Holidaze (Part II)

This year our adorable monsters were really into Christmas and I’m not talking about just the gift receiving part.  More importantly, they understood the true meaning of it - the celebration of Jesus’ Birthday.  In fact, Porkchop wanted to buy a birthday balloon for Jesus and send it up to Heaven on Christmas day (I’m such a bad mommy because I completely forgot to do it!).  Experiencing the excitement and belief in Santa and Sonny-Jingles (our elf on the shelf – they couldn’t decide between Sonny and Jingles, so we combined them) with them was so much fun!  And, I must admit it was fun using Santa and Sonny-Jingles as bribery tools. Threats similar to “Sonny-Jingles is going to report that back to Santa and you are going to get coal in your stocking!” were yelled out a lot in our house last month.

The daze continues on with the gang’s long standing Christmas dinner and gift exchange. This is an adult’s only evening where we enjoy a dinner at a nice restaurant, go back to someone’s house (whoever volunteered to host) continue to drink and exchange gifts.  In the beginning, when we were all still living at home, we would exchange names and buy a gift.  Then we started having weddings, mortgages, kids, etc. One year when we were all feeling the true meaning of Christmas, we agreed  to buy gifts for a needy family (I’m pretty sure that patches [f/k/a portabella] was not 100% on board with this idea) and do a white elephant gift exchange instead. That lasted for a couple years. Now we just do the white elephant exchange, which I believe makes for the best part of the night! Ours is done a little differently. We are not allowed to buy anything. You must find useless pieces of crap around your house, wrap them up and put them in a box or bag. There is no item amount – find as many pieces as you want (we have a special box that we throw stuff into all year long).  When we get to the house, everyone’s wrapped up crap is placed in a pile on the floor. One by one, youngest to oldest picks a bag of crap. Then one by one, starting with the oldest, we start to open our crap. There is a garbage bag nearby for the especially crappy gifts (like the broken dust-buster from the 1980’s)  Some other pieces of crap were a missing piece to a kids toy, a chuckie cheese coin, a used diaper genie and a butt bank that farts when you put money it.  I’m not kidding when I tell you a few of us moms who don’t do our keegals have or have nearly peed our pants during the exchange!

Then comes Christmas Eve. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I’m a product of a broken family. Before my parents divorced and when my grandparents were alive and living in Michigan, there was a long standing tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve with my dad’s side.  That made the decision of what to do about Christmas easy -   Christmas Eve with Dad and Christmas with Mom. Dad lives in the house he grew up in and it’s not much bigger than Itty Bitty. So when we all get together, dinners over there can be a little chaotic with four little boys under the age of 6 running around. At times, I welcome chaos because it definitely makes for an interesting night. Drinks and food are enjoyed and then we all get spoiled with gifts.

At last, it’s the big day, the day we have all been waiting for – Christmas morning. This year was so different than last year. The boys didn’t wake us up at 5:30 – they actually slept in until 8:00 (I know, pathetic isn’t it that sleeping in is 8:00 in our house) They waited patiently (at least as patiently as they could) while the coffee brewed and we set up the video camera (I’m not a huge fan of the video camera in the morning and try to stay out of it as much as possible!) And as wide eyed and excited as they were, they didn’t just rip the paper off, stare at it for a millisecond, and quickly move on to the next one. This year they were genuinely very excited about their gift and kept repeating “this is exactly what I wanted!”

Everyone was happy with what they received and we were off to a good start. In the past, this about the time we need to start scrambling and getting ready to enter the stressfulness of having to travel all over. However, this year we decided to start a new tradition. After six years of packing kids up 2-3 times during the day we decided to have Christmas at Itty Bitty. Over the last couple years, some of the extended family started having Christmas with just their immediate family. Realizing they were on to something, Assman and I decided to give it a try.  We invited everyone to come for dinner, including extended members.  In the end, Assman’s mom came for brunch and my immediate family came for a homemade (I’m talking from scratch!) Armenian feast. There was hommos, Lahmajoon (Armenian pizza), grape leaves, sou- beoreg, pilaf, fatoush and shish kafta. And just in case someone craved some American food – there was a ham. Everything turned out delicious!

On the morning of December 26^th, I woke up and glanced around Itty Bitty (this literally involves standing in the hallway and spinning around).  I stared in awe at all the toys scattered around (some of which were already broken by porkchop - within seconds of being opened – no joke!) And do you know what I did?  I just left it there, because I was on vacation.

Until next time – I hope you lived, laughed and loved with your friends and family during Christmas as much as we did! xoxo

Holidaze (Part I)

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Some spent months preparing. Others spent days. They came.  Then with a blink of an eye, they went.  Just like that. All the planning and excitement is over, leaving most of us in a complete daze. 

For me, holidays are all about spending time with family and friends. Enjoying your loved ones company and eating so much good food that you are nearly comatose by the end of the year! And believe you me (what does that mean exactly?); I made the most of all that and then some!  This holiday season, old traditions were followed and new ones were started in our family. 

My daze began in mid November (Assman, Husband #2, & Sister Chili Pepper may tell you my “daze” is pretty much always present, but don’t listen to them, it’s all just an act I put onJ)  with Thanksfriends. Over the last six years our "gang" has grown to include 10 babies (wow, just typing that sounds crazy to me!) A few years back, right around Thanksgiving, I realized that we hardly ever have family get together, so I decided to host a Thanksfriends (although, I’m pretty sure Dan came up with the cute name) dinner. I supply the turkey and a side or two and everyone brings another dish or two. This makes for quite the delicious spread! I was a little nervous this year about Itty Bitty and whether everyone would fit, or even if everyone wanted to try and fit, but I'm happy to report that in the end it all worked out. We were a little crammed and pretty much used all 900 sq ft. of Itty Bitty at one point or another, but I loved having the entire kit and caboodle (minus one) together for no other reason than to eat, drink and be thankful for one another. Good food and good friends - just like the good old days. Well, not completely like the old days, because now there are a bunch of kids either, running around, crying, attached to a hip, or sucking on a boob. And I was thankful for every minute of it.

Next, was the official Thanksgiving. The boys were so excited that their Zia and Uncle John were coming in. Hambone does not like to share Zia with anyone.  In fact, if he could, I’m certain he would spend every waking moment with her while she is in town. And Poor Uncle John, Porkchop has grown very fond of him. So much so he feels the need to attempt to become a permanent fixture on his leg. I’m not sure how other families work it out, but after we had kids, we found it hard to travel across the state (at least it felt like it sometimes!) to visit both sides of the family. So we initiated a plan: one side for Easter and the other side for Thanksgiving and then alternate the next year. This year was Thanksgiving on Assman’s side, at Aunt Judy and Uncle Ray’s. I love seeing everyone, but I have to admit, one of my most favorite things about going there on holidays is Aunt Judy’s homemade Italian cooking (and I’m not just sucking up, I don’t have too, because I already think she likes me better than Assman – j/k-maybe?) The only bad thing about going there is I always leave telling Assman I wish we lived out in the country.  One day he tells me, one day we will have our dream house in the country (I’m holding him to that too!!!)

Originally, there was much more to this post. But, as I started writing I realized that because I suffer from CRS, I should have been writing and posting after each holiday event. I'm certain that I am leaving out lots of funny moments. Like on Thanksfriends when Assman gave Portabella a new code name, which I can not recall for the life of me right now, but I do know that it’s funny. Or at the end of that night when Assman started talking in pretend Chinese (at least I think it was Chinese?) and we were all laughing hysterically, but I can’t remember why he was talking like that? Friends, if you are reading this, a little help filling in the blanks please?

Tomorrow I will try and recall Christmas :)

Until next time, may you live, laugh and love much this new year! xoxo