Happy Columbus Day!

I have to say, I was skeptical when I first heard we were getting Columbus Day as a holiday this year.

That's one that I've never had before. Even in the days of yore, when I was in school, we didn't consider Columbus Day to be a "holiday." We did activities in school that had to do with Columbus, but that was it. No one dressed up like a boat, or claimed their neighbor's backyard, or anything else.

So we decided to do some things this weekend to truly commemorate Columbus Day in the spirit in which the holiday was intended.

Saturday: The Renaissance Festival.

Columbus discovered America during the Renaissance, right? So what better way to celebrate Columbus Day than with:

Sausage on a stick, or

Chicken on a stick, or

A bread bowl full of chili, just like they had on the Santa Maria!

If food doesn't do it for you, the Renaissance Festival also offers:

Carousels,

Pony rides, and

Face painting. I imagine Columbus felt the same thrill when he stepped off the boat, rode his pony to the carousel, and painted a bug on his face.

But, just like Columbus, we had our share of adversity.

Princess' fairy doll, purchased within 30 seconds of entering the fair, lost a leg after being dropped in the mud repeatedly "on accident."

Dexy, despite being very pleased with his purple dragon, developed a fever that came and went throughout the day.

Deb had to explain to Princess why those men walked around mostly naked.

But, there were bright spots. One of them was getting to introduce the kids to "Uncle" Drew, one of our dear friends. Drew and his wife actually got married at the Renaissance Festival several years ago. Sven and I played the music for their wedding. Drew still works at the Festival as an exotic magician.

Princess did us proud by saying the following things to Drew:

"Boys don't wear dresses, you know. Why are you wearing a dress?"

"Your socks don't match. And your yellows aren't the same."

But, she redeemed herself by being fascinated with his sleight-of-hand. She sat in a corner for several hours on Sunday afternoon, trying to make the alphabet flash card in her hand "disappear" the way Drew did.

We will be returning to the Festival later in the season, when I shall thoughtfully purchase several pieces of jewelry. Until then, I wish all of the weirdos well.

Next installment: our Columbus Day feast at the Rainforest Cafe. Truly, 'tis the season.

The Guilded Globs

Since it's awards show season, I'd like to start my own. Does anyone else remember the first MTV movie awards, how cool it seemed those first few years? I have complete confidence that the Guilded Globs will be just as cool, then become bloated and self-important and lose any real meaning. Neat.

Here are the nominees:

Best Performance by an Animal, Domestic:

• My cat pooping on the carpet in the dining room
• My cat vomiting on the carpet in the living room
• My cat pooping on the carpet in the living room
• That dog on YouTube who can skateboard

Best Performance by an Animal, Wild:

• The lizard on my back door, for freezing in one position, enticing my three year-old daughter to take a closer look, before leaping on her head.
• The extraordinarily well-endowed lion at our last trip to the zoo, for napping in such a position.
• The inappropriately fat goat at the same zoo, for charging Sven Jr. (Okay, he wasn't "charging" so much as "looking at," but it was very traumatic.)
• The Dramatic Chipmunk

Most Perplexing Lack of DVD:

• Muppet Babies. Why is this cartoon not available on DVD? Why am I the only one who seems to care?
• The last season of Fraggle Rock. I am not a Fraggle Rock fan per se, but I understand they released all of the seasons individually, then only released the final season in a "complete series" DVD. Shocking.
• The Robot Chicken Star Wars/Star Wars Part II/Family Guy Blue Harvest/Hardware Wars collection, with bonus footage featuring Weird Al videos. Okay, that's just me. I accept your disdain.
• The episode of CSI where Hannah Montana gets shot and they do the autopsy. Don't tell me this episode doesn't exist...I need it.

Best Explanation of 10-15 Pound Holiday Weight Gain:

• These clothes keep shrinking! Stop washing in hot water! (Deb)
• This medicine must be making you gain weight. (Sven, bless him)
• I guess I've just been too tired to exercise. (Deb, lounging in bed with a box of chocolates)
• I saw on the news that there's this new disease, where you just get fatter after Christmas. Really. (Not really)

Cutest Thing Ever:

• Deb Jr., belting out "Tomorrow" from the backseat. (Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, it's tomorrow, you feel like a Crabby Patty...)
• Sven Jr., singing "Old MacDonald". (Yi-yi-yo, yo-yo-yi, yi-yi-yi-yo, moo)
• Deb Jr., calling me "mudder."
• Sven Jr., giggling madly at my removal of his socks.

Best Waste of Time:

• Twilight

Yes, I think this awards show has potential. However, it seems to have limited appeal... I know!

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:

• Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:

• Angelina Jolie, The Changeling
• Angelina Jolie, Kung Fu Panda

I'm sure they'll show up... The awards ceremony will be at my house this Saturday at 5:00 (have to get the kids to bed!) and formal attire is requested.

Please park around the corner, the neighbor's RV is blocking traffic to our house. However, I can almost promise: No paparazzi. Any paparazzi who show up are on cat-poop duty.

Happy New Year! I think!

Today being the first day of 2009, I have been reflecting on the things in my life that I feel need to change.  This has me very depressed.  The way I can tell if I'm depressed is as follows: I watch an extraordinarily bad, cheesy, cliche movie about an underdog who makes good, and if I cry, I'm depressed.  The worse the movie is, the more severe my depression.

Today, I watched one of the "Bring it On" movies.  The one with the indestructible cheerleader from "Heroes," before she was indestructible, and Beyonce's obnoxious younger sister.  This is a terrible movie.  It makes the original "Bring it On" look like "Dangerous Liaisons."  For those who haven't seen it, all I need to tell you is that the climax is a no-holds-barred cheer-off between the white school and the "ghetto" school moderated by a pre-superstardom Rhianna.  The "ghetto" school changes out of cheerleader outfits into their miraculously coordinated "ghetto" streetwear and street-cheer-krump-dances the white squad off the floor.  It was at this point that I began to tear up.  When the ghetto school was actually permitted to appear in a video for "Pon the Replay," I began to sob.

In short, I must be quite depressed.  I'm thinking of pulling out my old standby, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt, just to revive myself.

However, this morning I was surprised by a pretty decent movie.  It was called "In Her Shoes," I think, and it was about two sisters (Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette) who find their grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) and explore the mystery surrounding the death of their mother.  The Toni Collette character, Rose, really spoke to me- she has a closet full of gorgeous, expensive shoes that she never wears, because she's afraid of them getting messed up or looking silly in them.  She's a responsible lawyer who takes care of everybody else.  Cameron Diaz' character, Maggie, is the total opposite.  During the movie, they each have to learn to be more like each other, and it actually is very sweet.

I'm so much like Rose, in a lot of ways.  This year, I am going to "wear my shoes" more.  I'm going to try and get out there, enjoy what I have, and stop worrying so much about what I don't.  I'm not going to try to lose weight, I'm going to try to be healthier.  I'm going to try to readjust my attitude about things, and focus on the fun and good times.

Happy New Year!  I must be feeling better...I just watched "The Waterboy" and didn't shed a tear.

My Six

Recently, a blog I love issued a challenge to list six holiday-related things about yourself.  I love that idea, so I thought I'd do what she did, and list my six holiday traditions.  Some are traditions I had growing up, some are traditions I have now, and maybe one or two are traditions I'd like to start.

1. Christmas Eve is a pain, Christmas Day is fun.  This one was the way my family did it growing up.  Christmas Eve was divided between my mom's family (morning) and my dad's family (evening).  The difference really was like night and day.  Mom's family were LDS pioneer stock, transplanted Idohoans in Houston, and our holidays with them were constant and unchanging.  We did no gift exchanges, we focused on eating and fellowship.  Dad's parents, on the other hand, were chain-smoking, wine-drinking folks who thought the only good thing the Mormons did was make peanut butter.  (We have a peanut butter factory in Houston.)  The focus of our gathering there was also food, but not eating it- Grandpa would hold forth for hours about what "good" food really was, and while lighting a new cigarette with the butt of the old one, would lecture us at length about how white sugar would kill us all.

Christmas morning, on the other hand, was just us kids with Mom and Dad.  Mom held Christmas day to be inviolate- no one went anywhere, no one came to us...it was a day we had to be together, and I liked it a lot.

Now, we are beginning new traditions.  Christmas morning is at home, brunch with Mom, mid-afternoon dinner with Sven's mom.  I loved our Christmas Eve-Hanukah celebration at Liz and Harry's, and that may become a tradition as well...

2. Christmas must contain at least one weird food item, sometimes delicious, but sometimes mind-numbingly horrible.  Dad's mother made some of the delicious items...her Hello Dolly cookies were staples every year.  Grandma Pratt, on the other hand, was known for a dish called "Corn and Oysters," made with canned creamed corn and canned oysters.  It smelled as good as it sounds.  Dad always explained to us that it was because Grandma was from the north, so she didn't know any better.  Sven's mom made the sweetest fruit salad imaginable, from canned fruits in heavy syrup, then coated in sugar and left in the refrigerator overnight.  This was the healthy portion of the meal.  He still resents that I can't make fruit salad like his mom.

3. I refuse to make anything for Christmas dinner that I don't like.  This is a new tradition, started by me once I began making Christmas dinner on my own.  Sven and I sat down together one year and listed all of the items we associated with Christmas dinner, and when the list reached 20 items, we agreed it was ridiculous.  So now, each year I personally make the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and token green vegetable.  Sven, the real cook in the family, is in charge of the gravy and the experimental dish.  So far the biggest success was the Sweet Potato Mousse of 2005, which is still the only way I can eat sweet potatoes.

4. "Frosty The Snowman" runs 24 hours a day in our home beginning on Thanksgiving day, and ending on Christmas Eve.  This is a tradition begun by Deb Jr. last year, and one I intend to break as soon as humanly possible.

5. Sven tolerates my year-end clip-down fest.  The Soup, Best Year Ever, Top 40 Videos of the Year- he hates this stuff, but as a special gift to me, he limits his criticism to passive aggressive eye rolls, gusting sighs, and remote-control battery removal.

6. I'm thinking, in the future, of starting a traditional New Year's trip.  If we left the day after Christmas, we could have a few days to enjoy a mini-vacation.  Deb Jr. loves caves, and there are several within a day's drive of us.  We could also try a new place every year, or return to old favorites.  I'm thinking four days total- day to travel, two days there, day to come back- so it wouldn't be our whole vacation, but I think a little getaway might be just the thing to prevent the post-Christmas lazies from causing my clothing to shrink the way it always seems to...

This has been fun!  Try it, let me know when you do!  

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah!

Tonight, Sven, the kids, and I went to my cousin's new house for a Christmas Eve/Hanukah dinner.  It was a lovely evening, my cousin and her husband (Liz and Harry) were gracious and wonderful, helping chase the kids around and taking us for a walk through the neighborhood to see the Christmas lights.  Deb Jr. lit the Hanukah candles and attempted to sing the prayers, which was the cutest thing I've ever seen.  Liz even made our grandmother's famous Hello Dolly cookies, and they were just perfect.

So, thank you to my wonderful cousin Liz and her husband Harry for the nicest Christmas Eve I've had in a long, long time.  I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season this year.

Deb