Category: Holidays Page 4 of 5

Christmas Day Surprises

On December 25, 2009

When I was a kid I sneaked into every one of my presents. My parents wrapped them up nicely and put them under the tree, and one by one I’d unwrap just enough to see what was in the box. I think I did this because I was impatient and an immediate gratification person.

The down side of doing this is that on Christmas morning you never have a surprise. You know what everything is in every box. I’ve talked to other people who have done the same thing, and all of us feel like it’s a compulsion. We just can’t stand not knowing what is on the other side of that paper.

When I was around eleven years old, my brother, who was fifteen, had been seeing a girl on occasion. She wasn’t very pretty, and had a little bit of a bad reputation. He was fairly secretive about his visits with her, as if he didn’t want anyone to know.

Just before Christmas, a present appeared under the tree out of nowhere. I was extremely curious about that one because it didn’t have a name on it and wasn’t wrapped in Christmas paper; it was just in a taped up cardboard box. Plus it was tucked way in the back of the tree, as if someone was trying to hide it.

I was about to do a little investigating when he pulled me aside and said, “You can’t tell mom and dad about the present under the tree. It’s from Jaynie, and I don’t want them to know I’m seeing her. Please help me keep it hidden from them.”

I looked up to my brother so much. We were close because we’d hang out together when he wasn’t doing anything else. We had a high jump and pole vault pit in our back yard that he’d built, and our friends would come around and try to out jump each other. I was the highest girl jumper, and he was the highest pole vaulter. We were both pretty athletic, so we were always doing outdoor stuff together because kids were outside all the time and we played with whoever was available, and if that was your sister, it was better than nothing. Anyway, I looked up to him, and when he asked me to keep an eye on that present, I was all over it. I kept it hidden out of sight, and if my friends asked about it, I told them it was a secret and no one could even touch it. I was a bully so nobody messed with that present.

Christmas morning I was a good actress and looked surprised when I opened all my presents. When we were all done, and my parents went about their business, my brother looked from side to side to make sure they were gone, then he reached for the present while I stood lookout. “What’s in it?” I asked when he grabbed it. He handed it to me and said, “I’ll keep watch, you open it.” I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to tear into a present, even if it wasn’t mine.

I scratched off the tape holding the box together and pulled up the flaps to find something I’d never seen before. It was a red piece of wood on a couple of roller skate wheels. I handed it to him, “What is it?” I asked. “It’s a skateboard,” he said. “You sit on it or stand on it and ride down hills.” Then he said, “And it’s yours, not mine.”

I thought I’d heard him wrong. “Why would Jaynie get me a present?” I asked. “She didn’t,” he said. “I got it for you.” “But why did you tell me it was from her?” “Because I wanted it to be a surprise, and I knew you’d sneak into it if you thought if was for you.”

I learned a lot of things that Christmas morning. I learned that surprises are way, way more delicious than sneaking into presents. I learned that my brother, who only had the money he earned delivering papers, had used some of his own cash to buy me something wonderful because he liked me and for no other reason, and I learned that a skateboard was the grandest present an eleven year old girl could ever hope to receive.

I think that may have been the first year a skateboard was ever sold anywhere in US. Seriously, no one had ever heard of them. And it looked just like a sanded board about six inches wide with the front and back barely rounded, and two sets of metal wheels underneath. He could have made it himself except it was painted red and had professional lettering on the top. Unlike today’s skateboards, it didn’t rock side to side so there really wasn’t any way to steer it. I never stood on it, but I sat on it and rode it down hills in the street or parking lots, leaning back with my feet held up, gathering speed and wearing down the soles of my shoes to stop. It was great fun.

So next time you’re tempted to sneak into anything, I hope you’ll remember my story and just hold off. You’ll be happy you waited – because someone who loves you is going to be delighted when they get to see your genuine surprise.

Christmas Eve Elf

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 24, 2009

In Holidays, Kids

Everyone has stories to tell about Christmas Eve, and that includes me. People with small children in the house who do the whole Santa thing know that you can’t just put presents under the tree. You have to wait until all hours of the night when the little rascals are tucked into bed and sound asleep to get the presents out of the hiding places scattered everywhere in the house and put them under the tree as if Santa actually came down the chimney – which our house doesn’t have Santa had to come right in the front door where we put the cookies and milk.

I did all of these things because I’ve felt compelled to be supermom. Compelled not by a desire to do everything superbly well and create memories that my children would cherish their whole lives. Nope. I’m just hyper. I do all kinds of stupid stuff because I can’t sit still. People think I’m productive and creative, when in reality I have things to show for my time because there has to be something really good on TV for me to veg out on the couch.

The other thing is my husband figured out a long time ago that if he refused to do something, like put together a bicycle or string Christmas lights, I’d do it. And yes, I’m getting to my point finally, which is why I think I deserve to be a Christmas Elf.

One year they wanted new bikes. There is nowhere at my house to hide one bike, much less two. And since Santa had to bring them, I asked one of my neighbors a few doors away if I could store the bikes at her house. She said yes, and offered the shed out back so that I could come and get them late at night without waking her.

We always go to midnight Mass. It wasn’t over until about 1:30 a.m. I got the kids home to bed, and that was easy enough because even though they were very, very excited and had helped put out the milk and cookies for Santa, they were also exhausted after spending Christmas Eve at Grandma’s and then the late church service. At 2:00 a.m. I walked up the dark street (we live in an area where the house lots are all ¾ acre so the houses are far apart and the street is woodsy and rural feeling). I took a flashlight, but it was very creepy in that shed. It wasn’t even a shed; it was a room in the foundation of the house on the backside, like an old-fashioned root cellar with a creaking door, low ceilings, and no doubt vermin and bats.

I tried to maneuver both bikes at one time because I had the eevy-jeevies and wanted to get done fast, but that lasted about three steps. So I left one and pushed the other out the door, up through the grass, and out into the street. I think there may have even been snow on the ground, or at least ice. Or maybe it was raining. Or a hailstorm. Or all of the above. But it could have just been a freezing cold, clear night. All I remember was pushing that little bike down the hill, trying to keep quiet so I didn’t get blasted with a shotgun or attacked by coyotes. I got it through the front door, positioned it in front of the tree, and went back out into the cold night and got the other one.

When I was done, around 2:30 a.m., I pulled out all of the presents that were hidden all over the house and put them under the tree, filled the stockings, turned off the lights, and crawled exhausted into bed. At 6:30 the kids zoomed in the room like rockets and sprang onto the bed. “Mom, Dad, wake up wake up it’s Christmas!” No argument could convince them to go back to bed for another three hours, so we got up. They ran down the hall into the living room and saw the new bikes. “LOOK LOOK, SANTA BROUGHT US BIKES – LOOK, MOM, LOOK!” I staggered in, dredged up some excitement in my voice, and said, “Look, he took a bite out of the cookies, too!”

I have spent many Christmas Eves like this, exhausted from last minute shopping, my husband’s family, wrapping, hiding, and retrieving presents, making candy and sending cards to people who probably don’t get many cards. I think I deserve the title of Honorary Elf, even if I only do all this stuff because I’d go nuts if I didn’t have something to do all the time. Like now – I still have to go wrap presents I bought last minute today and all I really want to do is climb into bed. My daughter wants “Santa” to come, though she’s 16 and plopped by the tree watching a Star Wars marathon. Crap, I may be up until 2:00 waiting for her to go to bed so I can put my stash of presents under the tree. It feels like old times.

Merry Christmas everyone from one of Santa’s official little helpers. Santa and I hope your Christmas Day is merry and bright!

December Babies Get Gypped

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 23, 2009

In Holidays

People born around Christmas get gypped out of their birthdays when they’re little. Friends and relatives will smile really big and hand you a gift and say, “Here’s your birthday and Christmas present.”

Let’s think about this for a minute. If you had been born on July 18^th, no one would say that. It would be ludicrous. So why do people think it’s okay to do it in December?

Everyone I’ve ever known with December birthdays says they got the same story — no matter what part of the country they were from or their economic status.

We get birthday cakes decorated in red and green with holly instead of flowers or balloons on them. We get presents wrapped in Christmas paper. This is not right!

I have made it my life’s mission to get my birthday celebrated in a non-Christmas style. I make sure everyone knows they cannot get by with the old combined present thing. I don’t care if you get me no gift at all – but just don’t tell me it’s for both. What does that mean, anyway? That if I choose to open the present on my birthday, I’m going to get up Christmas morning and have no presents at all?

When I get a birthday cake, or make one of my own, it does not have red and green frosting. It will be rainbow colors, or turquoise, or something that reeks of birthday.

I’ll give you an example. My mother-in-law, who I hope doesn’t read this, would have birthday parties for each of her five children when my husband and I were first married. We attended all of these, presents in hand, and had dinners and spent a few hours visiting with each other. And then it came time for our birthdays, and year after year there would be no party and no presents because the family was going to get together in a few days anyway. So we’d show up, get our, “Did you have a good birthday?” questions, maybe get some cards, and that would be it. Where is the justice?

If you’ve read this far, you probably think I’m a spoiled brat, and you’re right. But that is neither here nor there. Nor anyplace else either. I want my birthday to be separate. I’m going to use all the years of my adult life to make amends for the birthdays I got that were combined with Christmas.

I’m not bitter. Yeah, right. I’m mad as a hornet. December babies didn’t ask to compete with the biggest holiday on the planet. We’d be a lot happier if our parents would have gotten cozy in January instead of March. It was their lack of planning that has caused this annual inconvenience for us.

Sometimes I think I’ll just celebrate our birthdays in July with a nice barbecue so that the days before Christmas won’t be so full of activity, but I never do. It’s just not the same. A birthday is important. I believe it needs to be celebrated on the actual day – even if you don’t have a party or anything else. The minimum you need to have a good birthday is the feeling that it’s your day – even if you have to work or change diapers or visit the nursing home. You should be able to lay claim to that day as your own personal celebration, and not feel guilty about it.

So if you know people with a December birthdays, don’t even mention Christmas when you talk to them. Just say, “Happy Birthday,” and let us enjoy the moment. And if you want to give us a foot rub, that would be really nice, too.

Party Hugs

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 21, 2009

In Holidays

We had a gathering at our house tonight to celebrate Christmas and our birthdays. We invited a couple of new friends who had never been to our house. I introduced one man to my brother, and he said, “Which one of you two is the oldest?”

This is a very slippery slope to start down. One of us is obviously older. If it’s the female, then she’ll take it as a compliment and you’re in the clear. But you only have a 50-50 chance of it being the female. If you’re wrong, then you’d better duck and cover, because as they say, hell hath no fury like a woman you’ve just insulted about her age.

This is an easy mistake not to make. Just don’t ask such a stupid question. Ask, “Where did you grow up?” or “What do you do for a living?”

But enough about this, I need to talk about my cake. You know that hideous cake I made yesterday – the coconut one. Oh my sweet goodness was it tasty. It was so moist and just perfectly doused with coconut. Not one pinch too much or too little. I decorated it with turquoise icing and wrote, “Happy Birthday to Me and Scott.” My husband and I have very close birthdays.

Even with a ring of turquoise icing and writing on top, the caked remained ugly as a wall-eyed kangaroo, but it had a massive trustworthiness about it that invited you to partake of a little nibble out of pure curiosity. Once sampled, people were taking big old slices. I’m very happy it turned out tasty.

One fun thing about parties is that people drink a lot and loosen up and get silly. I didn’t drink too much because every time I poured a glass of wine I’d set it down and it would disappear. I probably went through two bottles of wine and didn’t get a buzz. I didn’t get much food for the same reason.

But some of my girlfriends were drinking enough for me. The things that come out of their mouths! They talk about other women’s boobs – about them sagging, or being perky, or showing too much cleavage, or having no cleavage to show. Boobs really are a good conversation piece for women at parties. I wonder if men talk about any part of their anatomy at parties. “Hey, John, how’s it hangin’?” “Well, it was hangin’ to the left but lately it’s a little more center, ha ha.” “Did you see that guy in the black pants? He looks like he’s got a dishtowel in there. What’s up with that?” “It’s not real.” “How can you tell?” “I just know these things. Trust me, it’s not real.”

Somehow I don’t think guys do that, but who knows.

Well, I’m pretty worn out. Parties, even small gatherings, are a lot of work. All that cleaning and vacuuming so people can grind crackers and grapes into your carpet, spill red wine on your kitchen floor, and shatter your favorite glass into a radius a half a mile wide so everyone has to stand still while you get the broom and spend the rest of the night sweeping up all the tiny slivers. In fact, sometimes I wonder why I love having parties, but I know I had this one because of that Christmas song that goes something like, “We need a little Christmas, right this very minute…” In this stagnant, downturned economy when everyone is just hunkering down and riding out the storm, I wanted the people I love and make me happy around me. I got a good dose of seasonal kindness and a whole bunch of hugs because people decide they’re leaving and give you a hug, and then they get distracted and a half-hour later they’re still there trying to go home so you get another hug. Hugs are good for the soul, and I’m happy as an otter in the water I’m going to bed now and dream of sugarplums.

Baking My Own Birthday Cake

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 21, 2009

In Holidays

It’s my birthday in a couple of days so I just finished making myself a coconut cake. When I was a kid, there was a little corner grocery store down the street that would get boxed coconut cakes in at Christmas time, and they had this hard icing Santa in the middle. My parents would always buy one of those cakes for me and stick some candles on it and that would be my birthday cake every year. Part of me didn’t like the Santa thing in the middle – nobody else had a Santa on their cake – they had balloons or confetti and flowers. On the other hand, that was pretty darn good cake and the only one I wanted.

This thing I made tonight is an atrocity. It is 16 inches across and about 6 inches tall because some friends are coming over to help me celebrate and I thought everyone would want a piece. I put coconut in the mix, and put coconut in the frosting: a total of two and a half bags, with each bag being 14 ounces. That’s over two pounds of coconut. Lord have mercy – the thing is lethal!

The frosting was too thick to spread, so I watered it down but got carried away. Why is it that you can add a few drops of water to thin something and it’s almost perfect, then you put one drop more and it gets runny? This happens to me a lot.

When icing is too soft, the top layer won’t stay put. It wants to glide sideways. I know this from experience. My cake isn’t doing that, though, and I think it’s because all that coconut is giving it some traction. I used two boxes of powdered sugar and two sticks of butter, and one whole bag of coconut, and there still wasn’t enough frosting to cover it. Brown cake is poking through. I think I put too much in the middle, but I needed some extra because the bottom layer looks like a dome and I was trying to fill in. I don’t know how you make a cake be flat. That’s why this cake is so tall.

Anyway, I saved a little of the frosting to decorate it, and maybe I’ll take a picture of it. My plan is to position the decorating to cover all the bare spots. Some of the icing on the top was easing down the dome and cracks were starting to form like mini San Andreas faults all over the top when I last checked it. I’m hoping sitting overnight will harden it up some.

Sorry for rambling on about this behemoth of a cake. If it tastes okay, and people eat it tomorrow night and get heart attacks from all the oils and other bad things, can I get sued? I’m going to ask my guests to sign a release before they can have a piece.

Writing Christmas Letters Is for the Dogs

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 19, 2009

In Holidays, Pets

I talked a little yesterday about how hard it is to write Christmas letters. But not as hard as it is to read some of them. I can’t understand why people write them in the 3^rd person. You know the person who is writing them is someone in the family. They didn’t hire someone else to do a one-page history of the last year.

For example, if there are four people in the family, the writer will say, “Joe decided to get chickens, Lucy is in 9^th grade, Jamie broke her leg, and Rebecca has been busy with her new company.” So who’s writing the fricking letter? If it’s some third party, there should be a by-line somewhere, like: “2009 Christmas Letter About the Jones Family” by Bob Smith.

Some of these letters go off the deep end. Pam, who must be the writer of one letter because she’s a single mom and you know good and well the 3 year old didn’t write it, says, “Pam has been busy with her job and a toddler. She is hoping to get a promotion so that she can work fewer hours and be able to afford to stay home more. Pam gets very tired sometimes, but she wants to be a good mom and do a great job so she just keeps plugging along. Pam would like to win the lottery or at least find a rich husband, ha ha.”

If you’re writing the Christmas letter for your family, please just say, “I have been busy.” It’s so much easier to plow through.

Here’s something else, but I know if I write it I’ll make some big stupid typo here, but it can’t be helped. Why won’t people read their own letters? They must just pump them out and stuff them in the envelope without a second glance. When I read through their letters I feel like taking a red pen and circling all the errors.

This doesn’t really bother me that much; I’m just struggling to find something to write about. I could mention a TV show I saw yesterday called, “The Science of Dogs.” It really was interesting. Assuming that dogs come from wolves, you’d think they’d have similar behavior, but they’re different in one important way. Dogs use humans to get what they want. When I saw this, I realized just how smart my dog is.

They had a dog and a wolf, and the wolf was raised as a pet so it had always lived with people and wasn’t wild. They tied a piece of meat on a string and put it in a cage, and both the dog and the wolf figured out how to pull the meat out of the cage by tugging on the string. Then they tied the meat down inside the cage but still put the string on it so it looked just like before. The wolf went straight to the string and started tugging, and when the meat didn’t come, it kept tugging, dragging the cage around and getting frustrated. Then they brought the dog in. It tugged on the string exactly twice, then backed off and looked up at the human with this perfect dog face and these eyes that said, “I can’t do it, please help me oh kind sir, and do it quick.”

I have seen that look on my dog so many times it made me laugh out loud. My dog likes to throw balls in the air and chase them around. She thinks she’s going to entice me to play with her by doing this, and sometimes it works. If I’m too busy to play right then, she’ll manage to roll the ball under the couch where she can’t reach it, and she gives me that look. If I’m not looking at her, she’ll bark a particular bark and sit and look toward the couch until I come in the room and ask what’s the matter. She just looks at me, then looks at the couch with that exact TV dog look until I lay down on my stomach and fish that ball out from under the couch.

That dog uses me for all kinds of stuff. She wants out, I get up and let her out. She wants in, I get up and let her in, then she wants out again – all in the space of three minutes. That dog has me wrapped around her finger and I’m on demand to do her bidding anytime day and night.

What that has to do with Christmas letters is this. Maybe it’s not a 3^rd party writing those letters; maybe it’s the family dog. I think I’m going to train my dog to type. She’d probably have some pretty good tales to tell. “Yeah, I got Suzanne on her belly six different times today. She’s such a sucker. You’d think she’d learn and just quit doing it. I laugh so hard I puke, which she promptly cleans up and starts talking to me in that stupid baby talk she thinks I like, then asks me if I have a bellyache and slices me some cheese to settle my stomach. Ahhh, a dog’s life is the only life for me. ”

Spinning Christmas Letters

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 18, 2009

In Holidays, Kids

I finally got my Christmas letter done for out of town family and friends. These used to be a lot easier to write when the kids were little and doing funny antics. You could ramble on and on about the baby’s first steps and it sounded so cute. Now it’s a struggle trying to spin your teenagers’ behavior into something that won’t embarrass you.

Take my son, for instance. He has spent two and a half years at the University of Oregon trying to attend every known party on campus. There’s not a lot of learning that goes on during these occasions, unless it’s studying ways to beat your opponent at beer pong. I believe in my heart that he would move heaven and earth to get to a party on time and be one of the last to leave.

Ah, but that he could muster that same tenacity and dedication when it comes to his classes. Those, apparently, are functions to avoid at all costs. Perhaps he thinks that would be bad for his reputation to be seen in a classroom, much less taking notes or answering a question.

I am poking jests because to do otherwise is to collapse into a heap of tears at what a failure I am as a parent. We just received the official letter from U of O saying that they are disinclined to have him come back to school at this time. He may take a year and attempt to improve his grades anywhere on the planet but there, at which time he can reapply.

I don’t know if I should be writing about this. He’ll kill me if he ever reads my blog, which could happen if Hell freezes over. I guess I was trying to make the point that it’s harder to write these Christmas letters as you get older.

I’ve received a couple of letters with reports about how many people have passed away since last Christmas. This is not happy holiday reading, but I guess people feel compelled to share things that are important to them.

Oh my gosh, speaking of sharing. I was at a neighbor’s Christmas party last night and had worked pretty much the whole room except for one girl in her mid-twenties wearing a black and white mini dress and socks with some kind of clunky sandals. Woo-whee! I started talking to her at the buffet table where we discovered we both ate soy burgers. “But they make me fart,” she confessed. “I ate a whole package of soy burgers and then went on a date to a movie with a guy, and I couldn’t stop farting. I farted all through the movie.” Her eyes were getting big and her voice more animated. She obviously enjoyed this topic. “It was weird, though, he never said anything.” I was thinking that he was probably being slowly asphyxiated. “He never asked me out again.”

Well, du-uh. I hate people who pass gas in close places where you can’t escape.

Anyway, she starts in on another really gassy experience she had with baked beans, and I was…aghast. I never fart in public, though I may not be quite so kind with my family. Still, I am discreet, and I sure don’t talk about it to strangers at parties. But that’s just me.

As I was saying, I agonized over my Christmas letter this year, trying to spin it a little so that one child didn’t come across as an under-achiever, and the other as an over achiever. At least neither of my children farts and talk about it at parties. Maybe that’s what I should have said. There is always a silver lining, as they say. They also say, Beans, beans good for your heart, the more you eat the more you…toot. The girl at the party also confessed that she was a dog walker, which is the perfect profession because she can fart out in the open air all day. Just imagine! She gave me her business card, but I’m probably not going to call – my dog is averse to gas. She’ll jump off your lap and literally leave the room if you let one slip, which is pretty amazing for a beast that spends half the day with her head between her own back legs. Quite frankly, I find it a little insulting.

Well, I think I’ve said about all I can say on the subject of Christmas letters.

Buyer Beware: Gingerbread Houses

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 15, 2009

In Holidays, Kids

On Sunday we decorated gingerbread houses. It’s a longstanding family tradition even though 50% of my children refuse to engage in it anymore. They loved it when they were little because they could eat all the candy they wanted while we decorated. They invited their friends over and it was a big gorge-fest. They also took pride in the actual decorating, because there was a little bit of competition to see who could make the most appealing house. Some years I baked the gingerbread from scratch. This was when Martha was preaching to us that we could duplicate our own house so easily with gingerbread, and I, like a lot of other suckers, fell for it.

When you’re a hyper stay-home mom, you do these things. My friends and I, at one time or another, baked bread, make cakes from scratch, canned fresh produce, and took our kids to parks and parades and “outings” constantly. None of us have anything to show for it because our teenagers are as surly and ungrateful as the working moms’ teenagers, but I’m getting off the subject, which is gingerbread houses.

I came to my senses and started buying those packaged kits; we assemble them now with a hot glue gun rather than the icing, which took forever to dry. No one eats the things – they rank side by side with fruitcakes as inedible holiday fare. Although one of our friends came over and started plucking candy off the roof of the gingerbread house one year. I had to slap his hand. Twice.

Last year I was really thrifty and bought some g-bread houses on sale at half price to use this year. They weren’t the normal Wilton brand that I’ve used many years, they were a brand that stands for candy and has two names that both start with W and had a movie with the same names starring Gene Wilder first and then a remake starring Johnny Depp. I do not want to say the actual name because I’m afraid I’m going to get sued.

This particular brand of g-bread house came in a very large box with lots of candies on the front. We opened the boxes and found them full of….(suspense!) green plastic molding that sequestered the candies into little compartments and had one small section for a baby g-bread house. Now maybe the makers thought this was a full size house, but that would be like saying a Barbie doll’s house was like a real house.

Furthermore, some of the g-bread was cracked into pieces. That could have been from taking it out of the grocery cart and putting it into my storage area where it sat and did nothing for a year until it was removed from it’s safe place and opened.

We got out the hot glue guns and went to work patching the sides so that we could assemble the houses. Once that was all done, they fell apart. There is some magical coating on these houses that makes them impervious to glue. By the time we got the houses to be freestanding, we were too tired to decorate.

But we pressed on for the sake of tradition, and opened the bags of icing that came with the kit. My daughter squirted a little on her finger to have a taste, and it had a revolting brownish tinge. Luckily we had some leftover frosting from another kit and used that. The brownish color could have been because the icing was old, but I’m not so sure, I wouldn’t put anything past these guys.

Anyway, we had pretty much lost interest in the whole affair by now, but we at least put nice roofs on the houses. She used Necco wafers like shingles, and I sprinkled some of the colorful bits of hard candy that came with the kit on my roof. The rest of it we slapped together willy-nilly just to get them covered with candy and say we were done.

One bunch of candies included in the kit were little yellow banana shaped things – now there’s a Christmassy color. Instead of nice greens and reds, everything was pastels or bright oranges. Luckily we always buy tons of red and green M & M’s and other seasonal candy to sprinkle around the houses to make them more festive. Plus the loose candy keeps most normal humans away from the candy on the house (except the one exception mentioned above).

So that’s my tale of woe about this year’s gingerbread houses. I took a picture of them to put on my Christmas card, which for some stupid reason I think I have to make from scratch even though it takes hours and hours. I really need to see a psychiatrist. That will have to be one of my New Year’s resolutions. Along with not buying big suspicious boxes covered in candy just to save a couple of bucks.

I Photoshopped the crap out of this to liven it up.

The Leaky Christmas Tree Saga Continues

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 8, 2009

In Holidays

Last night I went to bed hoping that the water surrounding my Christmas tree stand was due to sloppy watering and not a leak. I was thinking that somehow overnight the thing would fix itself, or I don’t know, behave like it ought to and hold the water as well as hold the tree.

But alas, this morning the tree stand’s well was dry as the Mojave Desert, surrounded by an oasis of leaked water. I had plastic under the stand that had saved some of my carpet, which gave me a brilliant idea. I could fold that plastic up around the tree stand, tie it off somehow, and not have to take my tree down to replace the stand!

I got on my stomach with some twine and started tucking the plastic up. The tree is fresh and full of sap, with very low branches. My hair stuck to the limbs like Contact paper. A small price to pay not to tear the tree down.

Once I was done tying, I poured a gallon of water in. It held! But slowly it ballooned out, and I needed to put another gallon in to actually have water in the tree well itself. It worked!

I was so happy, until my husband called and explained to me why this could not be a permanent solution, and the tree had to come down. I cried and whimpered and pitched a big hissy fit, but in the end I knew he was right because if that plastic sprang a leak and it caused the carpet to mildew, I’d never hear the end of it. Although I could use some new carpet.

Then I had another brainstorm. If I laid the tree on its backside, the one with no lights or ornaments, I could take the bad tree stand off and put a brand new one on. Only problem was, I’d just poured two gallons of water in the plastic, and gravity was just chomping at the bit to get that water onto my carpet.

But wait! I knew how to siphon! I’ve got fish and I have to siphon out their tank. It’s disgusting but easy and I’m so talented that I’ve never had a problem with fishy water and my lips ever meeting.

I started siphoning the tree water out of the plastic; only it wasn’t as easy as the fish water. I think it’s got to do with Physics. The velocity of the H2O is directly proportional to E=MC²divided by the cosine of the negative integer plus the length of the siphon tube minus the distance between the bucket and the tree stand. In layman’s words, the tree stand had to be higher than the bucket for it to work.

Not to be outsmarted by Physics, I sucked anyway, and it was some hard sucking, too. I was Hoovering that hose with concave jaws just to get a little trickle. Some of the tree water did get into my mouth and I swallowed it before I knew what happened – thank goodness I put sugar in it. I tried using a broiling pan to collect the water instead of the bucket and got way low on the floor to reduce the gravitational pull, and it worked! Better. But not great. Still, definite progress was being made. When I heard those gurgling sounds you hear when you’re sucking a milkshake through a straw and you’re getting close to the bottom, I took the plastic down and was able to sop all the remaining water up with a few towels.

Now it was time to tilt the tree down, which turned out to be pretty easy except for the awful sound of glass ornaments clinking together. The treetop angel got caught on a candleholder and looked like she was riding a broom. The little red bead garland slid off the tree like a Slinky heading down the stairs. It made kindof the same noise, too.

My husband had to go to six stores to find a decent tree stand, but we got that baby on, gently raised the tree, and I’m happy to say it only took me six more hours to get everything back in place. I exaggerate. It just seemed that long because many, many things needed fixing, and it would have taken that long if I hadn’t made a conscience decision to slip shod the whole thing together. I just don’t really give a flying Santa if it’s perfect at this point.

So if this is the first thing I’ve done for Christmas and had this outcome, what’s it going to be like when I do all the rest, like make homemade candy and maybe plan a party? I tell you what it will be like. It will all be fine. As long as I keep the lights down low, put a gift card in with the candy, and make sure my kids have an equal number of presents under the tree, it will be a fantastic Christmas.

One thing does worry me though. When I went to the restroom earlier, I could smell Christmas tree. You don’t think it was all that tree water I swallowed….

O Christmas Tree, How Can This Be?

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 6, 2009

In Holidays

Like a lot of people in the real world, we just put up our Christmas tree, and a fine tree it is, too. A ten foot noble fir that weighs 150 pounds, according to my husband, and has got our house smelling like we’re living right in the middle of Yosemite.

My daughter and I decorated the tree, putting on cute ornaments and remarking on their history. Many of them were, “Baby’s 1^st Christmas” ones that several people gave me when my son was born. When my daughter came along a few years later, Christmas was already past, and she only got a couple of them, and she lets me know every year how mistreated she feels. So listen up, mothers to be. When your second and third baby come along, buy up a bunch of those baby’s firsts so all your kids have the same number.

This is good advice for all things concerning children. I only raised two, but there were continual squabbles about who got the most of everything. It didn’t matter if I spent the same amount of money on each kid, if one got 6 presents and the other got 7, there would be a big ruckus on Christmas morning.

Maybe it’s just my kids. They fought all the time, and they always wanted to know who was the favorite. This caught me off guard the first couple of times they asked, and I sputtered and said some stupid thing like, “I love you both the same.” This was not what they wanted to hear. Mainly because they despised each other and couldn’t believe I could like the other one as much as them. Having me say out loud that I liked one better would also give that one ammunition to use to spite the other one.

I figured this out and finally, if my son was the one asking, I said, “You are my favorite boy in the whole wide world.” He was happy because all he heard was that he was my favorite.

You learn lots of tricks raising kids. The best one ever was offering them a choice. For instance, I’d ask, “Do you want to go to the grocery store or Target first?” They didn’t want to go either place at all, but just by getting a little control, they’d forget that the two options were both awful and start arguing between themselves about which place to go. “I want to go to the grocery store first.” “Well I want to go to Target first and I’m the oldest so there.” Finally I’d step in with what appeared to be a fair tiebreaker and say, “Okay, let’s flip a coin and see which one.” They’d call it, I’d flip the coin, one would lose and pout a little but understand that it was out of all our hands, the coin had spoken, and we’d go to the grocery store first without complaints because they had decided what we were doing. Pretty clever, huh?

I’ve got a whole ton of these child-rearing tips and techniques, but I have other business to attend to at the present. Remember that Christmas tree my daughter and I decorated and hung lights, garland, and a million ornaments? I had watered that tree as soon as my husband got it set up, and after we were all done I noticed a puddle. “Dagnabit,” I exclaimed. Not really, I just wanted to type that word for fun. It’s hard getting up under a tree with a water pitcher, and I was pretty much watering blind so I must have missed getting the water in. I filled the pitcher up again, added a little more sugar (keeps the tree fresh) and this time I looked really closely to make sure the water was going into the tree stand. Then I saw a new puddle all around the stand. It leaks! The fricking tree stand leaks! What am I supposed to do now? The tree’s all decorated, I stuck my hand in the Christmas tree stand well and there are only a couple of inches of water left. That tree will slurp that up in an hour.

I am not taking the tree down and replacing the stand. I need something I can put the whole stand in so I can just lift the tree straight up. But what? It’s really a big stand.

Anyway, that’s why I’m ending this post right now, so I can fret over my tree. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, why are you tormenting me? O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, why must you pee all over me? Bah humbug!