When I order from See’s, I often get a Custom Box: at those prices, I don’t want ANY pieces I don’t like. However, there is quite a discount for getting a pre-made assortment: the Custom Mix is now $22.00/pound, while a pre-made assortment is $17.50/pound. The $4.50 difference may be worth it if I like ALMOST all the pieces in a box.

But how to tell if I like almost all the pieces, when the description for the Chocolate and Variety Assortment is this:

Choose from our most popular soft centers, crunchy nuts and smooth caramels wrapped in milk, dark and white chocolate. Enjoy everything from Cashew Brittle, Toffee-ettes® and Molasses Chips to Kona Mocha, Divinity Puff and more.

There are roughly twenty-five pieces in a box, and they’ve named five of them. I NEED MORE INFORMATION.

Purely in the interest of science, I purchased a box and kept track of all the pieces, which I will list here (you can see descriptions of each piece on the Custom Mix page):

Almond Square
Almond Truffle
Apricot Delight
Butterscotch Square
California Brittle
California Crunch
Caramel
Cashew Brittle
Dark Almond (2)
Dark Butterchew
Dark Nougat
Divinity Puff
Kona Mocha
Maple Walnut
Milk Almond
Milk Bordeaux
Milk Chocolate Buttercream
Milk Molasses Crisps (3)
Milk Walnut
Mocha
Toffee-ette (2)
Vanilla Nut Cream (2)

Of those twenty-two types, four are ones I would order for sure. Four are ones I really like but might not think to order, and so would be especially happy to see in an assortment. Six are ones I think are okay; six more I think are kind of meh. And two are ones I actively dislike and would give to Paul. It’s a nice assortment, but for me personally it would be more financially prudent to order a custom mix. I am ALL ABOUT financial prudence with my $22/pound chocolate choices.

I notice they have a note posted right now about the Rum Nougat not currently being included in the box. This tells me: (1) that they sometimes vary the pieces, (2) but that they must mostly be consistent, or else they wouldn’t feel it necessary to mention a change.

I VERY MUCH WISH I’d also bought the Assorted Chocolates, the Soft Centers, and the Nuts and Chews assortments so that I could list those as well, but I didn’t have this idea until the box had arrived and I was tearing into it with teeth and claws. Well, something for the future.

There! I have mailed a Christmas box to Paul’s sister, and that is the task that every year makes it feel like Now It Is Christmas. I like to mail it Quite Late, because she has been known to just go ahead and open everything the day it arrives, which I find upsetting even though it affects me not one tiny smidge.

I have also done MOST of my Christmas cards. The ones that are left are mostly the ones where I want to write something (as opposed to just signing our names), and since those were holding up the line I let all the just-signing ones cut ahead.

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This year I’m stopping blog-related holiday cards. If you are thinking, “But wait! I’M blog-related! Why did _I_ never get a card from Swistle??,” it’s something I started doing early on in blogging, and then a few years ago I stopped giving out my address to anyone new because Actually Never Mind That’s a Boring Story. And now I am discontinuing the cards altogether, even to the original list. I wouldn’t even mention it (it’s a little awkward of me to even bring it up), except that when I’m exchanging cards with someone and then they stop, I worry that It’s Me, even if I have no reason at all to think it’s me. And then I’m quite relieved if I hear that actually they didn’t do any cards that year, or whatever. …Although I suppose hearing “Actually, I eliminated the whole group you’re a part of” is not quite the same level of relief. But still, it’s a step up from, “Actually, it’s you. I don’t like you anymore. Also, I’m secretly mad at you for something you’d never guess.”

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Every year it feels Too Early to prepare for Christmas until the very moment it feels Too Late. And every year I have Too Few gifts for the kids until suddenly I have Too Many.

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Henry was the most difficult one to buy for this year, which he shouldn’t have been because he’s the youngest and usually I find the older kids more difficult. But he just WAS. He didn’t really have any good ideas (except for “a coupon to go out for pizza with Mommy,” which, OKAY!), and some of the stuff he wanted seemed like bad ideas. For example, he wanted a $50 castle, but I am Quite Sure he will not play with it, considering we JUST Freecycled his old castle. Happily, my mom found a good Fisher-Price castle at Goodwill for $3.99, and then pressured me to consider buying it (I had a “used toys that have to be inspected for broken/missing parts” hurdle AND a “but I’d decided not to get a castle” hurdle, both of which needed to be hurdled), and then volunteered to clean it, so Henry is getting a castle.

William asked this morning what percentage of families with Christmas trees topped them with stars as opposed to other things, and that was not a question I could answer. I wasn’t even sure what the main things ARE. Stars, angels…what else? We started by doing an image search for “Christmas tree toppers” so we could get the main categories for the poll. We found a lot of stars and angels, and some Santas and some bows. There were also “spikes” and “floofs,” samples below:

Spike (amazon.com)

Floof (followpics.net)

Floof (pinterest.com)

Floof (southernhospitalityblog.com)

You could perhaps argue that that first floof is actually a bow—but I would say that a bow with multiple other non-bow elements is a floof, unless the bow predominates to the point that the other items are clearly bow accessories. For example, if you have a large bow with a few jingle bells hanging off of it, that is a bow and not a floof. But if you have a bow combined with feathers, elves, bells, flowers, fruit, and branches, then what you have there, my friend, is a floof.

I have noticed over the years that we are a group that enjoys precision, and so we have a little trouble with polls. “I couldn’t vote because mine is a mouse dressed as an angel, but that’s not really an angel” and so on. We will all have to do our best to think in generalized categories, and then put our precise definitions in the comments section if we so choose. If your angel is decorated with a bow, you have an angel. If your angel is a mouse or an elf dressed as an angel, it is an angel. If your bow is made of starry fabric and has a tiny angel figurine decorating the center, it is a bow.

But even doing our best, there will be many people who have to choose “other,” and I hope you will say in the comments what “other” is. [I am also trying a poll option that MIGHT let you select “other” and then type what your other is so other people could also vote for it—I’ll try it and then report back and/or delete it.] [It APPEARS to be working, but I’m doing a little more testing to make sure it’ll let others vote for the added option. If you use it, make your added option as general as possible: “flowers” rather than “bouquet of mixed red carnations and white daisies,” for example. If an added option is too specific, or if it should be under another category (“mouse dressed as angel”), I’ll change it.] [Okay, that did not work. Plain “Other” will have to suffice.]

If you have more than one tree, answer what you have on your main tree, or what you would use if you only had one tree.

[yop_poll id=”5″]

1. We have finally seen a specialist about Edward’s anemia, and that specialist sent us to another specialist, and now Edward is going to have an endoscopy. I am somewhat worried, but not VERY worried. I am much less worried than I was about Elizabeth’s tonsillectomy, for several reasons: (a) I’ve been through a child-under-anesthesia experience once before, which helps take the edge off; (b) an endoscopy doesn’t involve any cutting/removal of anything; (c) the recovery is expected to be much, much, much easier than with a tonsillectomy (a day or two of resting and eating bland foods, as opposed to two weeks of crying and throwing up). I’m still anxious, though. And it didn’t help that the first specialist was in a part of the building called Cancer Care. (This is because pediatric hematologists are also pediatric oncologists, not because cancer is one of the leading theories at this point.)

2. Our 3-year-old male cat is or isn’t having a medical crisis. The vet thinks it’s a common liver issue, of the sort requiring lifelong treatment and medication. Or maybe he ate something that poisoned him, and he’ll be fine when it’s out of his system. Or maybe it’s something completely different. This is not our usual vet (our usual vet is on leave until later this month), and I hadn’t realized how much Trust Equity our usual vet has built with me until I tried to see another vet. I find myself suspicious and paranoid at every turn: “Does she know what she’s talking about? Is she making sensible decisions about treatment, or is she assuming we want the most expensive options unless we specifically ask? Why is she recommending a $350 test in that casual ‘We can do it or not, whatever’ manner, as if $350 is such a small amount of money we might want to spend it just for the heck of it? Why when I mentioned cost did she mention lines of credit, as if ‘ability to pay the bill’ is the only possible issue in deciding what to buy?”

And expensive animal care always makes me get uncomfortable flashes of charity ads mentioning that a child can be kept alive for $30/month. (It’s odd that, say, automotive care and large-appliance care don’t give me those same uncomfortable flashes. It must be the comparison of living thing to living thing.) So far we have spent on a cat in four days enough money to keep twenty children alive for a month. And yet, we’re going to continue spending money on this cat, and if we were not spending it on the cat we would not be sending it to children, so where does this leave us? With uncomfortable feelings, that’s where.

3. I am even more behind on Christmas preparations this year than usual. Usually I set up the dining room table with card-writing and gift-wrapping right after Thanksgiving before the dining-room-table clutter can re-assert itself, but this year I had to wait for the get-together at my house earlier this week. So yesterday I got everything out and got started, but I feel Late. I also realized we’re short on gifts for Henry.

I remember reading something from the post office awhile back that said that the greatest number of holiday cards are sent on December 14th, and the greatest number are delivered on December 17th. I like knowing that. But also, it makes me feel a little antsy on the 14th.

Do you remember that group of other women I’ve been getting together with about once a month for almost a year now? We get together at one house or another and eat appetizers and drink wine, that group? Well, I HOSTED one. It took me six weeks to think it through, but I did it.

I did it for several reasons. One is that we had gone through all the women who were eager to take a turn hosting, and in fact one of them had taken a second turn. I think there are people who like hosting and people who don’t, and although it makes sense for the former group to do more of it, it can start to feel unfair anyway.

Another reason is that I heard one woman saying she wasn’t going to host because her house was too messy. I thought about the houses where we’d met so far, and all were very, very clean, and uncluttered, and nicely decorated. It makes sense that “nicely-taken-care-of house” and “likes to host” would often go together; and I can identify with the feeling that my house isn’t nice enough to host. But…when the only people who host are the people with clean and nicely-decorated houses, that not only keeps a certain cycle going, it makes the cycle much worse over time. Meanwhile, when I go to a house that ISN’T clean and nicely-decorated, I feel RELIEF and INCREASED AFFECTION: I think, “Whew, I don’t have to worry about my house with her!” My mom, who keeps a clean and nicely-decorated house, confirms that she feels that same relief at the sight of someone else’s messy home.

So it seems to me that in a group, someone has to Go First: someone with a non-clean, non-nicely-decorated house needs to act like it is perfectly acceptable to host a get-together in such a house. WHICH IT IS. But this can’t be SAID (“Oh, don’t WORRY about it, we don’t care!”), it needs to be SHOWN. So I did.

It was a little difficult in the days before the get-together not to go into a crazy, fury-stressed, misplaced-anxiety-fueled cleaning frenzy, but I managed it by thinking of a messy house as a deliberate and philosophical act here. A service to humankind, really. (Also I re-wrote Sara Bareilles’s song to be about not-cleaning instead of about dancing alone in public.) Plus, my dining room was still reasonably clean from Thanksgiving, which means my messy house looked about ten times better than usual, which I guess actually means I was cheating from the get-go. But without that boost, philosophy would have been insufficient. (Perhaps I will take my hosting turn at this time EVERY year.)

My goal was to keep all (additional) cleaning at a reasonable “wiping counters and moving things out of the way of where we’ll want to put the appetizers” level, not at the “cleaning the crack between the stove and the counter” level. And I succeeded, except for cleaning the silverware caddy, so I thought that was pretty good. I also remembered to make ZERO REMARKS about the messiness of the house, since those draw attention to the messiness that would otherwise have gone unnoticed, and/or are annoyingly reassurance-seeking, and/or backfire by adding strength to the idea that only people with perfect clean houses should host.

My third reason (I don’t blame you if that lonnnnnnng second reason made you forget we were in a list of reasons why I decided to host) was that I’d noticed that after I’d been to someone’s house, I felt like I knew that person more than I did after seeing her at other people’s houses. I’m one of the quieter ones in the group, so I thought this was a good strategy for letting people feel like they knew me a little better, presuming they desire to feel that way, which is necessary to presume or else all is lost.

A fourth reason didn’t emerge until AFTER I’d issued the invitation and people had started to accept: I realized that taking a turn hosting made me feel like a more permanent, solid, committed part of the group. Like, if I’m HOSTING, then I’m for-sure a MEMBER. I realized I felt the same way about the other women who hosted: once they’d hosted, they definitely BELONGED to the group. I remember one woman hosted after attending only one get-together, and I thought something like, “Whoa, she’s really serious!” So there can be some symbolism there for both the host and the hosted, and it was symbolism I was glad to have accidentally acquired.

Time to choose next year’s calendar! Or rather “calendars”: I like one in the kitchen and one next to my computer, and then one for each of the three kid bedrooms. Plus I already bought this for next year because I loved it so much this year:

(photo from Amazon.com)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art page-a-day makes me feel like I am getting a little bit of culture every day. Also, I learned I’m not very interested in art that is a statue or a vase or a piece of cloth. I like the paintings.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Extraordinary Chickens. Every year I consider this calendar. Every year I conclude that I am something less than a year’s worth of interested in chickens.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Charley Harper. This is a strong contender this year. I had a Charley Harper calendar a few years ago and really liked it.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Dancers Among Us. This is going to be like the chickens, I think: I want to look at the pages, but not all year.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Minecraft calendar. I didn’t see this until YESTERDAY, and I immediately ordered it while children screamed excitedly in my ears, but it is temporarily out of stock and I am pre-disappointed because this seems likely to be like the fold-your-own-robots calendar of a couple of years ago, where it was out of stock and Amazon kept making me confirm I still wanted it for MONTHS until they finally emailed that it was completely unavailable. [Follow-up: after ordering the temporarily-unavailable Minecraft calendar from Amazon, I noticed another seller had it for a lower price and with the shipping it came to the same price as the Amazon one with free shipping. So I ordered THAT one and cancelled my other order. The shipping is way longer, but should still make it in time for Christmas.] [Follow-up to the follow-up: now the second one I’m linking to has changed to one that is more expensive and has Prime, so I guess the message is to compare sellers.]

(photo from Amazon.com)

Lego calendar. This is the one Henry wanted until he saw the Minecraft one.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Farmer’s Market calendar. This is the frontrunner for the kitchen this year. I came very close to ordering it last year (it went out of stock while I dithered).

(photo from Amazon.com)

Darth Vadar and Son calendar. Papa Darth reminds Luke to use the fork, threatens him with a time-out, etc.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Cow yoga calendar. Cow yoga. Cow. Yoga.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Dr. Who calendar. I was going through the check-out process with this calendar when I realized I had a logistics problem. William is the child who is most into Dr. Who (he belongs to a Dr. Who fan club, even), so he’d be the one who should get this calendar as a gift—but he shares a room with Henry, who finds Dr. Who too scary/confusing and is one of the children who was screaming in my ear about the Minecraft calendar. Well, I think I’ll order the Dr. Who one anyway and William can put it up on the wall in his bunk.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Why Grizzly Bears Should Wear Underpants calendar. The Oatmeal has a calendar this year!

(photo from Amazon.com)

Hello Kitty calendar. After years of wanting a Hello Kitty calendar, last year Elizabeth chose one that was photos of cute animals. She’s outgrowing Hello Kitty, which is upsetting. I could still buy one for next to my desk, though.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Taylor Swift calendar. I would not be surprised if this were the calendar Elizabeth wanted this year.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Legend of Zelda calendar. This is a good candidate for Rob and Edward’s room, because they both like this game. So maybe this one for them, the Minecraft one in William and Henry’s room, and the Dr. Who calendar for William’s bunk.

(photo from Amazon.com)

The Tutu Project calendar. Who DOESN’T appreciate a man in a tutu?

(photo from Amazon.com)

This is London calendar. This was a finalist last year, and I think the main reason I didn’t get it is that I couldn’t decide if I wanted London, New York, Paris, or San Francisco. I’m not sure I can decide this year, either.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Hot Guys and Baby Animals calendar. I bought Paul’s sister the book version of this for Christmas.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Mid-Century Modern Ads calendar. Oooo, strong contender.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Little Critters calendar. I had this calendar the year before last, and liked it so much I’m tempted to repeat it. The pictures are so cheerful, and I see one of them is a FOX this year. It would be a great calendar for a nursery, too. I mean if YOU have a nursery. I don’t have a nursery.

(photo from Amazon.com)

The Golden Age of Travel calendar. This was a finalist last year and might be again this year.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Valentina calendar. Some of the pictures on this calendar, I love enough to frame. But some pages have words, and I can’t tolerate an entire month of “Follow your heart” or “Forever friends.”

(photo from Amazon.com)

Wallpapers calendar. I ordered the 2013 version of this calendar impulsively last year after a particularly frustratingly dithering session, and I regretted the purchase almost immediately. It would probably be too boring. And what if it was like those dollar-section calendars we got one year from Target, where all the pages curled up? But it has turned out to be one of my favorite calendars of all time: I put it near my desk, and I greatly enjoyed it all year. None of the pages were boring, and it’s on good-quality, non-curling paper. I might have to order it again this year.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Bubble calendar. This one is not a candidate for me (I want one with spaces to write on), but I love the idea. Every day you can pop a bubble-wrap bubble! I am a little concerned that I would lose control and pop them all at once.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Papertoy Monsters calendar. This comes with a frame that has a little shelf on it, right between the top half of the calendar and the bottom half. So then you fold the little paper monster and put it on the little shelf, and the top half of the calendar is the backdrop/scene for it.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Paper Source art calendar. I really love this one—but it’s twice the price of the others, and I don’t think I like it twice as much.

(photo from Amazon.com)

The Mathematics calendar. Paul and Rob are BOTH getting this calendar for Christmas. Last year the author didn’t do a calendar, and there was weeping and wailing throughout the land. If you have a mathy/problem-solving sort of person in your life, they might love this: each day has a math problem to solve, and the answer is the number of the day (that is, the answer to December 10th’s problem is 10). How to GET to that answer, though, has Paul’s co-workers gathering in his office each day, arguing around a whiteboard.

I am also very interested to hear what calendar YOU are choosing this year.

Just a few days ago I wrote in the Swistmas Package Giveaway post that my favorite animals for decor were “foxes, squirrels, hedgehogs, and owls.” Then yesterday I was at Marshalls with my mom and look what I found:

THOSE FOUR EXACT ANIMALS. ON A SET OF FOUR LITTLE PLATES.

Furthermore, note the hedgehog’s feet: LITTLE STRIPEY TOE-SOCKIES.

I think it would be fun to do a Merry Swistmas package like we did a few years ago and then I forgot all about doing it ever again. Whoa, was that in 2008?? That is longer ago than I’d thought.

Anyway, I certainly wasn’t reminded of it as I was trying to stuff more things into the gift cupboard and being frustrated in that attempt. No. The actual inspiration is that I have a new favorite Christmas mug, and it was sold in a 2-pack so I have a spare.

It seems like there was something else as well, because I remember thinking, “Yes, but that’s two Christmas-themed things, which makes it a little disappointing if it’s someone who doesn’t Do Christmas”—oh, yes, I remember now: a copy of my favorite Christmas book, This Year It Will Be Different by Maeve Binchy. I didn’t love it the first time as much as I love it now that I re-read it every December. I can get happy-weepy just THINKING about reading it, which is PERFECT for making the Christmas lights look all diffused and pretty.

So anyway, that’s the backbone of the box, and then if I can get anything OUT of the gift cupboard I can see what the other options are. “Assorted” is the theme here. I’ll bet there’s some stationery in there, and maybe a Webkinz, and a pretty tote bag or coin purse or something. I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve been able to get in there since 2005.

The giveaway is only for U.S. mailing address (so if you don’t live in the U.S. but you have a friend/relative in the U.S., you can have the package shipped to them if you want—I can put in a little note saying it’s from you), which I realize is sad but there it is. You can, however, win it even if you don’t celebrate the same holiday as me: I’d just switch to a non-Christmas-tree/stories kind of theme, but the Assorted theme could still stand. You can enter by leaving a comment on this post before noon U.S. Pacific Time on Wednesday, December 11th, 2013. The comment can be anything, but if you’re like me and that kind of freedom makes you feel self-conscious and awkward, why don’t you tell me your favorite animal (I like cats for pets; foxes, squirrels, hedgehogs, and owls for decor), or tell me what you’d name a reindeer (I think Midge for a girl, Fisher for a boy).

Update: The winner is Caitlin of the December 4th, 12:56 p.m. comment! I’ll email you, Caitlin!