And just like that, our very full nest is an empty nest again. Harry left this afternoon and Bellana left a few minutes ago. They are both heading home to Vermont.
It was a wonderful weekend and I loved every second of it, but now I am sad. Jen and I will have dinner together and I’ll probably be pretty mushy and lovey (no spoilers) because I know she’s sad the kids are gone too.
Getting old sucks but it’s better than the alternative.
Jen and Bellana are watching a Hallmark xmas movie. You thought that December was xmas season. No. It’s Hallmark season and it is awful. Just awful.
Even Robin is floored by the terrible movie.
I can’t remember the last time we did it… Was it pre-Covid? Probably.
The Secret Santa between my siblings and I and all of our significant others is officially on. My sister brought it up in a group text. I was going to but she beat me to it. We’re all in. My brother in law set up the app we use and it’s all like game on now.
I need to make an xmas list now. One that isn’t all guitar gear and laptops and cell phones.
There’s no denying it now. Tis the season and shit.
Oh, the bliss! I feel alive again!
Pre-gastric bypass surgery (2.5 years ago) I was a big fan of French Toast with Maple Syrup.
Post-surgery, where sugar can make me super sick, I avoided French Toast. My wife would make it for the kids and I’d have something else.
We were discussing it last week. There is nothing in French Toast itself that would make me sick. It was just the maple syrup that was a risk. I realized that was the only reason I hadn’t partaken in the delicacy.
Knowing that Jen was going to make it for breakfast today I went looking for sugar free maple syrup and I found some. Fast forward to today’s breakfast and I’m in!
It was delicious. Soooo good!
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Inside the Red Head's Head 