Christmas Recap

It's hard to believe this was my daughter's seventh Christmas, in as much as I could've sworn we were just slathering her tiny heinie with A&D Ointment and shoving far more diapers into the Diaper Genie than it was ever meant to hold. But, she is growing up and doesn't want to be slathered with anything. A lot of people have asked me how she liked the vanity I painted for her. She loved it. In fact, I think this was the first Christmas where she actually realized that I/we put a lot of effort into the things we do for her. She came to me yesterday afternoon and said, "Thank you for the vanity, Mom. And thank you for everything." Maybe all those "giving is more important than receiving" talks actually took hold in some small way.

One of my daughter's favorite Christmas gifts is called "Irritating Ethel."  She was a gift from my mother. Ethel burps, farts, laughs, and screams (when you poke her in the eye). She will also record your voice and play it back with a sort of munchkin effect applied to it. And here is the beauty of Irritating Ethel: she has no "off" switch. Thaaaaaaaanks, Meemaw. You do remember that I will have a hand in choosing your nursing home someday, right? As I write this, my daughter is dancing around the living room in her undies (it is 2 p.m. and she has not bothered to get dressed) singing made-up songs about our Christmas tree, which Ethel is recording and playing back to her.  It'll be such a shame when Ethel's batteries die. Such a shame indeed.

Other than all the burping and farting coming from Ethel, we had a good Christmas. We went to church on Christmas Eve.  We've also made it a little tradition to stop by a house whose owners take Christmas decorating to a whole new, wonderfully tacky level.  I'll include a photo below, although it is hard to do justice to it in a photograph. Bedtime on Christmas Eve went remarkably well this year. Earlier in the day, my friend Beth posted the link to the NORAD Santa Tracker website. I pulled up the site. Santa was in Japan! I brought my daughter into the room and we kept an eye on it throughout the day. As Santa drew closer and closer to the U.S., my daughter knew that she had to be asleep before he hit the Midwest.  So, she brushed her teeth and hopped right into bed. A Christmas miracle!

I did videotape my daughter's reaction to seeing the vanity and whatnot on Christmas morning. If I ever learn out to edit video, I'll post it. She actually had to open her gifts fairly quickly as we were due at my brother-in-law's house for brunch at 10:30ish. A opened the gifts from Santa, us, Meemaw, and her aunts. I knew she wanted one of those Monster High dolls so my youngest sister bought it for her. ("Hey, I mailed her that ugly doll she wanted.")  I sent my sister a text yesterday morning: "It's hideous!  She loves it!" The kid also received: art supplies, bath stuff, Barbies, earrings, games, and Polly Pockets. I think Polly Pocket is the root of all evil. I mean, her shoes can fit in my nostril (no, I haven't tried, it but I'm pretty sure). They are almost microscopic so I'm reasonably certain she will be barefoot for the rest of the winter if the vacuum cleaner has anything to say about it.

After going to brunch at my brother-in-law's house, we came home and resumed the battle to liberate plastic toys from their packaging. I also took the quiet afternoon as an opportunity to clean out my daughter's room and make space available for some of the new toys and games.  I tossed out some old stuff (such as "Hi-Ho Cherry-o!" - I know for a fact we can't play this one anymore because the dogs ate most of the cherries and shit them out in the back yard last summer) and found spots for new games like Sorry and Bananagrams.

As for me, I received some nice goodies for Christmas. My mom made me a robe (it's almost enough to make me forgive her for sending Ethel to my house . . . almost). She also sent me some jewelry, yoga pants and shirt, bath stuff, etc. P got me some of the items on the list I helpfully gave him, including a Belgian waffle maker. So, we decided to have "breakfast for dinner" and I made waffles.

Since I doubled my weight over the holidays, I headed straight to the gym this morning. It was nice to have an extra day off after Christmas to unwind and . . . yell at our daughter to get dressed. She is making progress. She is now wearing tights and underwear. I just feel like I should apologize to her future husband now. I hope he likes being perpetually late everywhere he goes.