Friday, December 23, 2011

Weekend Reading: The Christmas Edition

So, the gifts are (mostly) wrapped, despite the fact that Petunia got sick and had to stay home today. Hubby and I are (mostly) over the fact that our much-anticipated kid-free day turned into a "take turns snuggling Petunia on the sofa" day. Chocolate shortbread is in the oven, and I only cursed my 15 years ago self two or three times for writing such sparse instructions when I copied out that recipe. I can see myself writing it out, skipping all the detail, because surely I would never forget how to make something I made several times a year. Let me be a lesson to all of you people who don't have kids yet but plan to have them sometime- you will remember almost nothing of your pre-kid life. You certainly won't remember how to make the chocolate shortbread that you haven't made since before your first child was born.

But anyway. My Christmas spirit never fully appeared, but I think I'm doing a decent job of faking it. Our Christmas festivities start tonight, with our annual pilgrimage to see the house in my sister's neighborhood that has about 500 times the number of lights a sane person would put on his or her house. We'll load Petunia up on Tylenol and take her along. Incidentally, we discovered today "Tylenol" is one of the words she can say. Poor kid.

My parents come into town tomorrow night, and we will all gather for a tradition that I've carried over from my youth- the opening by the children of Christmas Eve presents containing ornaments. When I was growing up, we went out to see a movie on Christmas Eve, too. In my house now, we'll watch some recording Christmas specials. Since Petunia is inexplicably displeased with the Dora Christmas Special (she normally loves Dora), this will probably be the Grinch and- God help me- the approximately 800th viewing of the Bubble Guppie Christmas Special, which I agreed to record for Petunia in a fit of early December good cheer.


Posting is likely to be light for the next week or so. Or maybe the fact that my parents are here to entertain the kids will mean that I have time to write some of the posts I've got queued up. Either way, I couldn't NOT post this video my husband found, which covers the history of Santa:



Also, if you're looking for a last minute gift for someone who has everything... this superhydrophobic spray is unfortunately not yet available commercially. But it is pretty awesome.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Solstice... Happy whatever you celebrate. Don't be Mr. Grumpfish! (See, if you'd watched the Bubble Guppies special, you'd know what that means....)

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:16 PM

    Love the video!

    My Christmas spirit is suffering heavily from pretty severe morning sickness. But I'm enjoying not having to go into work!

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  2. Becky7:22 PM

    Let me say first that I'm not trying to criticize your parenting choices by posting this. I've certainly dosed my kids plenty with Tylenol. But I found the following story interesting enough to look at the papers and think about using ibuprofen first instead of Tylenol when my kids are sick -- and I though you would find it interesting too. And I think the story may be getting overlooked with all the holiday stuff going on this week.

    A writer friend I know had a story in the NYT this week about a link between Tylenol and asthma in kids. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/evidence-mounts-linking-acetaminophen-and-asthma.html

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  3. @nicoleandmaggie- ugh. Morning sickness. Can't say I miss that. I hope you feel better soon!

    Thanks for the link. @Becky! I'll check it out. Unfortunately, ibuprofen doesn't keep Petunia's fevers down at all, so the choice for us is pretty much between acetaminophen and miserable baby.

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  4. @nicoleandmaggie - congratulations, though :) sorry you're not feeling good.

    @Cloud - sorry your plans did not go well for the kid-free day with hubby. always a bummer when that happens! hope P is feeling better soon, though.

    I just finished wrapping and I'm happy about that. Somehow Christmas came really quick and I feel like we rushed through it or something. Like checking items off a list. Not sure why.

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  5. OOHH OOOHHH waving hand over here. LITERALLY had just spread all fMhson's gifts out to wrap when the dreaded school phone number flashed up. Then SciDAD had emotionally tough day yesterday. TG I was able to wrap my head around the new circs 'cause I was pretty damn excited for two days of holiday Mama fun.

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