Hello?

~ Laura

I disappeared down the hole of domesticity for a week. I'm just sticking my head up for a bit before I get dragged down again. 

I hope you all are having a fabulous week off and holiday celebrations. I hope the feasting continues for another week. 

These holidays are a ton of work. It was morning until night, errands and chores. I cooked up a feast of fishies for Christmas Eve. I sent out seven boxes of goodies to Aunties and Uncles. 100 Christmas cards with little notes inside. Gifts that had purchased with coupons and comparison pricing. And massive cleaning. I think it was worth it.

On Christmas Eve, we started wrapping the Santa presents at 11:00. Well, Steve did the wrapping, I sat in a chair too numb to move.

When the kids were young, we didn't wrap the presents, because my dad didn't believe in wrapping the Santa presents. But we shifted the tradition a few years ago, because the wrapping slows the kids down. You can also wrap up things that you were planning on giving them anyway, like new Crocs or water bottles. 

Ian was out of his mind with excitement for Santa. He's ten now; more savvy children are aware of the fib, but Ian isn't. He watched every Christmas special. He memorized the lines to "Elf." He wrote his letter to Santa and went to a local production of the Nutcracker with my mom. He insisted that we leave EXACTLY two chocolate chip cookies for Santa. He was totally the holiday rule guy. Merry Aspergers Christmas, everyone! 

Jonah whispered "thanks, mom" when he opened up his new headphones and video game. He's walking around the house wearing all of his new cool clothes at the same time. 

Because I'm insane, I decided that Christmas afternoon was absolutely the best time to paint an accent wall in my office. My sister was hosting Christmas dinner, so I didn't have to do much. Our office is also the guest room, and I wanted the place all tidied up for my in-laws who will soon be here for nearly a week.  When the kids wake up, I'll take them to IKEA to pick out new shelves and picture frames for the room. 

I really want to return to the world. At least, I need to answer all that e-mail. Just need a few more hours…. 

Published by Laura

11 thoughts on “Hello?”

  1. I’ve been experimenting with a form of entertaining of the following form: invite a family over with parents and kids and set the kids to work baking something. We did a gingerbread cookie party a week ago and apple dumplings last night. It’s good socializing for the kids and I’m trying to improve their domestic skills as well. (One of these days, we’ll get around to making non-sweets.) The traditional WASP baking repertoire actually is really good. One of these days we’ll make a bread pudding.
    I’ve been in talks with my husband about making a poppy seed cake, but I was rather horrified to discover that the traditional Polish poppy seed cake (makowiec) requires something like $10 worth of poppy seeds.

    Like

  3. We arrived in NY on Christmas Day, but my sisters went to their in-laws this year, so we planned our family celebration for yesterday. My sister came from Rockland with her 1 and 4 year olds without her husband, who was sick. And then there was Bad Weather, so she stayed here in my mom’s house last night, and I swear, all hell broke loose. The toilet overflowed, the dog next door started barking insanely, a plane seemed about ready to crash over the house, the baby was up every half hour coughing, and her 4 yo threw up over himself and his brother. We are now all exhausted. (My poor sister has to go to work.)

    Like

  4. That is so great that he still believes. My eldest never believed, but kept up the pretense so the middle one still believed till she was 8. I’ll be surprised if we keep the youngest going till then.

    Like

  6. Hey don’t give the MH littles ideas.
    We do not celebrate Christmas, and are enjoying our two weeks out of whirling tornado that is our normal life. I do, however, love receiving holiday cards, and am trying to figure out if I have the energy to send them so that more people will send them to me :-). We get some, but I get the impression that some people think that they’ve dropped off my holiday card list, when it’s actually that I don’t send any.

    Like

  7. Painting a room on Christmas is one of the crazier ways to spend the day that I’ve heard of. I once ripped all my cds and organized my iTune libraries on Christmas, but, as I said, we don’t celebrate, so that’s not nearly as interesting as painting a wall.
    I’m thinking that Laura likes living in a tornado.

    Like

  8. I suppose a realistic amount of water for a team of reindeer would involve a very large trough.
    I blame youth soccer. They only believe in two things, that you need water every 15 minutes if you are active and that you can’t call somebody else’s kid an asshole. A lot of people aren’t absolutists on the second one.

    Like

  9. MH,
    A salt block or molasses block might be appreciated, too, but then you’d need a bigger trough.
    http://www.tractorsupply.com/livestock-salt/american-stockman-big-6-reg-trace-mineral-salt-block-50-lb–2516586
    http://www.rak-atak.com/products/main-beam-molasses-block
    The latter sounds like a good investment for the child with a long Santa Claus list:
    “The enticing smell and comfortable feeding condition makes deer return again and again to this powerful attractant.”
    bj,
    I’m wondering whether Facebook is going to eventually kill the Christmas card (our Polish connections apparently love doing electronic cards). I personally find Christmas cards a chore, but I don’t do Facebook, so it’s a necessary evil.

    Like

  11. My sister’s family has always left something out for the reindeer. For a while it was carrots, but this year my niece, a delightfully odd little duck, insisted on olives.

    Like

Comments are closed.