Ok, I'm slow these days - blame it on "the baby ate my brain" syndrome! But after reading Greta's great Christmas rundown, I really have to.
The best thing I can say about Christmas is that it's over. I didn't used to feel that way but these days it seems like one unending round of duty and obligation - and, no, I don't mean the shopping. I enjoy the shopping... and the wrapping. It's the being social with people I don't particularly have anything in common with (i.e., John's family) that is absolutely drag out tiring and, really, when it comes down to it, being short on cash sucks.
But there were some good things...
The absolute highlight of my Christmas was singing the Lessons & Carols service with the choir at South Church in New Britain. The choir is quite good and very nice, the music was challenging, the director is awesome, and they made me feel really welcome and valued as a guest.
The next best thing was that my rolls came out wonderfully and I was able to co-opt John's niece who went to culinary school into making the gravy so I didn't have to. Yes, for some reason, making gravy scares the shit out of me. Probably because the first time I made it, it turned out more like chicken-flavored jello than gravy and my family has never let me live it down. And, yes, I do realize it's sad that the second best thing about Christmas was great rolls.
Beyond that, it was pretty typical. Christmas Eve, we hosted dinner here for 15 (John's family; was supposed to be 20 but one family came down with a nasty puke bug - ugh!). It went well. I meant to get a picture of the table but forgot in the rush to get stuff done. I made the cutest little place cards tied to miniature candy canes.
My home choir had the 10 a.m. Mass to sing on Christmas morning so we woke Katie up at 8 to check out her Santa loot. After spending 1.5 hours blowing this damn thing up the night before, she couldn't have cared less. Not only was my ass killing me from using the footpump, I was brokenhearted because I was sure she was going to love it. She did wind up liking some of her wrapped non-Santa presents that we opened after Church - including her favorite which was a box of toy pots and pans and dishes that were mine when I was a kid. Then we spent the afternoon with John's family at his sister's house. An absolute madhouse but Katie got some lovely (and non-annoying!!) stuff. And then I worked Christmas night.
So what did I get? I got a Starbucks card from a WONDERFUL fellow blogger - it was a huge surprise and Very, Very Appreciated. I got the aforementioned resin snowman lamp (by the way, it's no longer on offer - I was able to regift it to a woman who loved it thoroughly!) from my work draw. And from John's family draw, I got a donation to Habitat for Humanity and a $25 Nordstrom gift card. I was thinking shoes but then I realized (a) $25 isn't going to buy much in the way of shoes at Nordstrom and (b) Nordstrom has a MAC counter... Hee hee!
What was cool is that John's teenage niece (not the culinary school grad) absolutely *loved* the scarf I got her. It's pretty hard to impress a late teenager - all that insufferable ennui - but I did and I was very happy about that.
So, that's our Christmas in a nutshell - which seems appropriate coming from this nut. I hope you all had a wonderful day!
We are headed out to my brother's house in PA for this weekend and I will be without my laptop in a house of tremendously early risers so you probably won't be hearing from me for a while so Happy New Year!!
Dec 27, 2007
Dec 23, 2007
Of Christmas Lights, Grab Bags, and Loneliness
Topic 1:
First off, we are all ok. The house is ok. BUT it might not be so if a guy driving by didn't happen to look at our house from exactly the right spot at exactly the right time.
Our outdoor Christmas lights caught fire! We think that, with the bad weather, something got wet and there was a short in one of the light sets but who really knows. What we do know is this: the Christmas lights went out at some point, John was out blowing the driveway, a guy in a big van stopped, got out, and raced down the driveway to John. (I was watching from the house wondering "why are the Christmas lights out? I could've sworn I turned them on!".) Then they both come racing to the house. There is a small electrical fire right by the base of the door frame that flamed up just as the guy happened to look out as he happened to drive by. It melted the prongs of the plug off into the extension cord but, fortunately, we caught it and unplugged everything before the porch or the doorframe caught fire. There was a lot of soot but the wood all appears to be whole and unburnt.
So, even if I receive nothing else for Christmas, I am grateful that we are unscathed.
Topic 2:
If anyone out there wants a resin snow man lamp that I got in our office gift exchange, let me know. It's a snowman holding a banner that a cat is sleeping on. The light bulb comes out of a pole that starts at the base and curves around the snowman and straightens over his head. It takes a nightlight bulb and has a countryish lampshade. It's certainly cute but it doesn't fit my house in the slightest. (I tend toward Craftsman and Victorian eclectia rather than kitsch.) I'd love someone to have it that would have a place for it! (I'm too lazy to get up and take/upload/post a picture - sorry!)
Topic 3:
Have you ever noticed how lonely one can be even if one is surrounded by people? Everyone is home now but I'm feeling awfully lonely tonight. I think, in part, it's the post-performance letdown (I sang with a local church choir this afternoon for their Lessons & Carols service - it was nice to do some more challenging music including a fascinating, tonally shifting, 8+ part divisi Magnificat (Finzi - interestingly, the piece was commissioned for the Smith and Amherst College Choirs back in 1952 - small world kind of thing)). At any rate, we did go to the party afterward and I'm glad we went though we had to leave really early because we didn't have a sitter. I had a pretty good time which is more than I usually do at parties - they are a real effort for me: too many people. At any rate, somehow, now that we're home and Katie and John have gone to bed and I'm working (technically), I feel even more alone than normal. It was a great time - the rehearsals and the performance - and I got to be with grownups sans kid. As with the bad things, the good things also fall under the "this, too, shall pass" description.
I probably won't post again before Christmas so let me wish you all holiday filled with all good things and, most especially, peace on Earth and good will to all.
First off, we are all ok. The house is ok. BUT it might not be so if a guy driving by didn't happen to look at our house from exactly the right spot at exactly the right time.
Our outdoor Christmas lights caught fire! We think that, with the bad weather, something got wet and there was a short in one of the light sets but who really knows. What we do know is this: the Christmas lights went out at some point, John was out blowing the driveway, a guy in a big van stopped, got out, and raced down the driveway to John. (I was watching from the house wondering "why are the Christmas lights out? I could've sworn I turned them on!".) Then they both come racing to the house. There is a small electrical fire right by the base of the door frame that flamed up just as the guy happened to look out as he happened to drive by. It melted the prongs of the plug off into the extension cord but, fortunately, we caught it and unplugged everything before the porch or the doorframe caught fire. There was a lot of soot but the wood all appears to be whole and unburnt.
So, even if I receive nothing else for Christmas, I am grateful that we are unscathed.
Topic 2:
If anyone out there wants a resin snow man lamp that I got in our office gift exchange, let me know. It's a snowman holding a banner that a cat is sleeping on. The light bulb comes out of a pole that starts at the base and curves around the snowman and straightens over his head. It takes a nightlight bulb and has a countryish lampshade. It's certainly cute but it doesn't fit my house in the slightest. (I tend toward Craftsman and Victorian eclectia rather than kitsch.) I'd love someone to have it that would have a place for it! (I'm too lazy to get up and take/upload/post a picture - sorry!)
Topic 3:
Have you ever noticed how lonely one can be even if one is surrounded by people? Everyone is home now but I'm feeling awfully lonely tonight. I think, in part, it's the post-performance letdown (I sang with a local church choir this afternoon for their Lessons & Carols service - it was nice to do some more challenging music including a fascinating, tonally shifting, 8+ part divisi Magnificat (Finzi - interestingly, the piece was commissioned for the Smith and Amherst College Choirs back in 1952 - small world kind of thing)). At any rate, we did go to the party afterward and I'm glad we went though we had to leave really early because we didn't have a sitter. I had a pretty good time which is more than I usually do at parties - they are a real effort for me: too many people. At any rate, somehow, now that we're home and Katie and John have gone to bed and I'm working (technically), I feel even more alone than normal. It was a great time - the rehearsals and the performance - and I got to be with grownups sans kid. As with the bad things, the good things also fall under the "this, too, shall pass" description.
I probably won't post again before Christmas so let me wish you all holiday filled with all good things and, most especially, peace on Earth and good will to all.
Dec 16, 2007
Baby Update
We had our first Level II ultrasound on Thursday.
The baby looks healthy and "normal". Growth rates are right on target. She weighs about 9 oz now.
Yep, "she". Looks like we'll be adding another little girl our family. John's a little disappointed but not nearly like he was when Katie was in utero. He's realized that he can, indeed, have fun with a little girl too.
She's kicking me in the bladder right now - LOL. Glad I can finally feel her occasionally - reassures me to no end.
P.S. That wonderfully inappropriate Santa candleholder? (The one with the tree star stuck up his, er, boomba?) Katie knocked it off the table yesterday and it broke. Sigh. She also shattered my carved soapstone egg with the carved swan inside it. It was a destructive day.
The baby looks healthy and "normal". Growth rates are right on target. She weighs about 9 oz now.
Yep, "she". Looks like we'll be adding another little girl our family. John's a little disappointed but not nearly like he was when Katie was in utero. He's realized that he can, indeed, have fun with a little girl too.
She's kicking me in the bladder right now - LOL. Glad I can finally feel her occasionally - reassures me to no end.
P.S. That wonderfully inappropriate Santa candleholder? (The one with the tree star stuck up his, er, boomba?) Katie knocked it off the table yesterday and it broke. Sigh. She also shattered my carved soapstone egg with the carved swan inside it. It was a destructive day.
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