Settling in For a Long Winter's Nap

Ohhh-kay. I’m a bad blogger. There is no question about that.

Luckily for you, when Megan wrote to berate me this time and threaten me with a pair of trailer-hitch testicles, she also sent a very helpful list of suggested topics. Here goes.

Class Reunion/Thanksgiving Anecdotes

We went to the 10-year reunion. It was at a bar the night before Thanksgiving. Neat. That basically meant it was like the night before Thanksgiving every year, only we were wearing name tags.

We haven’t been going back for Thanksgiving in recent years because it’s such a pain in the ass. Too many people are traveling and the weekend is too short. We went this year because of this stupid reunion. Twenty-six total hours of driving and there wasn’t even any juicy gossip. Most people looked the same. No one was even horribly fat. It was all very disappointing.

It did mean that we got to do the Turkey Run on Thanksgiving morning. And by “run” I mean “walk.” It’s a Young family tradition to get up at the crack of dawn and stroll 3ish miles in the freezing cold to earn our turkey. Although this year it was not so cold and we didn’t stroll as slowly as usual. We totally didn’t come in last. We came in around 160^th. Out of 180. ROCK!! We totally kicked the asses of 20 people! Aside from the food (there’s nothing like the huge homemade Thanksgiving), the Turkey Run is what I miss most we don’t go back.

D's graduation

My husband has a Master’s degree! For all intents and purposes anyway. All that’s missing is the little piece of paper. Or big one, if Maryland holds true to form. D’s degrees are all much bigger than mine. It’s not fair. And the Maryland degrees I’ve seen are roughly poster size.

The ceremony is tonight. I’m taking knitting. And maybe a book.

Christmas shopping anecdotes

I’ve got nothing in this category. Shopping has been fairly uneventful. The worst part has been my brain. I can’t remember things. I’ll go to the mall for two things, but only remember to get one. Then I have to go to the mall again. And inevitably forget something else. Total trips to the mall this year: five. Average number of trips to the mall during Christmas seasons past: one.

We are definitely not doing Christmas like we usually do. Between D’s graduation, and, well, okay. That’s really it. But his focus is elsewhere and it’s no fun to do Christmas by yourself. Sooo, the cookies are still unbaked and not all of the gifts are wrapped. Unprecedented.

Top 10 Christmas songs of all time

This is like asking me to choose between my children, but I’m willing to give it a try. I’ll probably have a favorite kid, too. These aren’t really in order. That I couldn’t do.

10. Carol of the Bells

9. Do They Know It’s Christmas – Band Aid

8. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas – Gayla Peevey

7. River – Joni Mitchell

6. Snow – Bing Crosby and the rest of the White Christmas gang

5. White Christmas – The Drifters

4. Christmas – Blues Traveler

3. We Need a Little Christmas – Percy Faith

2. Baby It’s Cold Outside – Ann-Margret and Al Hirt

1. The Merriest – June Christy

And on that note, I give you a list of the 5 WORST Christmas songs:

5. Last Christmas –Wham!

4. Mary Did You Know – Clay Aiken

3. Believe – Josh Groban

2. The Christmas Shoes – NewSong

1. Christmas Eve in Washington – Maura Sullivan

Maggie tales

Ohhh, the Maggot. We pissed her off. You know how she loves to chew everything and basically go apeshit when we leave her alone? Well, that plus Christmas tree? Right. For once, we actually saw this coming, though. We’ve been thinking and thinking of how to keep her from destroying Christmas since, oh, Augustish. The answer, it seems, is plywood. We now have a super-classy piece of plywood across the entry to the living room. It’s a big entry, and therefore a big piece of plywood – a piece of plywood that, when we’re home, now leans against the living room wall. An unfinished piece of plywood really adds something to that room.

The first day we put this up (eh, about three weeks ago), Maggie freaked out. She chewed a corner of her bed and chewed up a kitchen towel. As much as she looooves to destroy things, she had NEVER chewed her bed before. We put the towels up and figured the bed thing was a fluke.

Wrong, wrong, wrongity-wrong.

Wrong.

Shit. I should have taken a picture to add to the Maggie gallery. Let me try to paint you a magical word-picture. When you walk in our front door, there is a short hall in front of you, ending in the kitchen. To your right, the boarded-up entry to the living room, to the left, rising heavenward, the stairs. This entire hall area was covered in tiny pastel foam pieces, ankle deep. She tore the guts out and flung them all over the damn place. Our answer to that is that she doesn’t have a bed downstairs anymore. Nice work, dummy.

Knitting updates

You’ll have to wait for that.

I'm out. Have a Merry Merry Christmas all.