For me, Christmas has everything to do with Mexican food, and nothing to do with Walkmans. For the first time in their lives, Emma and Kyra (three and two, respectively) played major roles in the tree-decorating tradition. In a moment of sheer delirium (or genius as it were) I decided to provide them with construction paper, some scissors, and Elmer’s glue. I then tried to teach them the fine art of paper chain garland making. I might as well have been teaching them the fundamentals of organic chemistry, they were THAT interested in what I was doing. So instead of a chain, they made microscopic triangles. Sometimes they got lucky and accidentally made a square. More often than not, though, the shapes slightly resembled things like Pee Wee Herman’s profile.
(Editor’s Note: Join us in welcoming Catherine Robinson, our guest blogger who can also be found at her blog, Out in Left Field. Also, a special Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish mamas and papas out there!) “Mommy, you think I’m sweet, right?” I love how Youngest starts a conversation. “Right,” I said, bracing myself for something awful. “I want to audition for the 2nd grade school play,” he said. “My favorite character is sort of mean. But that’s okay, right? Cause I’d just be playing a part.”
I am not a dancer. I have never been a dancer and I will never be a dancer. I had no particular dance aspirations for my 3-year-old daughter Hadley but recently enrolled her in a dance class taught my national-award-winning friend, Karla Call. I did this for no other purpose than to give her a sense of rhythm. I watched her practice for the first time last week. My plan failed. Despite the fact that she and I will never be prima ballerinas, I do have an appreciation for one particular event each year: The Nutcracker.
Congratulations to Sara Lilly, winner of our Baby Candy onsie contest! It’s the most wonderful time of the year and we want your Santa-fearing, Hanukkah-celebrating, gingerbread-house decorating, snow-playing or gift-relishing pictures. Help us build our Kid Holiday Pics section by sharing your pictures (past and present) of your little elves. There will, of course, be a giveaway: a family four-pack of tickets to Winter World Denver, a series of 14 attractions
Anyone else sick of sorting through the bin and taking toys away from their children because of safety concerns? My favorite was the Aqua Dots fiasco, where the little pellets were filled with the date rape drug GHB. How does a DATE RAPE drug get into our toys? I mean, a Stoli martini maybe… but little plastic balls that you glue together with water? I admit I find myself at a bit of loss this holiday season. I took the Buy Handmade Pledge, and have been doing some searching on Etsy, but I have a general malaise I can’t shake. Why do I have to run around franticly from the day after Thanksgiving until December 24th, buying stuff, stuff, STUFF? And trust me, it’s not so much the consumerism that bugs me, it’s the consumerism crammed into 30 days, where I am supposed ...
I am unsure how Black Friday even got started. It was probably some raging psychopath who thought it would be fun to use bargain hunters and desperate toy-seeking parents as puppets. Plan a shopping spree in the middle of the night after people have devoured inordinate amounts of sleep-inducing hormones from their turkey? Sounds like fun! My hubby was among them. The insane, that is. The reason he went shopping was not because of any particular sale but because we cannot sleep past 6 a.m. (an illness exasperated by the recent time change). Even though I was awake at 4:45 a.m., I let him brave the crowds while I stayed home to watch the kids and obsessively write my Christmas cards. Because the world will come to an end if my Christmas newsletter is not post-marked by December 1st.