Third Day of Christmas- Advent Calendar Review
First things first… after I wrote yesterday’s post about our, ahem, rocky Boxing Day, I picked up my book and this was on the first page I read: “Having a mother helps you speak without thinking. It allows you to trust in your most awful self, to yell and scream and cry, knowing that your mother will still love you by the end of it. In her teens, Phoebe was regularly astonished by how awful her friends were to their mothers, and their mothers just took it, because the mothers knew that sometimes they were awful, too. The mothers had made their own mistakes.” Well. And what’s that I used to mark the passage? Oh! It’s a book dart from my “Books are Magic” advent calendar! This advent calendar was so cute! Full disclosure: I’m not quite to the end of it. I kept forgetting to open doors, and I’m only up to Day 23. I was going to open the last three today just to finish it for this post, but I couldn’t bear to see it end. If there’s anything mind blowing in the last three days, I’ll share it in a later post. In the beginning I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it- there were a lot of things that were fun, but seemed kind of, well, useless. But overall, I think I will use most things. I love this ornament: …and this bookmark. The “to and from” stickers actually got used on Christmas Eve- my husband was wrapping gifts and realized we had run out of labels. Advent calendar stickers to the rescue! Overall I was happy with this calendar. I can’t remember the last time (if ever?) I got an advent calendar for myself, but I want to get another one next year. (Not the same one, obviously- I’ll be open to suggestions!) The cat advent calendar from Target was kind of “meh” for me. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it was hard to find the correct door to open- I was constantly squinting at the calendar grumbling “Where’s fifteen???” Then, when you did open the door, you had to cut open another plastic window to get the treats out (as opposed to the Trader Joe’s calendar I’ve used in the past, where you just took the treats out of their compartment, already in a little package.) On the plus side, there were a variety of treats and the cats loved them all. But they love all treats, so that’s not really saying anything. Next year I’ll probably go back to the Trader Joe’s cat advent calendar, if I can find it in stock. Did you do an advent calendar this year? Do you ever do one?
Boxing Day (aka The Second Day of Christmas)
Guess what- the second day of Christmas isn’t as much fun as the first (did you know that?) In our case, it really kind of, well… sucked. First of all, I had to work. I have a HUGE grievance with the fact that Christmas fell on a Wednesday this year. Wednesday is already my day off! This meant I worked on Christmas Eve (but only till noon) and Boxing Day. Grr. Second- my son is sick. I swear, he gets sick almost every Christmas. I guess it’s the excitement and stress of ending his semester, combined with travel. It wasn’t as bad as two years ago, when we both had Covid and he couldn’t even sit at the table for Christmas dinner, but he’s not feeling great. The day started early for me, with a five mile run. Then I went to work, where we all agreed that Christmas was great, we wished we didn’t have to work today, but there was definitely a feeling of “we’re all in this together.” It wasn’t a bad day at all. I returned home in good spirits… until I got in the door. My son was lying on the couch with a fever. My husband moaned that he was suffering from post-Christmas depression, and my daughter decided to go off on an angry tirade about her Christmas gifts. WHY did I get her a turquoise blanket instead of pink? Why didn’t she get any plushies? The clothes- which by the way I bought straight from the links she sent me- are ugly and need to be returned. We’ve been down this road before. I’m not sure if it’s her way of dealing with post-holiday letdown, or if something else is bothering her… after sixteen years, I have a pretty tough skin. But it’s still not a very nice way for the holiday to end. I’m wondering if things would have been better had I been home- maybe I could have stopped the slide into anger and depression, and I could have been here to nurse my son back to health. Or, maybe it’s just better for my own mental health to have to get up and go somewhere on Boxing Day. Maybe the third day of Christmas will be better. OR, maybe each day will get exponentially worse, GAAAAAHHHH!!!! Still to come- cookie baking part 2, 2025 goals post, and advent calendar reviews. Tomorrow will be a new day. How was your Boxing Day? Are you continuing the Christmas-y celebrations, or is it over? Do you get sad when Christmas ends?
Christmas Day!
Ah, it was a nice day! The first gift was- I slept until 9:30!!!! Gone are the days where the kids wake us up at dawn, phew. We all got up and opened presents! We like to open them one by one, although the kids have more than the adults so by the end it’s just them taking turns. Highlights for me included my Christmas book flood: My son also brought home the second and third books of the Cixin Liu trilogy, and is insisting I read them right away. And, my library hold on The Wedding People came through a couple days ago, and I have to read that first since it’s a library book. Phew! I think I should take the week off of work and just read (heh heh.) My son got me this: i literally gasped when I opened it, and tears came to my eyes. He put together a photo calendar with pictures of our family (and lots of photos of the cats.) What an amazing gift! Here’s one of his favorite gifts: It’a a blanket with photos of both our cats on it. He loves it, and is going to take it back to school with him. He really misses the cats when he’s away! Breakfast for the family was cinnamon rolls: And I had oatmeal. But I put gingerbread spices in, and added toasted pecans and Lily’s (sugar free) chocolate chips. I read on the couch for a while and then dozed off. I love a good couch nap! When I woke up it was time for the Christmas charcuterie board: …and then we watched a little football. We never, ever go anywhere on Christmas Day. The days leading up to Christmas are always so crazy, it’s a relief to just stay home and relax. Later in the afternoon I made dinner: We always have lasagna for Christmas dinner, with garlic bread and this year, Brussels sprouts (my daughter had a salad instead of the sprouts.) After dinner, the Christmas chaos that originally looked fun and festive started to look depressing… I cleaned it up (well, partially- I threw away the trash and shoved all the gifts back under the tree, to be dealt with another day.) And then, I had to fight off that sad, sad “Christmas is over” feeling. But no! This is just the FIRST DAY of Christmas, right? We’ll still have festive food, more cookie baking, and even more presents, because I got several gift cards (REI, Old Navy, and Bath and Body Works.) Let the festivities continue! Do you like to go somewhere on Christmas Day, or stay at home? Do you have a traditional Christmas breakfast?
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
It was a sprint to the finish! Christmas Eve was our traditional cookie decorating party. I always make gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies, but the sugar cookies never get eaten. Everyone claims to like them, but I end up throwing a lot of them away. This year, I decided to try a new recipe- the Brown Sugar Cut-out Cookies from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Everyone liked them! My son described them as “if a gingerbread cookie and regular sugar cookie had a baby.” I also tried something different with these cookies- instead of using a flax egg, I used Just Egg as an egg replacer! I think it worked great. When I checked the mail, I had four cards- how exciting! Now, if you sent me a card and haven’t gotten one from me, just remember that there are TWELVE days of Christmas, and this is only the first one. (Ha ha… I only got about half my cards mailed BUT THAT’S OKAY. According to my schedule, there’s still time.) Then… Santa came! I threw my imaginary elf hat in the air (like the elves in Polar Express after Santa’s sleigh takes off) and collapsed into bed. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!