stamp pad.
• "Sunny Songs" - a CD I made that's full of sun-themed songs (starting, of course, with the Sesame Street theme song).

There are also some coasters with suns on them that will go in the bucket, but they're still in transit (c'mon, UPS!!).  

OK, so it's sorta lame, but I spent HOURS trying to figure out what the hell to get her, and this is way better than nothing, right?  Let's hope...

Anywhoozles, to my mom, happy early birthday!!  To everyone else, happy early Easter!  May the bunny be kind to you all. :) 

Edit: For those curious, this is the box of sunshine idea I saw.  Yeah, I butchered it pretty bad, but it's my present, dammit!