Christmas, the replay

This is how we rolled, Pennsylvania style.

We began at 9 a.m:

Wake up.
Eat pre-gift opening snack.
Open gifts.
Put new hot pink dog coat on Cbear.
Watch her strut around the house like a supermodel.
Eat breakfast.
Greet grandmothers.
Open gifts.
Eat lunch.
Play cards.
Greet cousins and uncle.
Eat snack.
Open gifts.
Put dog in crate because she is overwhelmed by commotion, running in circles and going slightly insane. She will not allow me to remove her new coat.
Greet more cousins.
Play old-school pictionary. Have annual family argument about the rules.
Dominate the game with my cousin.
Eat mid-day snack.
Check on dog. She is passed out asleep in her new pink coat.
Take annual grandkids picture.
Argue over arrangment of grandkids in the picture.
Greet friends of family.
Eat early evening snack.
Greet aunt and uncle.
Play our family’s verison of Deal or No Deal, starring my mom as Howie Mandel and my uncle in the laundry room calling on his cell phone as the banker.
Watch my grandmother try not to pee her pants from laughing so hard.
Play cards while we wait to…
Eat huge Polish dinner consisting entirely of carbohydrates.
Let dog out of crate. She is now less schizophrenic, but still wears her new coat.
Open more gifts.
Eat.
Open more gifts.
Clean up enough dishes to fill both dishwashers.
Collapse out of sheer exhaustion at 12 a.m.

The reason there is not a lot of drinking at my family’s get-togethers is because it slows us down.

Tonight? We do it all over again minus the gifts. Nobody out-Christmases this family.

A thought for the holiday

Christmas gift suggestions from Oren Arnold, some pithy guy I’ve never heard of:

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
And….
To Britney Spears: underpants.

Happy Holidays, biatches. See you on the flip side of 2007.

This week’s On Notice

Here’s your early Christmas present!

An open letter to Heidi Klum, supermodel.

Dear Heidi Klum,

I want to hate you. I want that with all my heart.

But I don’t.

I resent the fact that you hit the genetic Powerball, that your legs might possibly be able to cure cancer, that if I met you on a day when you hadn’t slept nor showered in a week while you concurrently had the bird flu and shingles and smallpox and accidentally shaved off one eyebrow and half your hair, it’s safe to say you would still look better than I could ever look.

When my husband ogles your breasts, I cannot fault him, for I too stare in wonderment. They are amazing.

You created one of my favorite shows, Project Runway. I expected and hoped you would justify my jealously, that you would be a cardboard cutout, a pretty shell of a person. I was wrong. You proved yourself to be intelligent, funny, and in possesion of a personality that can only be described as sparkling.

But Heidi, you cannot have it all. Please cease and desist with the singing.

Love,
Kristin

Maybe Tivo is not a good thing…

Dear Husband,

I love you with all my heart.

But you have got to stop rewinding and rewatching “D*** in a Box.”

One, because I am afraid you are getting gift ideas for all of our upcoming gift-giving occasions.

Two, because I cannot continue to walk around town singing to myself “mid-day at the grocery store, D*** in a Box” because people hear me and then they think I am sexually harrassing them.

Three, because if anyone in this house is going to be rewinding and rewatching Justin Timberlakef for any reason, it’s going to be me.

For real. Stop or I am making you go to his concert.

Love,
Me

What’s important

Every year for many years, my family played the board game version of 20 questions on Christmas. And every year for many years, my mom wanted to change and/or bend the rules in some way to make things more interesting. (My mom is prone to doing this in all areas of her life, which is why she is one of the most entertaining and fun people I know.)

Every year, my grandfather would get out the rule book, try to explain to his wayward anarchist of a daughter that there was simply no way one can go about changing the written rules of a game, get disgusted with my mother’s lack of respect for order, and quit.

We have several years of this on videotape, and it’s one of my favorite Christmas memories. It sums up everything about my grandfather that I loved.

Two years ago today, we got the horrible phone call telling us that he lost his long battle with cancer, and instead of arguing with him over board game rules, we would be spending the holiday preparing for and attending his funeral.

My grandfather didn’t attend school past sixth or seventh grade, but he was incredibly smart in the way that only old men who have seen too much in their lifetime can be. He was one of 18 children, fought in World War 2, worked in coal mines and car plants, smoked too much, couldn’t sit still for more than two minutes, and could build or fix anything.

He got his first pair of non-hand-me-down shoes when he joined the army at age 18. That’s the only thing he ever told me about the war, no matter what I asked him. He and my grandmother were married for over 50 years. A big night out for them for as long as I knew them consisted of going to Chick-fil-a and then to the pharmacy. If we were staying at their house for the weekend, we got to go along, and my cousins and I still talk about it as one of our favorite childhood excursions.

We used to watch Little House on the Prairie together when I stayed home sick from school. Mrs. Oleson was his favorite character. We listed to polka music on the A.M Radio while we delivered Meals on Wheels together.

The fact that both of his children and all of his grandchildren graduated from college was one of his greatest sources of pride. He saved everything and reused it, often making it in to something else. While he bedridden and fighting off the disease that eventually killed him, he made a Pizza Hut box into a table-top holder for all his prescription pill bottles. I still remember how he and my grandmother would wash used tinfoil, fold it up, and use it again. When you came from nothing, he would say, you learn to appreciate everything. Nothing in his life was wasted.

He taught me many things, such as how play horseshoes, how to skip rocks, and the best way to paint a room.

He also taught me that sometimes, you have to follow the rules even when no one else wants to, and sometimes, it’s the little things in life that are the most important.

Yes, Virgina, we have a literacy problem

As a former English teacher and current Richmond blogger, I would be incredibly remiss if I did not direct all my darling readers here. Go ahead. Click that link and support the Virginia Literacy Foundation. You know you want to do it. You’ll be popular…and apparently, you will get a free button, too.

Coincidentally, I recently had work-related reasons to read several reports relating to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. It’s some scary stuff, and if you want a reason to donate to this worthy cause, poke around in the documents there. For all our boasting about being the greatest country ever, we’ve got some serious gaps to fill in terms of functional literacy levels in the adults.

Global warming and diseases that can kill you get all the good charity press, as well they should…but adults who can’t function in society because they can’t read well enough to improve their station in life could use some support, too.

If you can’t donate, consider volunteering your time here.

Haters!

It’s strange, sad, and rather thrilling to me that yesterday’s post about my dog’s birthday generated some of the nastiest email I have ever received. I have written some very liberal, very polarizing things on this blog, and yet it was a simple homage to my very awesome C-bear that brought out the crazies.

Here are a few gems and the my responses to them, poor spelling and punctuation included. Names changed to protect the ignorant, of course.

Dear Kristin,

Don’t you have anything better to do than write about your dog. I mean really it’s not like she’s a kid. How can you explain it? I think the way people these days treat their dogs like the children they cant have is really bad. There are all these kids abusing welfare out there and people spend all this money on pets. It’s just dumb.

Sincerely,
Someone who does not understand how both my girl parts and the welfare system work

Dear Someone,

I am truly sorry you feel this way about people who love their pets. I do not feel a need to explain my reasons for what I write , but I did want to clear up a few things. Children generally do not abuse the welfare system. And I choose to love my dog not because I can’t have children, but because I don’t want them, and because it’s my job to love her. I am perfectly capable of pushing out some munchkins, but Child Protective Services sort of frowns on making them pee outside in the yard putting them in a crate when you leave the house, so I’ll stick to my dogs.

Dear Kristin,

It’s aweful that you claim to love dogs this much and then buy a purebread dog when you could save one from a shelter who might otherwise die. Maybe you should think about that before you get your new dog.

Sincerely,
Person who cannot click on a link to save her life.

Dear Person,

It’s awful that you cannot spell check. Maybe you should think about hitting the F7 button before sending email. Also, if you clicked on the link under the picture of the new dog we might be adding to the family, you would see that it is a link to a rescue organization. You know, an organization that saves dogs from shelters because otherwise, they might die.

Dear Kristin,

Your blog is totally boring. You talk about hair stuff too much. Also, you are aware that your dog is not the second coming of Jesus, right?

Yours Truly,
Asshole who really needs to get a life.

Dear Asshole,

I am 100% aware that my blog is totally boring. I am a boring person with a boring husband* and a boring house and a boring dog and a boring life. But I am sorry to report that I have amazing hair. It’s really all I have going for me.

And clearly, everyone knows that Johnny Depp is the second coming of Jesus, not my dog. She wouldn’t care anyway. She’s a Buddhist.

*Edited to add: My husband wants me to make sure everyone knows he is not boring. He’s not – he’s really rather interesting. Especially when he watches History Channel documentaries about Ancient Indians of Mexico and trash-talks the Aztecs. That’s so hot.

This week’s On Notice

And unto us a C-bear was born…

Five years ago tomorrow, our little Callie/Cbear/Captain Wetbeard was born, and the world is a better place for it. Here she is, all five years of wonderful:

And C-bear, you shouldn’t have made us love you so much, because for your birthday, we’re maybe getting you this:

His name is Hunter. He comes from here.

You’re going to hate us if this works out, but not for long. After all, when I ask you why on earth all the dirty socks wound up buried in your toy basket, you can just shrug your shoulders and say “he did it.” I promise you don’t have to share your bones ever.