Category Archives: Festivities

Up The Irish

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Today, in addition to making three dozen cupcakes and a loaf of banana bread, I am going to try my hand at Irish Soda Bread, in the festive spirit of the day.  I am also making kale chips and roasted asparagus, which count as festively Irish because of the green colour.  I am in general not a fan of potato dishes, so green veggies and soda bread is about as far as I go in the St. Paddy’s department.  I don’t even wear green, which is due to the fact that my wardrobe is almost exclusively grey and black.  This brings me to another point: it’s all the rage these days to wear a certain colour on a certain day to show support for various causes (purple for gay rights, pink for anti-bullying, etc.) and I’m sorry to say I almost never partake.  It’s not that I don’t support those causes – I am all for gay rights and anti-bullying, of course – but I don’t actually have the appropriate clothes.  So here’s what I’m wearing on St. Paddy’s Day:

Festive Irish wear – complete with fluffy dog!  This is also week four of my “growing out my goddamn hair” and I’m feeling pleased with it.  It’s growing!  Hair grows!  Regretsy no more!
It has been a very, very shitty week in the Boyhouse, but I am TIRED of being a little black cloud of sadness.  Last night I drugged myself and slept ten hours, and today I am filled with optimism! and cheer! and so instead I am going to transform myself into my usual ray of sunshine and tell you all the happy things about this week, as well as a few things I find cheering. 
1. Mark’s birthday party is tomorrow and of the fourteen children invited, thirteen of them RSVP’d by the date specified on the invitation.  This is surely a new record.  I’m taking an extra goody bag just in case but hooray for people adhering to basic societal expectations!
2. The boys’ class put on a play about the history of Calgary, and Jake was genius – GENIUS, I SAY – as Inspector Brisbois, head of the Northwest Mounted Police and builder of Fort Calgary.  He even wore a handlebar moustache.  Perhaps he is a future Movember participant? 
3. Report cards came out yesterday, and much to my surprise, Mark is apparently gifted at thermometer reading.  Several sentences were devoted to Mark and his ability to accurately read a thermometer.  He is the go-to person when classmates have questions about temperatures. 
4. This makes me laugh every time I look at it:
Although the other explanation is “rich” and/or “titled”.
5. I found this picture of Barkley when we first got him:
CUTE!!!  Wook at his widdle face.
And…that’s it.  I have been in a bit of a funk, so I would love, love, love it if you told me some cheering/happy things going on in your life.  xo

It’s the least relevant day…of the year.

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It’s Groundhog Day, or, as I like to call it, the least relevant day of the year if you live where I do. I don’t care what’s happening in the rest of the world – six more weeks of winter would be an early spring; we’ve been having unseasonably mild weather which makes me a bit superstitious that it is going to be ALL WINTRY BLASTS ALL THE TIME come April and May.

But Groundhog Day – you will be happy to know – is not just a weird, made-up holiday like you may have assumed. It actually has roots in pagan European weather lore! Good times. Despite my previous feelings that Groundhog Day is the stupidest day of the year, which was largely based on weather bitterness which I am trying to overcome by finding within me an invincible summer, I now say hooray for the groundhog! The lowly groundhog, elevated to the status of having its very own day. It’s not everyday we celebrate a rodent. We should all be happy for the groundhog.

Today is also the day Sid Vicious died, which seems a bit of a “who-gives-a-shit” piece of information, but since he overdosed on heroin to be with his beloved crazy-ass Nancy, maybe he was somehow confusing Groundhog Day with Valentine’s Day. I mean, you do that much smack in your lifetime you probably have a hard time keeping up with the calendar, you know?

Many, many of our special days have roots in pagan rituals, but not – as you likely already know – St. Valentine’s Day. St. Valentine was a Christian martyr, and I’m a little fuzzy on the details as to how his day became synonymous with love and chocolates and those cheap incarcerated teddy bears that proclaim they are prisoners of love. In any event, I am very much looking forward to Valentine’s Day this year because my kids are at the hilarious stage when talking about anything romance related has them shrieking with disgust.  It’s quite amusing.  Their teacher started a heart-themed calendar for the month of February and it’s the Worst! Calendar! Ever!  The boys have taken to bringing home Geronimo Stilton books from the library, and we have been reading them at bedtime.  There was a chapter where a female mouse VERY CREEPILY goes after Geronimo in a romantic way, and the boys were actually screaming with horror.  It was kind of horrible, come to think of it.  If there had been a gender reversal – a male character going after a female one in the same manner – there would have certainly been an uproar about it.

But alas!  This is the way of the world, it seems.  Being a mother of boys makes one acutely aware of gender bias.  Take, for example, what used to be Boy Scouts but is now just Scouts, versus Girl Guides.  It’s okay for girls to be with only girls, but not okay for boys to be with only boys, is the take-away message I am receiving.

We’ve all heard about the uproar over the new Lego line that is aimed at girls.  Personally, I looked at that line and immediately coveted all the sets for myself.  They are CUTE.  I also covet one of those Maplelea dolls – I really like Taryn.  But anyway, I think we’re all aware of the uproar about Lego, how Lego is supposed to be gender neutral, etc., etc.  I do not agree.  I think that Lego is generally marketed to boys.  Girls do play with Lego, of course, just as boys play with dolls, but predominantly those items are gender-marketed.  Is this a bad thing?  I don’t know.  We don’t live in a gender neutral world, people.  I am not saying this is right or wrong, I am saying that this is reality.

But I digress.  I am simply amused that my boys have reached the stage where little hearts cause them to make retching noises, whereas I have reached the stage where Valentine’s Day evokes feelings of the craving variety, as in chocolate and wine.  Come to think of it, perhaps chocolate and wine should be the new way to celebrate Groundhog Day!  Yes!  Let’s celebrate the groundhog with a nice glass of Shiraz and a pile of frozen York patties, shall we?

Post-Christmas Cleaning Binge

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Did you have a good Christmas?  I’m relieved to tell you that Mark recovered enough to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, although he was somewhat exhausted by yesterday evening – but then, shouldn’t we all be exhausted by then?  My mother mentioned yesterday that Mark is always sick at Christmas, which seemed incorrect to me, and indeed, upon checking my blog entries the last time anyone was sick at Christmas was 2008.  That seems like a fairly decent run to me.

But today we are all enjoying good health and also our Christmas gifts.  I caved this year on my “no video games” policy and the boys – all three of them – are currently playing Mario Kart Wii.  They are also threatening to get a fourth control so I can play with them, an attitude I am steadfastly discouraging.  So far they have yet to turn into slack jawed zombies, so I grudgingly admit the Wii is fine.  Also, I received a game, just for me, the Wii Jeopardy.  Now THAT is something I can get behind.

I also received this beauty:

A Pandora bracelet!  It’s perfect in every way.  I also received this pashmina scarf, which is so unbelievably soft I want to make out with it:

I haven’t yet.  But I want to.

Meanwhile, today I have broken all my normal rules and have not taken the Christmas tree down.  It’s not because I don’t want to.  I came home from yoga, faced with the clutter and boxes and general grunginess that indicates holiday living, and thought I could not face one more minute with the tree up.  The kids intervened passionately, and I have agreed to give it one more day.  I regret this decision immensely, and I find myself giving the tree what my children themselves refer to as the “furry eyebrow”.  Enjoy your time with us, tree.  You’re next.

If I couldn’t take down the tree, I certainly could deal with the holiday grunginess, which is exactly what I did.

That’s me, minus the blonde hair and kicky pink dress.  My children seemed a little alarmed at the zest with which I attacked the floors and bathroom.  My husband went out to run an errand and came back to find me scrubbing the floor tiles with vinegar water and a Sham-Wow, all the furniture moved around so as to clean behind it.  “Wow,” he said, backing away slowly.  “You’re really…cleaning.”  YES I AM.

Meanwhile, we have approximately one thousand chocolates in the house, which seems like a lot.  What’s better – freezing and savoring them over the next several months, or devouring them all just to destroy them?  Probably something in between, I suppose.  But given we still have Halloween candy in our house, something must be done.  Immediately.  Now pardon me while I go deal with a box of After Eights.

"And they’re hanging their stockings," he snarled with a sneer…

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Tomorrow is Christmas!  It’s practically here!

We made it through the entire first term of school with no days lost due to illness; despite classmates being knocked down with strep and colds and stomach flues, my kids remained healthy, with only a few minor days of sniffles.  I know someone who takes full responsibility for his child’s health; the lack of illness is due to superior parenting on his part.  However, I take my children’s health as a blessing – one that I supplement with lots of sleep, vitamins and good food, but a blessing nonetheless.  Then on Thursday – the last day of school – Mark mentioned he had a sore throat, but that there was no way he was missing the last day.

A chill of foreboding went through me.  Mark insisted he was well enough for school, and he certainly did seem to be, but this is also the child who insisted he was well enough for school when it was later revealed that he had pneumonia.  To say that I was a bit apprehensive would be an understatement.  And so I was not at all surprised when I picked them up from their shortened day to find that he had a low grade fever.  Jake complained that he was very tired.  We went home, I settled the kids on the couch with Despicable Me, and took Mark’s temperature every half hour or so.  He complained about this; when I told him about rectal thermometers though, he was relieved with the modern technology that is the ear thermometer.

Things got worse and his fever hit 103.  Now, I am of the school of thought that if a child has a virus – which is what I thought – then the best course of action is to stay home and rest with lots of fluids.  Mark was drinking a lot of fluids, and eating some freezies, and eventually the fever went down, hovering between 100 and 101.  He threw up in the night, which made me despair for everyone in the family.  Not Christmas barf!

Yesterday Mark seemed to rally a bit – Jake rallied entirely, spending the entire day dressing up in old Halloween costumes and making pretend spaceships out of fleece blankets – and we played Legos for a bit, before Mark lay back down on the couch.  He woke up from a nap, crying from pain in his throat, with a fever of 103, again.  Now I started to question things.  The doctor’s office was closed.  The only options were the gross petrie dish of a local walk-in clinic and the emergency room.  I tried to get his fever down with cool cloths and Tylenol, all the while googling worst case scenarios and photos of strep.  I peered down his throat with a headlamp, I fretted and took his temperature over and over.  I spent the entire day feeling anxious and a mixture of am I doing enough, or should I take him in?

Today, he’s much better – still a sore throat, still a lack of appetite, but no fever and with semi-normal energy levels.  It’s a Christmas miracle!  At least, hopefully it is and that no one else comes down with this.

So tonight I’m going to make homemade pizza and Caesar salads, after dinner we will watch Elf, put out cookies and milk – traditions must be maintained no matter what one feels about Santa – and then tuck the boys in.  We’re moving Jake’s bed into Mark’s room for a “sleepover”; and then we’ll fill stockings and drink wine.  It will be a perfect Christmas Eve.

And I wish for you, my dear readers, a most perfect Christmas Eve, however you may spend it.  Have yourself a merry little Christmas.  Let your heart be light.  xoxo

It’s Festivus Eve! Grievance time!

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All this Christmas sentiment is getting to me, I thought.  Two nights ago, I became increasingly irritable throughout the evening; everything was getting under my skin.  My husband was, I thought, an unbearable asshole and the kids were insane, obnoxious, and loud.  I crabbed around the house then said, at 7:45, that I was going to bed, much to the relief of everyone in my house.  I crawled into bed, only to tell my husband that I must be getting sick, since I was so tired and achy and sad.  My husband thought for a minute, then asked if it was possible I was getting my period.  Hey!  Suddenly everything made sense!

Pre-Christmas sentimentality plus upcoming ladies’ holidays equals a supremely irritable, weepy, emotional wreck.
I spent yesterday morning listening to White Wine in the Sun and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas on repeat, and crying.  They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun…I sang along, chokingly, tears running down my face as I chopped vegetables.  Mercifully my fingers are all still intact.  This is not unlike when I was 14 and would be horribly depressed about the awfulness of life in junior high, and then sit in my dark room listening to Leonard Cohen, or Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.  Cathartic?  Possibly.  Helpful?  No.

Fortunately my girlfriends suggested a nice long walk with our dogs in the afternoon, with the sun shining and the blue sky so lovely against the snow.  That, along with a peppermint Lindor, lifted me right out of my weepy lunacy.
Also somewhat cheering is the sight out my front window.  My single male neighbour seems to be exercising his artistic side by making snow sculptures:
Look closely.  The female snowman has giant snow breasts.  And even though my neighbour lives alone and possibly always will, the sight of this snowman couple, with the giant breasts and the coffee cup, makes me smile.  Actually, on another level it’s a bit depressing, but let’s just gloss over that for now.  A snow couple!  Happy!  Happy thoughts!  Let your heart be light….
Here we are on the eve of Festivus!  Festivus for the rest of us.  And in the spirit of Festivus, I shall air my current grievance – and no, it has nothing to do with the idea that maybe that snowwoman has had some work done.  It is that I was watching the news (or “news”) on Monday morning, and the caption for one of the breaking news stories was “Kim John Il Dead”.  JOHN.  Kim JOHN Il.  Global Calgary, try proof reading.  It’s awesome.  I expect better from you; you aren’t Breakfast Television. 
In general, spelling and grammatical errors are a grievance to me.  We all make the occasional mistake, but generally, I feel all HULK SMASH when words are used incorrectly or misspelled.  Especially if those words are in a Christmas newsletter.  It’s not spelled HOLLIDAY, extended family member who shall remain anonymous.  And it’s “oops”, not “opps”.  And punctuation is there for a reason! 
Time for some calming ujjayi breaths, I think.  But tell me, in the spirit of Festivus, do you have any grievances to air? 

Santa’s coming! Santa! I know him!

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True confessions: I have never taken my children to a mall to “meet Santa”.  I’m going to really put myself out there for a moment and say that it has always seemed a little skeevy to me, to set my babies on this dressed-up stranger’s lap, this stranger masquerading as Santa, only to have them shriek in terror for the photographer elf.  This website, devoted to creepy Santa photos and terrified children, kind of kills me. 

Plus, it’s not even the REAL Santa!  Every time I see a photo of children with Santa, I think only of Buddy the Elf and his excitement to see Santa, followed by: You stink.  You smell like beef and cheese.  You don’t smell like Santa.  You sit on a throne of lies!  I also think of my husband, who figured out at age three or four the myth that is Santa by visiting more than one shopping mall in a day and seeing more than one Santa.  The gig is up, fat guy.

It’s a strange ritual, isn’t it?  The thought of going to the mall right now makes me hyperventilate, but the thought of going to the mall and standing in line for an hour with small children just so they can freak out on Santa’s lap?  Ca-razy.

I realize I’m in the minority here.  I’m also probably in the minority for thinking it’s kind of funny that my kids keep singing, to the tune of Jingle Bells, “911, 911, Santa Claus is dead!  Rudolph got a dollar to shoot him in the head!”  Ah, where would we be without Rudolph-as-depicted-as-a-hitman songs?

Despite our anti-Santa sentiment around here – my kids are non-believers, would you guess? – the excitement about Christmas is escalating.  I went to the grocery store yesterday to purchase a few items for Christmas Eve and for some special festive brunches, and realized that the bus from the local seniors’ residence now always comes Mondays at nine.  In other words, at the exact same time I do my shopping.  This means, clearly, I need to find another morning in which to procure my weekly groceries, because I simply can’t take it anymore.  I cannot take the grumbling about the amount of cash registers that are open, I cannot take the accidental bumping of my legs by grocery cart absentmindedly leaned upon by an elderly lady, I cannot take the crabbing to cashiers about the scandalously high price of butter.  I was thinking this, impatiently, as I saw the crowd of mainly elderly women obtaining their carts and looking critically at the “Festive Solutions” display.

But then I saw an old man fumbling around in the cookie section, with his cart full of eggs and bread and ice cream, I saw him carefully choose a bag of “Dad’s” oatmeal cookies and set it in his cart.  I caught his eye and smiled.  I thought that he looked sad, and lonely.  I wondered if this was the first Christmas he was doing the grocery shopping.  I wondered if he was all alone this Christmas, if his wife was gone and he was just doing the best he could.  It reminded me – not for the first time – how very difficult this time of year can be, how joyless and bleak it can seem, and I felt unworthy of all the luck and happiness in my life. 

I went home and unloaded all my groceries, then headed to the school to pick up my boys for lunch.  They ran across the snowy playground to meet me, singing about dead Santa and murderous Rudolph and Robin laying an egg.  My luck and my happiness.

Don’t throw me down, Clark! Is your house on fire, Clark? Oh. That was fun. I love riding in cars.

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It is ONE WEEK until Christmas and the mood around here is a mix of mellow and excited.  Yesterday was our open house and – although the basement looked like a Lego bomb went off and also like twenty-five children dropped crackers on the carpet and then stepped on them vigourously, which is probably exactly what happened – now I’m kind of in a weird state of not having much to do.  One week before Christmas.  It’s nice, do not get me wrong, I heard on the news that it was taking 45 minutes to exit the parking lot at the nearby shopping mall, and I’m very happy not to have to be around people who are so filled with the Christmas spirit that they may may murder you and run over their own grandma to get a parking spot. 

The kids are also in school until THURSDAY.  Their last day of school is THURSDAY.  I cannot imagine that there will be much learning this week.  I also cannot imagine how their teacher is a non-drinker, but that’s just me.  We all cope differently, I suppose.

Personally, I am going to cope with Christmas excitement – my own – by watching Christmas Vacation on the CBC tonight.  I am also now 90 years old, apparently, by using the words “on the CBC”.  I really need to buy the video of this movie, as I watch it every year and every year I become slightly annoyed at the editing of the words “We’re going to have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Fucking Kaye”.  Ah, what a movie. 

Without further adieu, I will time travel back to 2007 and do a meme!  A Christmas meme!  Feel free to answer these questions in the comments or, if you are a blogger, answer them on your blog and put a link to it in the comments.  xoxo

Five Quick Christmas Questions:

1. What is your favourite Christmas beverage?
Wine is pretty much my favourite.  Red wine – it’s festive!  But on Christmas morning I do enjoy a cup of coffee with Bailey’s – the original Bailey’s.  I know they have all sorts of new flavours of Bailey’s, but because I am 90 years old (see also: referring to it as “the CBC”) I like the original.  I loathe even the idea of eggnog.  Just looking at it makes me feel all squeamy.  No amount of rum can fix that beverage.

2. What is your favourite Christmas song?
I love so many Christmas songs.  In no particular order: Last Christmas by Wham!, Santa Baby by anyone at all, Baby It’s Cold Outside – because who doesn’t like a festive song about date rape (“No, no, my answer is no!” “But what’s the sense in hurting my pride?”), White Christmas by Bing Crosby (because I am 90) and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.  On the more religious side, I love O Holy Night and the Hallelujah song from the Messiah.  I like to sing it loudly, luckily for the people who I live with.  I also love this song, although it continues to make me sob and turn into a blotchy, red faced sentimental idiot.

3. What is your favourite Christmas movie?
Elf, followed closely by Christmas Vacation (it’s on the CBC TONIGHT) and When Harry Met Sally, which I count as a Christmas movie because it involves Christmas, New Year’s, and my husband will only watch it with me during the holidays.  He refuses to watch it more than that because I always get drunk and repeat all the dialogue.  Anyone want to come over and watch with me?  It’s super fun!

4. What is your favourite Christmas dessert?
My mom makes a chocolate Yule log with whipped cream.  It is PRETTY yummy.  I also really like to eat a lot of After Eights and call that dessert.  I need a cleanse just thinking about this.

5. How long do you leave your Christmas decorations up?
Heh.  I usually put the tree up EARLY – like before December 1st – and so by the afternoon of the 25th I want to tear everything down just so I can move through my living room without bumping into something.  I try to wait until after Boxing Day, just to be not such a grinch, but it doesn’t always happen.

If you’d like to participate in this meme, let me know – it’s fun! 

PS My gingerbread recipe is up at the cooking blog – nom nom nom.