Shameless Self Promotion

After a disrupted adoption, we are in the process of attempting to adopt again.  If you would like to follow our trials and tribulations as we make our way through this process a second time, please see my other blog "The Butterfly Keepers" at www.wordpress.com/thebutterflykeepers.  Thank you and I hope to see you there!

Pssst . . . Santa . . . It's Room 104

The saying goes "you can't go home again" and I've decided that is true for me and my family.  We will be going to Hometown for Thanksgiving and between Christmas and New Year if weather permits but we will not be going for Christmas proper.  We will be spending Christmas Eve and Day here in our own humble abode.  After chatting at length with Uncle Fantastic, I came to realize that the experience I wanted my daughter to have didn't really exist anymore.  There was no sitting around the table on Christmas Eve.  It is now done buffet style.  Not that that's a huge change but it made me realize that what I experienced as a child was my childhood, not my daughter's.  Her childhood and holiday traditions involved myself and her dad.  Just our little family of three.  We have our own Christmas Eve party where we gorge ourselves on junk food and play games and/or do activities.  (Last year it was a Wii tournament.  This year's activities are craft-centered.  Just what Hubby was hoping for!  Yeah, right!)  We have done this for years.  Why should I deny her the Christmas traditions she knows just to try to relive my past.  I don't know if they even break the small sheets of blessed wafers at my grandparents house anymore and well, she's too old to crawl under the table when she's finished and tickle everybody's feet.  Besides, the dog does that now anyway.  She needs to stay rooted in her norm - our traditions.  Next year, she may be off to college and coming home for Christmas and that home will be here in Suburbia, not back in Hometown.  This IS her Hometown whether I want to accept that or not.  She grew up here.  This is what she knows.  So while I will be sad for a moment missing another Christmas Eve with my family, I will embrace the fact that I will be having Christmas Eve with My Family.  Besides, how does Santa know what hotel room number you're in anyway?  Not a risk I want to take.   :)

Oh, There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

I am in a bit of a spot here.  It involves me, hometown, family and Christmas.  See my family has some big traditions when it comes to Christmas.  From what they eat on which days to who sits where to pass out presents.  My dilemma is I would really like my daughter to get to experience these traditions.  We have never gone to hometown for actual Christmas Day proper.  We always go sometime between Christmas and New Year.  We have always used the "Santa excuse" for not coming on said day.  But I want my daughter who is now 17 to have the opportunity to experience, just once, the kind of Christmas I grew up with.  I know I can't duplicate my childhood for her but giving her a taste of what I endured . . . I mean participated in would mean a lot to me.  Not to mention my mother.  It would totally make her dreams come true to see us on December 24th and 25th.  She may get so excited she may just explode.  I don't want my mother to explode.  What kind of daughter would I be if I wanted that?  Anyway, I also have another concern.  See, my family doesn't like change.  Any kind of change at all.  If we go back for Christmas Eve/Day, this is going to throw them for a loop.  We don't have assigned seats at the table.  We don't have assigned seats in the basement for present distribution.  We just don't belong there.  I can't help feeling this way but it has been held without us for the past 16 years.  Throwing us into the mix is just asking for trouble.  A huge monkey wrench in the holiday plans.  I'm positive if I asked my Grandma she'd be thrilled to have us.  Do doubt in my mind.  My trouble is do I want to do this or not.  I don't want the drama that comes along with a large family gathering even if it is Christmas.  I think maybe I've been away too long.  Maybe I'm just remembering all the good things about Christmas and blocking out all the bad stuff and THAT is what I want my daughter to experience.  A Christmas where nobody is bitter or upset or downright angry.  Just a nice fairytale Christmas where we all sit around singing carols and drinking cocoa.  Yeah, that's not what I'm gonna get.  I guess I just have to make a decision and go with it.  The song says "there's no place like home for the holidays" but I don't know.  I am open to any advice anyone would like to share.  Let the friendly guidance commence . . . now.

I'm Mister Green Christmas. I'm Mister Sun. I'm Mister Heat Blister. I'm Mister Hundred and One.

Man is it hot outside!  I don't know about where you live but here it is pretty sweltering.  On the news they keep talking about record breaking heat and when we will get a break but then I blink and miss the one day where it is around 90 degrees and BAM! we're back up around 95!  Then today, my car a/c runs out of juice.  Great!  Hubby's car is already out of juice with a price tag of $1000 to fix.  That means that the score of cars without a/c to cars with a/c in our house in a big fat 2 to 0!  I shouldn't complain though because we do have an air conditioned house to hide out in.  I remember back when I was a child.  (Here is where I morph into an old person once again.)  Back in my day, we didn't have air conditioning in our house.  Not central air.  Not even a window unit.  And my parents had a strict policy of your windows only being open for an inch or so at the top while you slept.  Confusing because we slept on the second floor.  Oh and did I mention that they didn't allow us to sleep with fans on.  I do vaguely remember some sort of window fan thing but I don't recall it being on all night.  We would fall asleep every night listening to the trains across the street and wonder if we would drown in pools of our own sweat.  I remember one night as I slept the candlesticks I had in my room melted and bent completely over.  Can you believe that?  Its true.  I sweat . . . I mean swear.  Anyway, Hubby is back in from trying to fix my car's a/c and well, no such luck.  Which is why everyone should have a good doctor, lawyer, contractor AND mechanic in their nearby family and friends.  Or you could just have my dad.  He can fix anything.  It just happens to come out a shade of light blue in the end.  See, my parents painted their bedroom when we were little and apparently had some left over paint because everything that my dad fixed after that turned out blue.  Even the playhouse he made for us was light blue inside and out.  I guess I could drive my car the 5 hours to have my dad fix it.  It is already blue.

Coming Soon: An Original Remake

I happen to like my childhood and the entertainment it included so please, Hollywood, leave the seventies and eighties alone.  Try coming up with some new ideas and making those into movies instead or digging up things that are dead and burried for regurgitation into something that is similar to the original but from some alternate universe where things suck.  The latest to fall victim to this horrible happening are the poor unfortunate smurfs.  Have you seen the advertisements for this movie?  The smurfs have been all CGed up to look like scary little freaks.  They have even appeared to add more updated smurfs to the pack.  Who had the great idea to add a "Gutsy Smurf"?  These are classics.  They are called that for a reason.  They don't need remade.  Just because we have new technology doesn't mean we should update "The Wizard of Oz" does it.  That tornado sceene is so fake compared to what we could do today.  Now, I'm not putting the smurfs on the same level of iconic as "The Wizard of Oz" but you get my drift.  I love these things the way they are and think they should be left as such.  If you want to bring them back, bring them back in their original form.  Put the classic smurf cartoons back on Saturday mornings.  I'm sure there are many children who would enjoy it, as well as parents who would love to relive their childhoods through their own children.  I guess that is the market they are going for by remaking . . . well . . . everything but remaking it takes the nostalgia factor out of it.  And what is the track record for this remaking of everything?  Can anyone say "Flintstones the movie"?  How about "Garfield the movie?  How many of you saw that one and thoroughly enjoyed it?  Hollywood take my advice and leave well enough alone and stop messing with my memories!