My Guilty Christmas Pleasure

Okay, so I love this song. I admit it. Please enjoy, courtesy of the legend, the one and only, George Michael.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

It has been an icebox up here in the frozen land of the north. Okay, I guess it's not as bad as the Midwest is right now. Aren't you glad you don't live in the ice storm-prone Midwest? (Sorry Nikell and Cody!)

Anyhoo, we've been decorating!! I love decorating for Christmas (taking it down as an entirely different story). We actually decorated about two weeks ago but I've also been baking, much to Scott's dismay as our kitchen looks like the Midwest after a tornado (aren't you glad you don't live in the Midwest?), so I'm just now getting around to it. Here are some of the latest happenings and seasonally-appropriate decor additions:

One of my favorite decorations -- a limited edition Norman Rockwell plate given to Scott by his Grandma Mary in 1980, when he was but a wee lad.

Look what I found -- a darling little decoration left over from last year!


A few of our Nativities


The Marvelous Moose Mantle


A pleasant surprise was that Ruby was afraid of the tree. She sat on the couch for the first 20 minutes of the tree decorating (only after crying and "running" away from the tree when we got it out of the box). She's still somewhat leery of the tree. I think it's great -- her healthy fear = not having to re-decorate my tree every day when she rips everything off.


Our camera sometimes gets a little temperamental about focusing. If it doesn't feel like it, there's nothing we can do about it. And I'm okay with that. (Santa Baby, oh hurry down the chimney tonight ... with a freaking normal camera that will actually focus when you want it to. For the love!)

Here are Scrooge's (aka Tau's) thoughts on all the activity. I think they speak for themselves.

It was so fun that Henry is big enough this year to actually participate in the tradition of putting the star/angel on the tree (and don't be hatin' on my tree topper -- I've been looking for a new star but haven't found one that speaks to me).


Mele Kalikimaka everybody!

There's Something About Ruby

I don't know what it is but it seems like Ruby has been a stranger magnet lately. And I'm not talking about just any old stranger off the street. I'm talking about the "special" people. A few weeks ago, a female Wendy's employee, one of these said "special" people, came up to us and yakked our ears off about how all babies just burst into smiles when she smiles at them. Well, I guess we broke her streak because Ruby wouldn't even look at her but it didn't phase her, she just kept telling us story after story about kids beaming at her.

Then today, the white trash in me came out and we went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart and then had lunch at their McDonald's (I already said it was the white trash in me rearin' its ugly head!) and while we're sitting there minding our own business, clogging our arteries, one of their "special" clean-up employees comes up to us and launches into this crazy conversation.

She asks me if I did my Christmas shopping today. I say, "No. I've got my kids so I can't spoil the surprise, right?" So then she goes off, and she's almost worried about it, about how I need to leave the kids home TONIGHT with my husband, but maybe I can bring the baby along because she won't know, but for sure I can't bring my boy because it'll ruin his surprise, and I should come back to Wal-Mart TONIGHT to get all my shopping done, and I need to check with my husband to see if he can take my boy TONIGHT because I need to come back to Wal-Mart to do all my Christmas shopping TONIGHT.

So then she says, "So, you just grocery shopped today? Oh [looking into all the bags in my cart]! You got some new shoes?!?"

"No," I say, "they're not for me. They're for my little boy."

"Oh," she bursts, "but these aren't sneakers!"

"No," big sigh, but still trying to be super polite as I respond in between each artery-clogging bite, "they're not sneakers, they're dress shoes for him to wear to church with his Christmas outfit."

"Oh. His Christmas outfit."

"Right, his Christmas outfit."

Then she starts ooohing and aaahing over Ruby (who is still sitting in the seat of the cart, right next to me) and how cute she is and where did I get her headband and her bracelet, and look how her shoes match her outfit!, and does she like Christmas? etc. Of course Ruby is embarrassed and won't make eye contact so she's ducking her head down towards my purse and our "special" friend says, "Oh, you like your mama's purse? What's in there? Look, what's in there?"

And then she proceeds to OPEN MY PURSE and starts shuffling things around to try to grab Ruby's attention.

HOLY MOSES.

So Ruby starts going to town, pulling crap out. And as she does, our friend gets this concerned look on her face and says, "Oh here Mama. It looks like she wants this ... wait ... what is this?"

"Um ... that's lotion," I reply with an amazed look on my face as she starts handing me the stuff.

"Here, you better take this. She wants your lotion."

"Uh ... thanks."

"Oh here Mama. She wants this bag of stuff too ...... and uh-oh, here comes your wallet. You probably better hold on to that. And what's this? Oh, your checkbook. Yeah, here, take that."

And it goes on until our friend (because Ruby has lost interest in the contents of my purse) pulls out every random receipt, scrap of paper, penny, lip gloss, gum wrapper, and bouncy ball floating around in the dark crevices of my organizationally-deprived purse. And then finally, she hands me my purse and says, "Here Mama. Your baby took all the things out of your purse. You should probably put those things back in here."

"Thank you," was all I could say.

Santa's "Man Bag"

We have this Santa sitting in the window above our kitchen table.

Today at lunch we were having a little talk with Henry about "avoiding" bad behavior (which is a common occurrence at our house these days). And of course, it seemed we weren't making any headway when suddenly this brilliant thought came to me, "With Christmas looming, we should be milking Santa's influence for all its worth!" So I started singing (and I have a bit of a cold so my voice was super low; I'm talking the G below Bass C low - I went and checked it afterwards on my piano -- that's 10 notes below Middle C people!!!)...

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why...."

And you know the rest. Henry was loving it. He was soaking in all the words, smiling, giggling, totally into the "message." So I give him the re-cap, "That means you have to try to be a good boy so Santa will bring you your presents, okay?"

Suddenly, he's staring up at Santa with a confused look on his face and he says, "But ... but Santa Fraws don't have a purse!"

We Came, We Saw, We Ate

Oh, how I love Thanksgiving. Is it the food? Is it the good company? Is it the 8 1/2 hour drive to my parent's house? I just can't decide!!

Last week we went down to Payson, Utah (home of Onion Days) for the actual turkey dinner. And boy was it a feast! Adrienne, Nick, and I were the only kids from our family there but we were joined by the Zimmerman crew (Adrienne's in-laws). We had a great time.

So Thanksgiving is always special for me at my parents' house. I love my parents' house -- it's so beautiful, comfortable, full of family -- but at Thanksgiving, it gets even better. Maybe it's because of my mom's stuffing. I think I'm gaining weight just thinking about it. Here's my mom finally getting herself something to eat.



Here's what Ruby thought of the mouth-watering food:



Another highlight of the day was the presence of a special family visitor: My dad's cousin, Trudy. She's a unique character and one day I'll have to write just about her because she's that interesting. I can't remember exactly how old she is, somewhere around 65 maybe?, but she has Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism). Her parents and closest relatives have died so now my parents try to include her in our family get-togethers. She follows my Mom around like a puppy, much to Mom's dismay, but her presence alone helps keep the laughter coming (we don't laugh at her, we're not those kind of people ... seriously) so she was a welcome addition to this year's Thanksgiving.


I love this next picture. It's my cute pregnant sister, Liz, reading with her daughter Paige (on the right), and Adrienne's daughter, Kate. I love how Kate has just made herself right at home on Liz's pregnant gut-tar. Kate was probably just thinking, "Man, Aunt Liz has a sweet built-in armrest."

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Scott's Dad gave us tickets to go to the Jazz game. I hadn't been to a Jazz game in probably 10 years -- we had a great time. We even left Henry and Ruby with Scott's family (that's the first time she's ever been put to bed by someone other than us -- and it only took one year to get us this far! We're finally winning our independence back ... slow and steady wins the race; that's what I have always said).

Anyway, the crowd was loud:

And the Jazz dancers were ... still there (what else do you say about them?):

And most importantly, we had a great time:

Now that I think about it, one of the reasons I really love Thanksgiving is because it sort of feels like a "gateway" holiday to me. It means Christmas and New Year's is right around the corner. And what does that mean? More family! More food! And Presents (to give, of course, I'm not really that into the "getting" side of gifts ......)!!!!