Joey and I have been watching too many DVR’d episodes of 3rd Rock From The Sun, which, for some strange reason, cracks us up to no end. It has started seeping into our everyday conversations, and I fear no good will come of it.
Joey: “You’re so cute! You tickle me on the inside.”
Lucy: *gasping for breath as she tries to deliver one of French Stewart’s lines* ”Well I can do that. With a bamboo skewer!”
Probably, this isn’t that blindingly funny to anyone else. Probably, we’ve turned the corner into Scary Couple Land. Probably, next we will invent our own language, like twins.
At least we’re happy together.
My mamma and Scout went to spend Christmas with my other sister, out-of-state yesterday, so the day before that we did a bunch of Christmas-y stuff here. We had a lot of fun working on various projects at my house, and then we drove to a neighborhood Christmas light display. It takes about an hour and a half to drive through it (slooooowly) and some of the people sell popcorn and glow sticks from their front yards, and some people sit in the backs of trucks and sing Christmas carols as they meander through the neighborhood. Even if you have a 3.75 baby dancing on your bladder the whole time, it’s a lot of fun! It also brought out (for some people) something that Joey and I had noticed while shopping the other day – Christmas Traffic Stabbyness. Now, I get why you could become overwrought after spending hours shopping with the galloping hordes of other last-minute shoppers, and then sitting in slow traffic, when you presumably MUST get home and wrap your presents and do fifty thousand other things. I get it, I just still think you should stop being a grouch.
Like I wrote before, we spent a lot of time at the end of the semester on A Christmas Carol, and I think that is still affecting my expectations of the holiday. Watching a ginormous SUV repeatedly cut off other vehicles, and honk at them unnecessarily, and be an overall bully, I kept thinking of this quote:
“But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round… as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.”
It has helped me out a time or two, when I start to feel annoyed by really loud obnoxious people in stores, or people who stop in the middle of the aisle, etc.
Because yeah, Christmas shopping can suck.
But if you are feeling stabby already? Maybe don’t go to the really long (optional!) line of five mph cars to look at the Christmas lights. It won’t put you in a better mood, from what I observed. Probably you are doing it out of obligation, so your children have all the holiday experiences possible. But I can’t imagine that the particular seasonal experience of you cursing and honking at people who are looking at the lights is going to make a good scrapbook page.
We had fun, though. Scout was busy alternately pointing out various features of each lawn, and telling mamma that she needed to quit laughing so much (?) and then about halfway through, she gasped and declared, “You guys, look! Christmas lights!!” in an awed voice. I swear, we can get nothing past that child.
Joey and I gave her a children’s digital camera for Christmas. I wanted to get her one last year, but was voted down by my husband, who didn’t think it was developmentally appropriate. I wanted to get her one this year, but they were outside of our budget. So we got her a strange contraption that lets you fuse little plastic beads together with water, to make various patterns. I… don’t know. It was a better option than the twenty-dollar drum set, is all I can say in my defence. But then mamma found a really great (pink!) digital camera on sale, and bought it. And I bought it from her, because that was MY idea. So we gave both of those presents to Scout. Guess which one is not even a little bit developmentally appropriate? And guess which one provides hours of contented random picture-taking. Of… the TV, and people’s elbows, and the ceiling. But, whatever, did you know you can push a button and it will add BUNNY EARS to people in your picture? Assuming they have heads, it totally will.
Now, I have to go jam all the stuffing back into McLovin’s bed, and sew it up. Because apparently those dog beds aren’t made to be washed Every. Single. Day.
Crate training, I shake my fist at you. Also, please come inform my dog that no dog will urinate in it’s own space. She seems to have missed that memo.
Love 3rd rock! I think it’s one of the funniest shows out there. I catch the reruns whenever I can.
I am just playing devil’s advocate, cause I don’t think there’s any excuse, really, for being a dangerous, angry driver, particularly through an area with a lot of pedestrians. BUT I am inclined to wonder if some of the impatient people looking at Christmas lights are people who live there, who get trapped in the lines of cars and can’t get to their houses and have to pee REALLY BAD.
We used to live in an area famous for it’s Christmas display, through no fault of our own. We bought in the SUMMER!