Christmas Meme

This was actually an email from Jenny - http://jennylynnbaker.blogspot.com

I pretty much never do forwards, but this looked fun, and instead of forwarding, I thought I'd just do it here. If you want to play along, please feel free to post here or on your own blog! Here it is:

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy (not forward) this entire email and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this> to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you......Tis the Season to be NICE!



1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I prefer using gift bags because I am a TERRIBLE gift wrapper, however, I usually wrap because Jason thinks bags are weak-sauce.

2. Real tree or Artificial? I love real trees, ah the smell! But, we have a pre-lit fake we can use over and over. A little 4.5 footer. I'm really not sure which is best for the environment...I've heard both sides. It's not so good to be chopping down trees, yet it's not so good to buy petroleum based products either. It's a lose-lose. But it sure looks pretty.

3. When do you put up the tree? The day after Thanksgiving.

4. When do you take the tree down? January 2nd.

5. Do you like egg nog? Not really. It makes me gag a little.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? That's really hard. One that comes to mind is bitter sweet because it was the year I asked Santa for a camera but received a really fun keyboard instead, as well as a note in my dad's writing explaining that camera production in the North Pole was stalled, so Santa thought I might like this keyboard instead. It kinda ruined Santa for me. But I did love that keyboard. I think it was a Muppets one and I played with it all the time.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes! Two cheap ones I bought from Big Lots when Jason and I were first married.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My grandpa. I never know what to buy for really old people besides candy.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My sister-in-law. She's 12, very girly, and fun to shop for, and has specific stores that she loves, so I just can't go wrong.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail!! Who doesn't love getting Christmas cards?

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Not sure...I love presents!

12. Favorite Christmas movie? A Christmas Story. I love Christmas Vacation too.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Around the week after Thanksgiving.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes. And that's all I'm going to say.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Mexican foods like pasole and tamales. I love enchiladas on Christmas day too. MMMMM. My mom makes great pasole - it's a Mexican soup that is made with pork and hominy. It's similar to menudo (wich I like too, if it's made well) but no tripe.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Doesn't really matter to me. The tree we have has colored.

17. Favorite Christmas song? "I'll Be Home For Christmas" I remember my Pa crying when it played when it was probably his last Christmas time before he passed away, so it has a special place in my heart.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel very close to home. We try to designate one holiday per family so we aren't spread too thin and unable to enjoy our day. Christmas Eve is always Jason's mom's, Christmas Day is always my family, and Thanksgiving is always Jason's dad's. It's worked out really well the last couple of years, I think. It does help to have very understanding families too.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? dasher, dancer, prancer and vixen, comet and cupid and donner and blitzen and rudolpho. (Jenny filled this out before so, that helped) :)

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I grew up with an angel that lit up and was waving candles (lights) but we don't have a tree topper yet. I don't really miss it. Perhaps it would give it some height though.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? I grew up with Christmas morning, only opening your jammies on Christmas Eve. Jason grew up opening everything Christmas Eve, so we sort of compromise opening one gift from each other on Christmas Eve, but mostly on Christmas day.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? TV. It's consumerism at it's worse. Stupid commercials! We've scaled back on our buying for each other because we are so sick of feeling like we need to buy all this stuff to celebrate the birth of our Lord.

23. Favorite ornament? It's hard to pick. I love so many of them! A set of four ornaments with icons of the Nativity that Maria gave us last year. She made them and they are so pretty, and were from our first Christmas in the Orthodox Church. Also, various ornaments that my cousin makes every year that are so cute, and my mom gave us a cute ornament for James that has a little baby in a pea pod and has his name on it and "Baby's First Christmas." So cute. I guess I'm kind of sentimental.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Enchiladas!!

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? New sheets. I think my mother in law may get this for us. :)

Heard in a One Bathroom Household

Little Girl playing independently suddenly exclaims, "I have to go poop!"

Mother and Little Girl can hear the shower running in the bathroom. They exchange looks of UH OH.

Mother says, "Hurry, go knock on the door! Tell him you need to poop."

Little girl runs to the bathroom, bangs on the door, and states her need. The door is locked. Dad says, "OK hold on." He unlocks the door and scurries back to the privacy of the shower curtain.

A few moments pass, and Dad says in a muffled in-the-shower voice, "Don't flush, because I'm in the shower."

Little Girl asks sounding confused, "We can poop in the shower?"

I know, another poop post. Sorry!

Presents are now under the tree.

I spent the morning wrapping gifts, and I think this is the earliest in the Christmas season I have ever done so. Just about every year I go out and buy a bunch of pretty and new wrapping paper and coordinating bows and tags and then spend all Christmas Eve day cursing myself for my pathological procrastination. I thought back to all the leftover rolls of Christmas Wrapping Paper Past and got to work this morning. My presents look ugly but I don't care. One less thing to worry about. I'm busy enough dealing with poop.

We ended our diapering service with the beloved Dy-Dee Diaper Company. I have bought our own diapers (for James, of course) , and a friend has lent me few of hers to get me started. I was very nervous about this giant leap into crunchiness because, well, dealing with poop is not very glamorous. With the diaper service, I could just throw whatever James dealt me right into the pail, and every week I tossed them outside for the delivery man to pick them up leaving me a beautiful fresh batch. There was no swishing diapers in the toilet. There was no trick to washing them. It was wonderful. It was a bit pricey though. And being my family's economist I thought, I can do it myself! I wash laundry every day anyway! My baby is so chubby, some trim new diapers would be great, so he could actually wear a pair of jeans sometimes. After much agonizing on what to buy from the incredibly vast selection of the cloth diapering world, I settled on some Fuzzi Bunz, which are fabulous. I wish I had all Fuzzi Bunz.

A friend warned me, however, that this stage of James' life, could be somewhat problematic and challenging as far as washing dipes, since he's just now regularly eating solids and well, his poos are starting to turn into a lovely peanut butter texture that neither washes out easily nor can simply be dropped into the toilet *kerplunk*. So, my dear readers, I've had to do some swishing in the toilet. Not. Fun. And I'm kind of kicking myself for not forking out the dough to buy a poo sprayer off thingy, which attaches to the toilet:

Anyway, the washing itself isn't bad at all. I do laundry every day anyway, what's one more load here and there? I really cannot rave enough about the Fuzzi Bunz. They wash beautifully, and do the job well.

In other news, we went to a fun little party last night, in which we participated in a bad ornament contest. Our ornament took second, and I'm hoping some one will send me some pictures, because I could not begin to describe the vileness of our ornament, or the audacity some one had to even think of designing it, let alone making it, and then distributing it out to the masses to consume at JC Penny, to showcase it on their trees.

I hope you are all enjoying Advent.

VBAC Facts!

I stumbled upon a fantastic website that an acquaintance of mine has put together. If you are into birth, or just doing some research for yourself, this site is loaded with good stuff - not just VBAC stuff. So head over...The latest thing that J has posted is a montage that some women from ICAN have put together. It features women who were given cesareans for CPD (cephalopelvic disproportion - meaning the woman's pelvis is too small for their babies) but then went on to have normal vaginal births, many of them at home (HBAC) and gave birth to babies even bigger than their first children. So much for their pelvises being too small!

Her site also has her wonderful HBAC story which is fresh in her mind...her baby is just a couple of weeks old - and soooo cute.

www.vbacfacts.com