By The Wiz
(Was that the same title Tracy used recently? If so, sorry, Tracy.)
I can’t wrap Christmas presents. It always ends up looking like a 5 year old did it. It’s a spatial thing. I can’t gauge the amount of paper correctly, I always end up with way too much paper or way too little. I have been shown how to do it several times, and yet, it comes out wrong 98% of the time. It depresses me. Why can’t we just declare wrapping paper “non eco friendly” or something and be done with it?
This is the first year I won’t be with extended family for Christmas. I am sad yet excited. It’s a strange feeling, but you’ve all felt it - just go with it. I have no idea what I’ll be doing on Christmas Eve. It’s always, always, been at my mom’s or aunt’s home. What do I do? If you live nearby, want to come over?
My daughter is competing in a school-wide spelling bee tomorrow, having won the one in her class. I am very proud of her. Spelling is important to me - don’t ask me why, it just IS. (Now I REALLY hope I don’t have any typos in this post.)
Tomorrow is also ”muffins with moms”, my appointment with the speech therapist, and the school band concert. I will be at that school pretty much all day. Oh well. There are worse fates, I guess.
I am currently addicted to watching reruns of “Bones.” The fact that it stars the actor who played Angel in Buffy has everything nothing to do with it - it’s purely coincidental.
I had a blood draw in Utah on Monday, and it was 18 degrees. I thought I was going to die. I will never complain that 40 is cold again. You know, until I do.
My hair is red now. Nobody noticed. I take it as a sign that I was always supposed to have red hair, and am fulfilling my true potential. (It’s also a sign that my hair gal is good. It looks really natural.)
Happy randomness! See you after Top Chef!
Congrats to your daughter! I remember the school spelling bee was very exciting and very scary. Sorry to have to point out: “If you leave nearby…”
I’ve always wanted to go red… hmmm…
Comment #1 by GraceDecember 9th, 2009 at 6:01 pmMmmmm…David Boreanaz…he’s the main reason we started watching Bones, too, but we’ve stayed for Temperence Brennan. She’s awesome. The show is well written and we laugh out loud at least once per episode.
Bones: one of the best kept secrets on TV. If you like medical mysteries (sort of) do yourself a favor and order the old episodes on Netflix. You won’t be disappointed.
Comment #2 by Jessie T.December 9th, 2009 at 6:14 pmAlso, if you like Joss Whedon-verse characters check out the new show Castle. The title character was in an episode of Buffy near the end, and is the main guy from Firefly. This is another of our favorite secret little shows.
Comment #3 by Jessie T.December 9th, 2009 at 6:16 pmI love BONES. Just a little cheesy, and intelligent witty dialogue. And 18 degrees? Yeah, so not my thing now that I live in the south. 40 IS cold to me. Today was 70 with the sun shining-yeah! Good luck on the spelling bee! I always wished I could be in one (I’m a stickler for spelling). I’ll send really good vibes your way.
Comment #4 by mommymelDecember 9th, 2009 at 6:17 pmGift bags, the solution to all Christmas present wrapping dilemmas.
I’d suggest doing whatever traditions you’re used to (and enjoy) doing at your mom’s or aunt’s house on Christmas Eve. Or you could make up a totally new family tradition. Having the kids act out the Christmas story as my dad read it out loud was always popular at my house, along with having a fire and drinking wassail and eating oatmeal raisin cookies and opening one present each (which was generally pajamas), and hanging up the stockings.
My husband’s family dances around the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve singing Danish Christmas songs, as well as playing a variety of Danish food-related Christmas games, and opening all their family presents on Christmas Eve. We haven’t decided yet what we want to do when we get to the point of not spending Christmas with one of our families, but I suspect it will be a random combination of our traditions from growing up along with some new ones that I think sound fun (like baking cookies for Santa (or just to eat), or decorating gingerbread houses (or graham cracker houses), or having a rousing board game competition).
I’ve been interested in Bones, haven’t gotten around to watching any of it yet.
Comment #5 by kaduseyDecember 9th, 2009 at 6:31 pmCrap! I DID typo. Thanks for pointing it out, though.
Comment #6 by The WizDecember 9th, 2009 at 7:50 pmAh bones- took me 4 years but now I am into it with a vengeance.
Comment #7 by ShelliDecember 9th, 2009 at 8:22 pmAnd red is awesome! I’ve always wanted to try it.
YAY Castle, I like you Jessie T. I also like Nathan Fillion. Mmmhmmm.
Also Wiz, I suck at wrapping gifts too. In fact, I took all my presents to my parent’s house this year and made my mom wrap them all. So there. Otherwise I would have single-handedly destroyed a rainforest or something.
Also you typed “spacial” instead of “spatial,” so I totally thought it was some sarcastic pronunciation of special. Oh crap, maybe it was and I missed the joke. I’m such a dork.
Comment #8 by KrisDecember 9th, 2009 at 8:24 pmI always use too much paper, out of fear that I’ll cut too little and waste the paper. So mine look pretty bad, too.
You can borrow my Xmas Eve tradition of eating out at a Chinese restaurant if you like.
Comment #9 by Kevin BarneyDecember 9th, 2009 at 8:35 pmI fixed it for you.
I used this post title on Dandelion yesterday. It’s all good.I never thought I could post my Random Crap over here! Cool!
I’m good at spatial things. But I SUCK at all things tech or logic-based. Can I say suck?
We’re hanging out on a ledge on what Christmas is going to be like. Thanksgiving was hard, so I’m thinking about scrapping all traditions and going rogue this year. And by that I do not mean shooting moose from a helicopter with an automatic weapon. I mean ditching everything and trying new stuff. Like maybe a movie on Christmas day, when I’ve never, EVER even gotten dressed on Christmas. We’ll see…
Comment #10 by Tracy MDecember 9th, 2009 at 8:38 pmAnd add my voice to the chorus of “mmmmmmmm”s about David Boreanaz.
Comment #11 by Tracy MDecember 9th, 2009 at 8:40 pmI love to wrap gifts. When I lived at home my mom would let me wrap all the gifts but mine. It was great I could tease my siblings that I knew what they were getting. I second going with bags if possible. Dollar stores are great places to get them. Or buy the craft paper bags and let your kids decorate them, that way they get a craft project and your get a one of a kind christmas bag.
Comment #12 by ModdyDecember 9th, 2009 at 9:21 pmAs for what to do on Christmas I’m with Tracy start your out traditions, try something new. The movie on Christmas idea is a good one and so was the eating out, I may have to borrow that one. What ever you do just enjoy your time with your family and it’ll be great.
We have had 4 christmas eve’s in AZ with no family. Our special tradition that we have started here that we haven’t been able to do anywhere else we have lived is taking the kids out for a bike ride around our neighborhood on christmas eve to see everyone’s lights/decorations. Only in AZ can you put on a hoodie/stretchy gloves and head out on your bike in the dark! It’s great fun and our kids look forward to it every year. I have also wanted to visit the Mesa temple grounds on Christmas Eve, but haven’t managed to accomplish that one yet. One of these years it will happen.
We discovered Bones about six months ago when my mom was visiting and picked up Season 1 on DVD at Costco. In the remaining 3 days of her visit, we burned through the whole first season and moved on to season 2. Since then we’ve seen them all and love to watch re-runs whenever we can catch them (TNT runs Bones 5 days a week!) I love the chemistry between Booth and Brennan. And David Boreanaz… mmmmm….
Comment #13 by ChristyDecember 9th, 2009 at 9:54 pmI started watching Bones because I read the Kathy Reichs books, but David Boreanaz makes it easy to stay! I started watching Angel reruns AFTER watching Bones. I second the info about Castle and Nathan Fillion. Yum. (Did I say that out loud?) We have Firefly on DVD and watch it often. I gave up on coloring my hair a while ago, but I did try red once. Didn’t suit me, really. I did getter with more golden highlighted brown.
Comment #14 by Paula N.December 9th, 2009 at 10:04 pmI don’t bother wrapping Christmas gifts. At. All. For my kids, I toss everything into a big brown grocery bag, attach some ribbons & bows & staple them shut.
For family & friends, I do the same but with cutesy holiday gift bags. Works great!
Enjoy Top Chef!
Comment #15 by Terresa WellbornDecember 9th, 2009 at 10:28 pmI was nodding my head along with almost every one of these. I love spelling, I can’t wrap a present and make it look nice to save my life, I used to have (bottle job) red hair and have always loved it which is why I was tickled pink (or red?) when my first child came out red-headed, and I think David Boreanaz is super hot. Good luck with Christmas Eve; I’m sure it’ll be very nice to just stay home for once.
Comment #16 by StarababaDecember 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pmMy kids are redheads, and I look AWFUL with red hair, so I’m jealous. I’ve tried so many times, but the closest I can go and not look ridiculous is a copper highlight. HOW did I have red headed kids??
Comment #17 by Tracy MDecember 9th, 2009 at 11:38 pmAt first I thought your blood draw was 18 degrees! I’m a little slow in the morning I guess. 18 degrees sounds good here — 20 below zero wind chill at the bus stop this morning. Hello winter. sigh.
Comment #18 by momof8December 10th, 2009 at 7:32 amI can usually get the paper right, it’s the ribbons and trims that always look a little off. Sooo, I buy three kinds of paper and two colors of yarns that match the paper. I tie the yarn like a parcel with a bow. That way I can stack and even carry the presents with complete ease. If it’s a small gift, I use a page from one of my old wallpaper sample books. It’s such nice heavy paper. My mother is the gift wrap queen. She enjoys it so much and her gifts are lovely. This year she made wooden painted “tags” that can become ornaments for later years. I’ll stick with my yarn.
I will have to check out Bones. I’ve never seen it or any Buffy. We haven’t had TV for years and I’m always leery of just turning something on.
I like trying new things for Christmas. Except for 2 of my college years, I’ve never had a real tree. I’m so excited to be going out this year and cutting one down. Spruce trees are NOT known for their full lovely branches, in fact I think they modeled Charlie Brown’s tree on a Spruce tree. It’s the experience I want, and if there are some really bare spots, we’ll hang some extra large paper stars there.
I think that it really won’t matter what you do, as long as the people you are with know you care about them.
Comment #19 by JCDecember 10th, 2009 at 8:30 amLove, love , love Bones! have 19 episodes on DVR, and drive my hubby nuts with it. Got into Numbers as well, which he will watch with me.
Comment #20 by KshawDecember 10th, 2009 at 10:05 amWw will be having a quiet Christmas here with the inlaws, since they live here too. Looking forward to all the goodies that my MIL and I will make, and watching silly movies all day!
I love Bones and Castle — two of my favorites. I didn’t know they were secrets, though — I tell everyone I know (well, who I know well enough to know what TV they like) to watch them.
I also like spelling. Hopefully your daughter does wonderfully, and hopefully you survive the long day at school.
I wrap presents extremely well. I spent a year of my life wrapping museum artifacts for a move. I am an expert wrapper. I was still grateful that my husband wrapped the big file of presents to send to his family last night, because, hey, now it’s done and I didn’t have to do any work at all.
I’ve always wanted to try red hair, but the most color I’ve ever done is a few blonde highlights (which is not at all dangerous, as I used to be blonde).
Comment #21 by VadaDecember 10th, 2009 at 10:54 amA little known fact - Santa gifts don’t get wrapped. Santa does not wrap gifts because of the time constrants and weight. Family gifts get wrapped as to make them different than Santa gifts. My childern are older now but still understand the rule. Again Santa doen’t wrap gifts. Kids open Santa gifts and their stockings till Mom $ Dad get up. One year we forgot to put out 1 Santa gift, what a disaster that was. Three years ago and the kid is still is talking about the missing Santa gift.
Comment #22 by Mex DavisDecember 10th, 2009 at 11:14 amShe came in second! Woot! She misspelled “baggage” - spelling it bagg-edge. She will never misspell that word again.
She seemed to get all the hard ones, too. She did great.
(I lost on entrepreneur in 8th grade. I will spell that word correctly forevermore.)
Comment #23 by The WizDecember 10th, 2009 at 1:08 pmWe had a wind chill of 37 below this morning, with the temperature at 23 below…..18 sounds like a heatwave.
I am 46 and still have a difficult time with wrapping paper. ha!
2nd place, wonderful…..Kudos to your daughter.
Comment #24 by FaithDecember 10th, 2009 at 1:48 pmThe wrapping thing makes me understand why my mom had those decorative boxes she reused every year. I would get those but my kids are too young and would open them all the time, so I would have to keep them hidden.
Although I suppose right now all of the wrapped Christmas gifts are hidden, so I wouldn’t be out much effort, lol.
Comment #25 by DeniMarieDecember 10th, 2009 at 10:30 pmI like wrapping presents.
Comment #26 by Tracy MDecember 11th, 2009 at 12:00 amI hate to tell you, I love wrapping presents. Once, a lifetime ago (if four and a half years can be a lifetime - in my case it is because I was living in a different state, single and with my parents and now I am married with two kids), I worked at Linens ‘N Things before they bit the big one and I was the unofficial gift wrapper which I loved because it kept me away from the people that would ask stupid questions, over and over and over again. I really do like people, just not the dumb ones that don’t know that just because I ask you for your ID when you pay with a credit card and you don’t have it and then refuse to let you pay does not make me racist. You just happen to be African-American and I just happen to be doing my job. There’s no correlation between the two.
I am still in the stage of what traditions do I want to start for Christmas? This is my son’s second christmas and my daughter’s first, so I am still able to start it all up and be able to use them forever. Or trash them before they realize that a tradition is missing and have them beg for the one I would inevitably hate. Right now I have Christmas pajamas for the family given to them on Thanksgiving so they can actually enjoy the Christmas theme before Christmas is over, baking cookies for Santa and eating a birthday cake on Christmas Eve for Jesus Christ while reading the story of his birth.
P.S. I, too, am addicted to Bones. It drives my husband crazy because he is a Police Officer and he gets people all the time asking him to do stuff that only exists on CSI or Bones. And I also love that people come to me to ask me how to spell different words. I’m a big nerd, but I make it look fabulous. Some days.
Comment #27 by KimDecember 11th, 2009 at 8:45 am