Dec
22
This is always a stressful time of year for me at work, because the one and only industry exhibition Workplace participates in is stupidly, hatefully, sucktastically scheduled for early January, making tradeshow preparations a major feature of my overall Relaxing Holiday Experience. Will the CDs be finished on time, have the brochures been finalized, how many ponderous internal discussions over the pros and cons of various t-shirt manufacturers can I listen to before my head simply explodes in a festive spray of Christmas cheer, etc.
I’ve been feeling sort of Grinchy about the holidays this year as a result of Tradeshow Clusterfuck 2007, looming freelance deadlines, the vague fear that Smalltopus will make a sudden and unexpected appearance and I still haven’t gotten the nursery ready, and what I have come to think of as Third Trimester Malaise (where your sheer girth and physical discomfort transform most activities into Herculean-sounding battles of will and effort, even if it’s something like, “Get up off the couch and go pee”), however, I think I’m getting back into the swing of things. I made JB drive us around earlier to look at the lights on houses in our neighborhood (Riley: “KIMASS LIGHTS! YAY!”), I listened to the lovely and wistful Aimee Mann, I guzzled a peppermint white chocolate mocha, I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special with Riley; I’m starting to feel the spirit of the season. I mean, if a godless heathen is allowed to say so.
JB’s parents arrive tomorrow and will stay through the middle of the week, and JB’s brother is scheduled to make an appearance at least for Christmas eve and morning. I’m planning a holiday menu of baked ham, scalloped potatoes, this green bean dish from Ree over at Pioneer Woman—which dude, I know, it doesn’t sound good, but believe me it IS—and about a million black olives, because truthfully they are my favorite part of any holiday meal.
Next weekend we’re going to visit my side of the family in Port Angeles, where we’ll have another little holiday celebration and Riley will likely run amok and terrorize the household pets and attempt to climb my aunt’s beautiful vintage carousel horse.
So, my goals for this week: try and chill the hell out about (stupid) Macworld, dial back a bit on blog-writing, and stuff my already-enormous belly full of many unhealthy snacks. Lofty! Yet attainable, I hope.
If you’ll pardon me sapping out for a minute, I am extraordinarily thankful for all of the support and kindness you’ve shown me this year, my internet friends. From my family to yours, I hope you have a perfectly wonderful holiday, if you’re celebrating, and a wonderful, relaxing week regardless.
Also! I’d love to know what your plans are, so if you get a minute, share: what are you doing, where are you going, what will you be eating?
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We’re heading to my grandmother-in-law’s house for baked ham, sweet potato casserole, turkey and dressing, green bean casserole, and egg custard pie. And mashed potatoes, english peas, corn casserole, banana pudding, fudge, cookies, homemade rolls, and pecan pie. Yes, we are from the south. And yes, almost ALL of my in-laws are diabetic. :-) Merry Christmas.
mmmm…black olives
We Icelanders celebrate Christmas (or Yule) on Christmas eve. So the entire family will be dressed to the nines and we’ll have dinner (duck)until we are ready to burst, then open presents, then have desert and finally around midnight we’ll get home with tons of new stuff and filled to the brim. Christmas day is usually used for lying on the sofa and watching the movies we got for christmas.
Our 16 month old will run around and go crazy with all his new toys.
It will be fantastic!
Have a Happy Holiday!
Our big family party was on the 22nd where we host almost 70 people and Santa comes – the REAL ONE.
For Christmas day, it’s a smaller gathering with a dinner of roast beef, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, and my favorite – scallops wrapped in bacon for an app.
After that, I’m taking a very. long. run!
Merry Christmas to the lovely Sundry family.
Your Christmas card is awesome!
We’re hanging out at home for the holidays (me, my husband, and our 2.5-year-old son). My parents are staying with us for a couple of nights (Christmas Eve & Christmas Day), but other than that, we’re on our own. We’re having stuffed french toast on Christmas morning, and for dinner, honey & thyme-brined turkey breast, broccoli (because my son eats it), mashed red potatoes with garlic & chives, and homemade dinner rolls. For desserts & snacks, we have some AWESOME chocolate-peppermint cookies, cranberry & pistachio biscotti, and almond biscotti.
Hope you & yours have a lovely holiday!
Well, I am currently sitting on the couch at my parents’ home in Nashua NH, waiting impatiently for my luggage to be delivered by American Airlines – thanks to weather and the FAA delaying flights arriving at JFK in NYC, and American not holding the shuttle flight to Boston five damn minutes even though they must have known we were right there and that shuttle flight wasn’t yet running late at all. Ahem. Anyhow, as usual I’m back at my parents’ for Christmas, my dad’s making turkey for the immediate family (minus my younger sister, who’s in Colorado this year), and there’ll be a properly boisterous extended LaRose family gathering tomorrow afternoon. It’s good to be here. Plus, later in the week will be the first gathering of my core hometown group of friends in like 12 years, very much looking forward to that.
Thank you, Linda, for continuing to write your witty and fascinating blog through good times and bad. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Not going out of town– on Christmas we (my boyfriend and I) will be spending time with his stepfather’s side (via his grandma), and his uncle (mom’s side), and I’m hoping that sometime in between the two we can spend some time with my family, since Grandma is at 1 and Uncle is at 5 or 6.
And I also need to make a roast for my family (one of those traditions I started before I had to go to 3 different places on Christmas day), so it’s going to be busy. And hopefully fun. I’m really hoping that for the most part, no one on his side got me anything for Christmas, because I really am trying to simplify and not accumulate any more unnecessary stuff. I know it’s a pipe dream, though.
Beautiful Christmas wishes– I hope the same for all of you!
My boyfriend and I (both godless heathens, as well) will be eating Chinese food dinner with friends for the 25th. :)
We did this for the first time last year right after we started dating, so this is the 2nd annual chi-din with friends. :D Hurray for homemade traditions!
Have a happy one! :)
In the great tradition of being Jewish, my partner and I are doing a whole lot of nothing. I slept until noon (decadent!), and then we decided to skip the movie for a change because it’s snowing like crazy here (MN). Instead, I walked two blocks to the Chinese restaurant and picked up a few dishes for a midday lunch. Dinner will be leftovers from the week and a quiet evening of watching HGTV and Big Love.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the 4 day weekend with no obligations.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Exxxxxxxx-hale. And again. Ok one more time… there we go. Whew! We successfully pulled off a turkey dinner with all the fixin’s last night, managing to have one of the most memorably enjoyable family gatherings even though it was just the grandparents over instead of the entire family. Then today we braved an impromptu snow storm, white knuckling it out to my parents’ place in Mission, BC for another family dinner, with all the fixins, another great time for kids and adults alike. Now we’re just dealing with the gas and feeling grateful to trade the constricting holiday wear for new nighties and jammies! We will be hitting the hay, full and happy, soon and then tomorrow will look forward to some afternoon sledding and a Boxing Day open house at friends. It’s all good.
I would like to echo the sentiments of so many of your readers and thank you for sharing your life and your insight with us. I enjoy reading the comments, almost as much as your blog! You have attracted a high calibre of diversity to your page, and that says a lot. Hope you all had a great holiday and here’s to 2008!
We did the most awesome Christmas surprise ever. We repeatedly told my husbands family that we could not come home for Christmas… they always have a huge family Christmas party on Christmas eve and about 50 people come.
We are big fat liars! We left at 4am on the 24th and drove more than 6 hours… but we made it for the party. And they were so surprised! My two daughters got to open presents Christmas morning with every single one of their cousins. AWESOME!
That picture in the middle looks like a Baby J. Crew ad. If they had those. So. Freakin’. Cute.