Category: Family

December

Good morning and welcome to December. Ugh. If I were looking on the bright side I’d say something like, one day closer to spring… but we haven’t even hit winter yet. December sucks.

Thanksgiving Part Two was a huge success. Dinner was fabulous, thanks to my wife. The xmas decorations are all up. I plugged in the lights on the outside of the house (that I never took down after last year) and a couple of short strands are out. I’ll have to figure out what to do about that. We had the annual Muppets Christmas Carol viewing. We did not manage to get a watch of Elf in, but maybe we save that for xmas eve?

Our kids are still here. They are both going back to Vermont today. One is going after breakfast, the other after dinner-ish. I love every second we can get with them here. I selfishly hate to see them leave but we are actually going to see them again next week. There’s something huge brewing in Bellana’s world and next weekend is when it hits. We’ll be there for it.

Until then, tomorrow I go back to work after a glorious five day weekend and I am sad about that. What can you do. I’ll be in the office which is making it feel worse, but oh well.

December is here. I put it off for as long as possible. Oh well, what can you do.

Tradition

We had our Thanksgiving celebration today and it was excellent. Afterwards we started decorating for xmas. The kids are here and they are going back to Vermont tomorrow so it was either do it as a family today or Jen and I do it on our own later.

Right now, right at this very moment, we are celebrating another holiday tradition. We are watching The Muppets Christmas Carol as a family. Literally the only xmas movie I care about. Except for that Tiny Tim song… that scene can be skipped.

The Turkey Smells Delicious

The turkey is about to come out of the oven. It smells delicious. The stuffing is about to go into the oven too and the potatoes are boiling and will eventually be mashed.

Thanksgiving is the best, even when it’s not actually celebrated on Thanksgiving. If we can just keep xmas at bay for a little while longer.

Thanksgiving Part Two

The kids and my in-laws are coming over today for a second round of Thanksgiving dinner. Jen and I are going to start cooking in about half an hour (at 7:00am). If Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, then today is the day that I am talking about when I talk about my favorite holiday, even though it is not technically a holiday.

Based on the previous sentence I should create a new holiday to celebrate run-on sentences. That would be a gas, don’t you think?

We are also going to put up the xmas decorations while we have the kids here. I’m not sure what else we’ll do for our holiday festivities but we’ll think of something.

Happy Thanksgiving, Part Two.

New Tradition?

My extended family used to do a thing where a bunch of us got together on a weekend near xmas and visited the graves of most of my grandparents. We sarcastically (and a little playfully irreverently) refered to it as The Dead Relatives Tour (DRT for short).

Today, Jen and I visited my parents’ grave in Tewksbury, then visited her grandparents and her aunt’s graves in Methuen. Has a new tradition been born? Could be.

In the old days we all went out to lunch together at a restaurant near the cemetery. Today? We just went home and heated up some leftovers from yesterday’s Thanksgiving for two feast.

No! Please, No!

It’s not that I hate xmas, I don’t really. It’s just that I want it to wait. I want the xmas season to last about at most 4-5 days. Hell, I will be generous and let it last a whole week. What I hate is that it’s not even December yet and we’re being hammered over the head with all things xmas and there is no escape.

I give in to everything because I know how happy it makes my family. I am a scrooge surrounded by xmas lovers. We bought the tree today because the kids will be here this weekend before going back to Vermont and this weekend is the only time we’ll all be home to decorate. Seriously, if it were just up to me I would put up the tree on xmas eve.

So there are two things that I hate. One is the over-commercialization of the holiday that results in the xmas season starting before Halloween. The other thing I hate is xmas music. I was 11 years old when I played my first school xmas concert. I was 20 when I played my last one. That is enough xmas music for a lifetime, I think. It can all go away now, thank you very much.

Ugh… I guess I am just a scrooge for a while. Come December 22 or 23 or so, I will be in merry-xmas mode and loving it, but for now? On November 29th?

I am exaggerating a little.

A little.

A Successful Turkey Day

Jen and I made a full, albeit small, turkey dinner for ourselves today and it was wonderful. Everything was delicious. Even better, almost all of the cleaning up is done and it’s only 3:30pm. There were a few dishes that I couldn’t fit into the dishwasher. They are soaking in the sink right now. Other than that, everything is done on the cleaning up after the turkey day dinner front.

Of course gastric bypass boy over here did have a minor issue. I ate too much, too fast and the last few bites sort of… came back for an encore… if’n yer know’n what I’ma meanin’. That had nothing to do with the food itself, just the way I ate it. I’ll be more careful next time.

Here’s hoping that you and yours are having a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Now that the cooking and the eating and the cleaning are all done, I think I am going to take a four hour nap.

89/365

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Massachusetts! Happy Thanksgiving to the rest of New England too.

Our family Thanksgiving is actually going to happen on Saturday. The kids are at their dad’s today so we’re punting to the weekend in order to have everyone together.

For today though, Jen and I are going to have a mini Thanksgiving on our own. We found the tiniest turkey in the world and it’s going into the oven shortly.

When we decided to not have anything big today I had thrown out the possibility of me and my love going to New York to see the Macy’s parade in person. Clearly we didn’t go, but we’re watching the parade on TV and… well… thank goodness we didn’t go. It’s pouring rain in New York and everyone looks drenched and frozen and miserable. Bullet Dodged.

So, my New England neighbors, enjoy your turkey and stuffing and have an extra helping for me!

Are Things Looking Up?

So the Boston Bruins. They fired their head coach last week and replaced him (on an interim basis) with their long time assistant coach. They’ve played two games since the change. How are they doing?

Well they won both of those games. That’s super good news, right? Hooray and huzzah and all that happy crappy. Of course in those two wins they have scored a grand total of three goals. So… yeah. Let’s just say I am clutching at that bright side with all that I have. They don’t play again until Tuesday (the day after tomorrow) so we’ll have to wait and see for more information. Finger crossed that they both have turned a corner from their shitty play pre-coaching change, and that they remember how to score goals. That might be a lot to ask.

What else is going on. Bellana, my step daughter, was here last night. She just left. It was great to see her, as always. Harry, my step son was supposed to be coming over tomorrow but instead he’s coming tonight! Awesome! We’re going to see both kids today! Bonus!

Jen made French Toast this morning. I didn’t have any. There is nothing in the recipe that I can’t have but I was still nervous about trying it. Next time I will. I realized that my issue with French Toast boils down to maple syrup. I don’t want to have French Toast without having maple syrup on it… so now I have to go on a quest to find a decent sugar free maple syrup. I fear that might be a lot to ask for, but we’ll see.

What else. I haven’t done my morning exercise yet. I got up early enough to do it but other stuff came up and I had to push it off for a while. It is 9:44am right now. I’m thinking I’ll try to do it after lunch. I also need to go grocery shopping again today. I did a little bit yesterday, but today is shopping-for-Thanksgiving-veggies day. I’ll be going out to do that after I post this. Most important (not really, but… really) is that I MUST play guitar today. Preferably through a speaker and not just through headphones. I need to move the air today. Not at an ear bleeding volume, but at some kind of lower volume. It’s a must.

Okay. Time to start getting some shit done around here.

In closing, here’s a cat.

85/365