A Merry Christmas To All, And To All A Restless Night! December 28, 2008

Christmas was really, really wonderful. So wonderful that it has taken me what, three days to recover enough to stumble back to the Land of Blog. We had Christmas Eve at Joey’s grandmother’s, Christmas Day at his great aunt’s, and Christmas Night at OUR house, for his dad’s side of the family. Which meant that I spent massive portions of time the days before Christmas getting our house ready for our first real ‘company’ and the hours between 6 AM and 1 PM on Christmas morning cooking. I enjoyed all this a lot, and was not spazzy, which surprised everyone involved! I think I like being a hostess! Everything I made tasted like what it was supposed to taste like… except, you guessed it, the sweet potatoes. I tried so hard, really I did! I even called mamma and made her tell me Exactly How to make them. Which, no surprise, was Exactly How I have always made them. So I don’t know… maybe it is this oven? But I didn’t get upset, I just decided they weren’t going to work again, and had Joey dump them out to make room for the turkey that needed to be re-heated before we could eat. So it was all good. Here are some highlights:

• Our house looked pretty and was decorated all seasonal-like.

(notice absence of presents actually UNDER the tree. This is due to McLovin, and her tendency to eat ANYTHING.)

• McLovin was amazingly well-behaved the whole time we had people over. It was unreal. This may have been related to the fact that Joey made her run on the treadmill (as per the Dog Whisperer’s advice) for an extended amount of time before anyone showed up.

 

• Joey and I once again dominated the various gift exchanges we took part in, by use of sneaky telepathic couples strategies. I got everything I  had my eye on, except a Battle of the Sexes game.

 

• I got pretty, pretty shiny things for Christmas, because my husband likes to spoil me.  A lot.

 

(I would totally model this and the earrings, except I haven’t been photo-worthy in about three days)

(Does anyone else pick out their own Christmas presents the way Joey and I do? The only surprise present I had this year was a desperately needed Belly Band. We both like surprises, but also feel that the majority of the fun of present-giving is being sure that you get the other person what they actually WANT.)

 

• Ariel got a ton of presents in her own right, which made me realize that next year she will be about ten months old and fully able to drool all over the wrapping paper and have bows stuck to her head. And, as I pointed out to Kanga in a moment of unadulterated glee, she will be wearing froo-froo fancy CHRISTMAS  PARTY DRESSES.

 

 

• Someone (and I really wish I knew who) gave Joey’s great-grandmother a bunch of DVD’s for Christmas. And one of them was Love, Actually. Am I correct in remembering that there are extended scenes of naughtiness in this movie? I remember liking the movie a lot, but being embarassed by large portions of it. And I am not 85 years old. So I’m looking forward to hearing about the reaction of highly conservative Grammy at the next family gathering.

 

• Sitting on the swing on our back patio after everyone left (it was freakishly warm here) and talking over the state of Everything and Everyone with Joey.

 

• Doing absolutely NOTHING on Dec. 26 other than sleeping in, laying around, and eating leftovers. I had fun, but I was worn out! I have never enjoyed a day of complete laziness so much in my life!

 

• And that evening the most strenuous thing I did was watch Dark Knight with Joey and his parents (from the comfort of my own couch) because that was one of his presents and he wanted us all to see it. I’m scared of clowns, people. I’m scared of regular, I’m-not-scary!-I’m – a- nice-clown clowns.  Once when I was student teaching a pre-k class, we had to go to an assembly about fire safety. Taught by clowns. You will be proud to hear that I did not die, and in fact was a great comfort to the several four year olds who showed the good judgement to be freaked out. And when Joey and I were first married, we were house-sitting for his grandmother, who COLLECTS clown figurines. And did you know that clown figurines MULTIPLY EXPONENTIALLY when left to their own devices? Because they do. I promise. So I hadn’t seen Dark Knight, even though Joey swore it was one of his favorites, and he really loved it. And I watched it with him, because I love him. And yeah, it was pretty good. But clowns are still scary.

So Christmas was really good, and I found out that I really enjoy hostessing things, and I’m pretty much all rested from it. Yesterday was productive in that we got up in time to go to the bank and the bookstore (I had giftcards burning holes, people!) and then I got started on clearing out Ariel’s room. Tomorrow is one of my baby showers, and I am EXCITED! So I thought I should make some room. I also made a list of all the things that need to be done before that nursery is functional, and yeah, it is a loooong list. But it was still a fairly productive day.

Today doesn’t seem to hold that kind of promise, though. I was tossing and turning most of the night last night, alternating between distressing, vivid dreams, and waking up to realize that I was sleeping on my back. Oops. So of course, nothing but my back seemed comfortable, and I COULDN’T sleep on my back, because that is bad for the baby, right?  And I got up at four thirty to write down a dream, because it seemed important. It is truly a cruel world where a pregnant girl not only dreams about her husband dying (Worst. Nightmare. Ever.) but also dreams the exact date, and in her dream, looks at herself in the mirror and desperately insists that it isn’t too late, she can still stop it. It was creepy, to say the least.  I wrote down every last detail of the dream, although the vast majority made NO SENSE at all, and would seem to indicate glue-sniffing rather than prophetic abilities,  because who could ignore a dream that specific? And this woke Joey up, and he assured me that he wasn’t going to die on me. But I was still upset because for one thing, the date that I dreamed? Was completely and utterly unacceptable. And for another thing, there was a disgusting lack of helpful stopping-it-from-happening  information.

So I am recovering with some serious pink bathrobe/decaf coffee/blog therapy.

In summation:

Christmas was awesome. Dreams suck. I am groggy.