We made it!

I can’t believe I made it through NaBloPoMo! Total happy dance! I’ll be honest, I am ready to not have the pressure to blog every single day. And my family is too, my poor dh is starting to feel neglected. Every night he would head off to bed and there I would be, sitting in front of the laptop racking my brain as to what I could possibly write about. The curse of being a night owl.

Thanks for sticking with me, it never ceases to amaze me that you don’t get bored (or if you do you’re kind enough not to tell me!).

I’m sure I’ll find things to write about this month with all the goings-on… I’ll be around.

The beginning

I really do love Christmas. While the commercialism gets to me (as it does to everyone I think), I still love the rituals surrounding the season. I think that might be because while the secular aspects of Christmas are widespread, the celebration of Advent itself remains a uniquely Christian thing. It must be part of my almost-Catholic leanings, but lighting the candles each evening gives me a moment of quiet…a sense of the sacred mystery that comes with Advent. Light coming into darkness.

We started observing Advent with the wreath last year, and it really helped to remind me where my focus should be. I definitely get over-involved in cards, decorations and gifts.

This year I decided to go more traditional with the candles for our wreath. I had to do some searching, since it turned out to be more difficult than I thought to find several purple candles that would be large enough to last until Epiphany. The purple symbolizes repentance, but each of the candles have a different meaning. Today on the first Sunday, it is Hope. Our fourth candle is pink to represent Joy. While traditionally the Christ candle (the middle one) is white, I decided to go ahead and use ours from last year because I like that continuity.

This is definitely one of those traditions that I started “for the dutchkid”, but now I do it for me. In the midst of the holiday scramble, I hope you find some moments of peace and reflection this Advent season.

Letters and Cheese

I’m not a huge Christmas letter writer. I generally fall into the enjoyment camp, I like to read what everybody’s been up to (as long as you don’t get too braggy about what an overachiever you’ve been) but I seldom write one myself. Dh is in the hating Christmas letter camp, so usually I just send a photo.

I know that when people send their letters they think they’re cute, interesting and well written… and some of them are! But you know you always get a few that are beyond cheesy or just plain too long (I have gotten a 5 page single spaced Christmas letter before, I kid you not).

We just received our first one the other day. It was intended to be a “Thanksgiving” letter, so I guess that’s ok, dangerously close to the overachiever bar, but forgivable. It was from an older widowed gentleman we know (in his 70’s at least) that just remarried. Included with the usual letter was an extra page describing both him and his new bride, each one writing about the other. It was so in-love and gushy, (and on pink paper) it made me laugh out loud… and then throw up a little in my mouth because he’s sort of like a grandparent and I-just-don’t-want-to-go-there-if-you-know-what-I-mean.

We know them pretty well, we were invited to the wedding and the letter was obviously intended for the group of people who were going to be shocked by their marriage after a pretty short engagement. I wonder if they’re going to look back on that letter after 5 years and groan? A cautionary tale. Just in time too, I was seriously considering writing a letter this year… I’ll have to keep all the gushing about dh to a minimum.

La la la

Why IS it that suddenly after Thanksgiving is over, it seems like Christmas is right here? I inevitably feel like I am merrily chugging along and then smash headlong into the holiday wall.

I put up my outdoor decorations up today, and I’m almost finished sewing the countdown calendar but I keep on thinking of things I have been meaning to get done (like Christmas cards, shopping and loads of other Christmas crafting). I would love to make more handmade gifts, but I am always searching for the right balance of things…. things I want to do because I enjoy them, but also taking into account that sometimes it’s just not worth the stress. Really, though, I think the problem is that it always seems too soon to get started on stuff before Thanksgiving, but then after the big dinner it seems like I’m behind!

The only good part is that by the 10th of December all my school stuff will be done… a concert, a jury and a few exams. We aren’t traveling this year and I’m so glad… I’ll be able to just veg and enjoy doing fun things with the dutchkid (who am I kidding, I’ll be doing all the things I haven’t gotten to yet!).

Kickin’ back, at the DFAC

This was an unusual year for us for Thanksgiving. As Sarah pointed out this morning, as a military family no two years are ever the same. Some years we go “home” (either to my family or the dh’s), some years dh has been gone, some years we’ve been lucky enough to live near dh’s family and were able to host it. Many years we have celebrated with other soldiers and friends who are also far from their own families.

This year we decided to shake it up a little bit. We ate at the dining facility, or as it’s known in militarese: the DFAC (for my civilian readers, you say this as if it were a word “dee-fack”, because if you said d-f-a-c then no one would know what you were talking about). It’s traditional that the officers serve on the line, and dh volunteered to do that this year.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, honestly. I’ve never eaten there before. So I dressed up the dutchkid in her Sunday best, complete with a hairbow and headed out to meet dh when his shift was over.

Oh my word. It was fabulous. Ice sculptures. Real cornucopias made out of pastry. Huge displays of fresh fruit. Dioramas made out of chocolate. More different kinds of food than you can shake a stick at. Talk about an Army cook’s day to shine. I almost felt bad for all the times that we invited soldiers over to the house to eat, “so they wouldn’t have to eat at the DFAC.” Well, almost, because even though the food and atmosphere was fantastic, there really is nothing like eating with your family. I was glad we could bring a little bit of family (“Don’t stuff your mouth.” “Watch your glass!” “No, not on the tights!”) to them.

In a little bit we’re headed over to a friend’s house here in town, where no doubt there will be a spread of soul food the likes of which I have never seen (at least since the last time I ate Thanksgiving at her house, about 8 years ago). Dh is making ribs for that event. Don’t ask me how I got out of cooking entirely this year. Happy Thanksgiving, indeed!!

Giving Thanks

Ahem. Well, that last post wasn’t very Thanksgiving-like was it. I wrote to someone the other day that NaBloPoMo gets a lot out of me that would otherwise stay on the inside. Sigh. I’m putting my big girl panties on and counting all the things I am thankful for. One of which is that I don’t have to go back to high school. Sorry for that minor detour.

Moving on.

I think I at least refer to this song every year. And usually you can catch me singing it during Thanksgiving week, or at least humming it under my breath. That might be surprising those who know me in real life, because I’m not the type to be a huge Adam Sandler fan, and I’m not….but really, I heart the Thanksgiving song. (Closely followed by Lunch Lady, but that’s another post.) It makes me laugh every.single.time.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Why I hate Facebook

Please skip this post if you’re not in the mood for random grumpiness (I was going to say something else, but I have a family friendly blog here. Mostly.)

I was not overly popular in high school. It was a painful time in my family life, and I used every opportunity to not be at home. I had a part time job and was a big music geek (band, choir, madrigals, musicals, etc.).

A guy, who was another geek I sort of knew in high school, just took the time to scan and put senior pictures on facebook. Fine. You know, that stuff can be fun and it’s great to look back at our big bangs and terrible tight rolled jeans.

He is not my friend on facebook. So I was blissfully oblivious until someone I am friends with “tagged” it with my name, so now I can see it too (and read all the comments attached). When he posted the picture, he evidently couldn’t remember my name. And so the title obviously reflects that (he must have typed the wrong name in first and someone corrected him who also couldn’t quite remember my name).

I really didn’t care for high school, and this just reminds me of why. It was a long time ago, and obviously you were not a great friend. But why do people feel the need to post all this stuff? I won’t lie, it hurts my feelings. We didn’t go to a huge high school (I had just over 100 in my class) and you couldn’t even take the time to get out your damn yearbook and look up my name? Why are you posting my picture in the first place?

I wasn’t into facebook to start with, and now I’m about ready to delete my profile and call it a day.

Feel free to tell me I’m being sensitive and overreacting. And how much you love me and that YOU would remember my name.

The Pilgrims and…

The dutchkid had a Thanksgiving program today. There was enough cuteness in that room to power a small town. Half the children were dressed in pilgrim outfits, and half were dressed as Indians (the dutchkid was an Indian). They stood up in the front of the old school cafeteria and sang a few songs and then we had a potluck.

Dh mock corrected me when I asked the dutchkid if she would like to be an “Indian” next year for Halloween. “Um, it’s Native American” in his best snarky voice. It was then that I realized how much I love this school.

It’s not in a beautiful facility. It’s not in the well-to-do part of town. They don’t have a lot of money, and so as parents we have to chip in a lot of “extras”.

But I love it that they still do “Pilgrims and Indians”. They are not nauseatingly politically correct, like the preschool my friend’s child goes to where I am sure there are no Indians and everything sent in the child’s lunch must be “organic” and “healthy”. I mean, I try to feed my family health food, but a school dictating to me how to make my child’s lunch is a bit much for me. Did eating fruit snacks ever hurt you? My mother used to send in those Little Debbie swiss chocolate rolls, have you read the package on those recently?! (love you mom).

I love it that the teachers handmade those outfits and they are used every year for the kids. I love that it’s run by a church that has been committed to having a Christian school for over 50 years and therefore we can sing about Jesus. I love it that the dutchkid’s teacher went to that school herself.

It’s just the right place for us, through and through (and now maybe I’ve made myself sound narrow minded, I’m sorry if it comes across that way). Sadly they had to close their K-8 program last year because of the economy, which also tells you that they don’t charge an arm an a leg in tuition. They are doing it because they love the kids, and they think it’s the right thing to do.

I’m going to cry when I have to send the kiddo to kindergarten. Maybe they’ll reopen the school. One can dream.

There I was…

minding my own business and looking at how pretty the snow was:

(I love that about living here. It may be snowing like crazy one minute and then sunny the next).

Only to turn around and spot this guy.

Let me just say how I love all of God’s creatures, and in all honesty I would never hurt one on purpose.

But really? Really?? I already feed you corn. Ungrateful little bastard. Happy Thanksgiving.

Things

that caught my eye this week:

This post from Liz about what the American Legion on Mackinac Island did for Veteran’s Day.  It brought tears to my eyes.

The middle photo here on Habit (have you been to Habit?  It’s one of my favorite places.  I just love getting pieces of a story).   It made me laugh in a knowing sort of way.  You know that guy is tired.  And boy, have I been to that land of exhaustion.

And because I can’t do links without something visual, (but it’s not a song this week), we are really looking forward to this movie:

Dh tried to take the dutchkid to go see it this past week when I was going out for dinner with some friends, but it was only released first in limited places (oops).  She was so disappointed, but the plus side is that now I get to see it with them them when it comes to the theater here this weekend.  Besides, I think the movie is more for us, anyway!

I can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving week already.