I am back from another extremely fun weekend with my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew, and my sister-in-law’s two siblings. WE HAVE SO MUCH FUN. I highly recommend having someone from your family marry someone from their family.

The problem with having so much fun is that it can feel a bit drab to return to normal life. This weekend we were shopping in a candy store, having white wine at a tavern, laughing so hard I was about two millimeters from accidentally sobbing, and for breakfast eating leftover filet mignon and mushrooms with our scrambled eggs and waffles and candy. And now it is Monday morning and I have eaten a clementine for breakfast because nothing is like filet mignon. I ate it moodily, and resentfully.

Next week Edward is scheduled for an endoscopy/colonoscopy to see if his anemia is related to something intestinal. He’ll be unconscious for it, which is for me the most nerve-wracking part. When Elizabeth had her tonsillectomy a couple of years ago, one of the worst moments was when they put the mask on her face and her eyes went panicky. It’s a mercifully short moment, but it’s challenging to have a calm and soothing parental reaction to panicked child-eyes in an operating room. I might be better at it this time because I am prepared for it to happen—or it might be worse, because I will be anticipating it.

As with Elizabeth’s surgery, my anxiety about Edward’s procedure has found its outlet in shopping-based activities. I took longer than you would think possible in the juice aisle at the grocery store (there is a 3-day prep involving significant juice), selecting sports drinks and juice boxes as if my choices could guide the doctor’s hands. (And really, I think this will go better if the one who went to medical school guides his own hands.)

The recovery time is predicted to be much, much shorter than with a tonsillectomy: a day or two instead of two weeks or more. Still, I wanted to get him a few Prep/Procedure/Recovery Presents.

(photo from Amazon.com)

He recently mentioned a video game we got rid of because it was all scratched up, and I happen to already have a replacement copy of it in the gift cupboard, so that’s going to be one. (Or I might give it to him the day before, when he has to miss school because of the pre-procedure.)

(photo from Amazon.com)

He got an Etch-a-Sketch for Christmas, but it was defective and started leaking grit all over the place. I waited to replace it because I thought the company might do so when I contacted them (they didn’t)—but it’s good I waited, because that’s the perfect toy for someone who is on the couch for a day or two.

(photo from Amazon.com)

We’re also getting him a Webkinz hamster he wanted. Some Webkinz are “basic” Webkinz that just get you access to the Webkinz site; others, such as the hamsters, are special ones that, when added to a basic Webkinz account, give you increased access to particular features/areas of the site.

(photo from Amazon.com)

And we’re getting him the Brain Quest 3rd Grade Workbook. He was very enthusiastic about getting this awhile back, but the kids have had such enthusiasms before and then didn’t actually do anything with the acquired workbooks. A perfect gift for when it might not be a success and it wouldn’t really matter.

I went to Target today, and my main mission was the 70%-off Christmas candy, where I achieved multiple bags of Mint Truffle Hershey’s Kisses. Have you tried them? I thought they sounded kind of unappealing, even though I like the chocolate/mint combination. Last year they made it to 90% off so I was like “FINE, I will try them.” And I ended up DRIVING BACK TO THE STORE the next day, because the whole bag was already gone and I couldn’t wait all the way to next Christmas to have more of them. Today I also bought some Cherry Cordial Hershey’s Kisses, because those sound unappealing too but look how well the mint truffle ones turned out.

Then we browsed around the store awhile, buying some boring things like dental floss, Sharpie markers, and a tri-fold presentation board for Rob. But also: in the stationery and wrapping paper area, there was an end-cap of FOX STUFF. I had a mug in the cart almost before I’d drawn a breath. AND it came in a cute little box.

(Mediocre photo: the blue is more cornflower than turquoise)

I stood there dithering and wanting ONE EACH OF EVERYTHING ELSE, but for now I just have the mug. I don’t think I actually have a use for a pencil bag or for file folders, even if they DO have foxes on them.

• Rob has longish hair, and has been complaining about how long it takes to towel-dry it.

• My own hair seems to be thinning at the hairline, and I wondered if bundling it in a bath towel every morning could be making that worse.

• Elizabeth is not able to balance a bath towel on her head, and a bath towel is overkill for her hair anyway.

These three things led to the purchase of three Turbie Twists, which I did NOT see on TV but instead saw on Amazon when I searched for “hair towels.” It is a little embarrassing to buy an “as seen on TV” product, like getting an Oprah’s Book Club book or a celebrity-chef-endorsed tool. “THAT IS NOT WHY I’M GETTING IT,” I want to explain. I ordered a two-pack from Amazon.com for $11 (I got aqua/white), and then I found one-packs at HomeGoods for $5 each in colors I didn’t like for myself (animal prints, black) but also a brown that was perfect for Rob.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Anyway. I put one Turbie Twist in each of our Christmas stockings, and I have tried mine for nine mornings now and am ready to report.

First, I HATE the feel of the microfiber. I hate it SO MUCH. It feels like it’s snagging on every single molecule of my hands.

But I have gotten over this, because I really like it once it’s on my head and I’m not touching it. It’s much lighter-weight than a bath towel, and I can get dressed and put on shoes and make-up with it on. I think it’s significantly cuter than a bath towel, too, and the end tucks into an elastic loop so it won’t fall off. And the hair pocket is long enough for my hair, which is almost bra-strap-length down to the horizontal bra strap MID-BACK LENGTH. (I think I could bundle hair in even if it were quite a bit longer, but see next paragraph.) And we have a shortage of towel-hanging devices in our bathroom, so it’s nice to have one fewer towels to find space for.

One problem I have is that my hair is not only long but thick. So although the Turbie Twist is cuter and more comfortable than a bath towel, I notice no miraculous drying effects: my hair is about as dry as when I use a bath towel, and if anything it’s a little wetter. Today I had a genius idea, an idea that was probably written in the instructions if I’d bothered to read them: nest TWO Turbie Twists, one inside the other. I tried that this morning and still didn’t notice any impressive drying, but my hair was at least no wetter than when I balance a whole bath towel on my head.

If you want to feel painfully, empathetically self-conscious for all of humanity (and why WOULD you want to feel that way, is the first question), I suggest reading the mini-autobiographies at the back of a many-contributer short-story collection. Look at everyone striving for that balance of informative, creative, self-promoting, self-deprecating, likeable, and witty. I pity us all.

Well! *brisk clap* It’s New Year’s Eve! I have had three main stages of Making Resolutions:

First Stage: childhood – early 20s. Made resolutions such as “Lose weight” and “Exercise more” and “Spend less money.”

Second Stage: early 20s – early 30s. Inspired by my even-before-online friend Surely, who made fun/interesting/achievable resolutions such as “Choose a scent for our household.” Made resolutions such as “Play the stock market with pretend money for a year, to see if I want to do it for real” and “Either buy the discontinued lavender-vanilla conditioner on eBay or else quit whining about it” and “Drink champagne more often than once a year” and “Try just ONE reusable pad so I can see if it’s something I’m even WILLING to resolve to do” and “Throw out that bottle of lotion I hate and buy another kind.”

Third Stage: now. No resolutions—but in an ennui sort of way rather than a strong, declarative, “I don’t make resolutions” sort of way. I could start up again AT ANY TIME. But I think I used up all my interesting ideas and/or lost interest in thinking of more. Now I stay up, drink champagne, eat pizza rolls, and think about how I used to have interesting resolutions.

Another tradition I dropped was The Transferring of the Calendar. For YEARS that has been my traditional New Year’s Eve activity: taking the old calendar and transferring all the birthdays, anniversaries, piano lessons, etc. to the new calendar. I thought I liked that: an excellent way to pass the time, and also a pleasingly symbolic and thoughtfulness-producing activity (Rob will turn FIFTEEN this year; Oh, look, it’s been a year since Elizabeth had that appointment; Oh, there’s Lauren’s due date!). This year I realized I HATE having to do that on New Year’s Eve and it makes me feel frazzled and burdened, so I did it a few days ago. Much better.

Well! We had a very nice Christmas!

I had a fun idea for the stockings this year: fortune cookies. Edward mentioned them a few weeks ago in a “WHEN will we EVER have fortune cookies AGAIN??” format, as if he had been begging and begging and had been repeatedly refused, as opposed to never mentioning them before. I bought a bag of individually wrapped ones (I found them at Target for $3-something, then later saw a similar bag for $2-something at our grocery store near the soy sauce) and put one in everyone’s stocking. Some of them were the disappointing non-fortunes (“Friendship is the meeting of hearts”), but you’ll be happy to hear that I can expect a promotion, and that Edward’s moment of glory is nigh. (Edward, just now: “I think that already happened because of me opening the first good fortune!”) I hope I can remember to do those again next year.

Paul gave me a bottle of L’Artisan Thé Pour un Été, and my dad and I had fun translating it. He knew “été” was “summer” and “pour” was “for,” but neither of us knew “Thé.” Then later I was sniffing my wrists and I thought, “This smells like tea,” and then I asked my dad if “Thé” could be “tea,” and he said YES, and so this perfume is called Tea for Summer.

Every single person of adult size (Rob, William, my brother, my sister-in-law, me, Paul, my mom, my dad) got a pair of the men’s fox-patterned pajama pants from Target. FOX PANTS EVERYWHERE. My parents gave me a fox phone case and a framed print of a fox, and my brother and sister-in-law gave me a fox mug and a fox ornament, and my sister-in-law’s sister gave me a stuffed fox, so it was a fox Christmas.

I gave my sister-in-law a cute owl contact-lens case, a gift that revealed that I was going around thinking that if someone wasn’t wearing glasses, it meant they had their contacts in. But do you know what? This is not always true! Some people don’t need their vision corrected AT ALL! Luckily, my brother wears contacts. So now he has THREE owl contact lens cases, because I’d bought him one as well, and so did my sister-in-law. And I gave one to Paul, too, so it was also an owl-contact-lens-case Christmas.

I gave my niece a pair of Converse I wish I could have for myself:

(photo from target.com)

We bought Rob the DFTBA Chemistry poster. He unwrapped it down to the mailing tube, and went on at some length to his aunt/uncle/grandparents about how this might SEEM like a lame present but ACTUALLY it was awesome because he’s been wanting something to do pretend sword-fighting with friends, and I’d vetoed golf clubs. He talked for quite awhile before I realized he genuinely thought the tube was his gift.

We have had rather bad luck with toys BREAKING this year: broken in the package, or dead batteries included, or breaking the first day of play. I have already written to two companies to complain, and my dad has written to a third.

I would like to inquire politely about YOUR Christmas experience (if applicable), but am increasingly reluctant to end posts with questions (or title them with numbers).

I just got back from a completely delightful trip to the grocery store, which is not the way I expected to start this sentence when I set out. One thing that was delightful is that although the children have no school, I brought no children with me. This is a state of affairs that felt like it would take FOREVER to arrive, and it DID take forever, but now it is here.

Another delightful thing is that we are having an icy drizzle, and the store had stationed a nice high-school-aged-boy employee to stand in the parking lot with a huge umbrella and say “May I walk you in?” Completely charming. I wish I had taken him up on it for the pure charm factor, rather than laughing with surprise and saying “No, thank you! But thank you!” But he didn’t ask me until I was about ten strides from the store, and it seemed like I could make it from there.

Another delightful thing is that it was jusssst crowded enough to give the pleasant feeling of holiday bustle and social unity, while not being crowded to the point where I start thinking of other people as nothing but slow, irritating barriers to success. And while I was paused waiting for a classic plump sweet elderly lady to carefully select some cheese, my eye wandered to a display of THESE:

The cat gives a poor impression of scale somehow. In person, these look like “Wow, you could give that spectacular bundle as a gift to an entire office staff” gifts; with the cat, they look like, “Hm, well, they’re smaller than a cat, so.” Each bundle has one each of the Lindt Santas and Lindt bears we put in stockings, AND a Christmas-tree-shaped box with 15 assorted Lindt truffles in it, AND a pretty red bag of 12 Lindt truffles, AND a pretty red be-bowed box with, presumably, more Lindt truffles in it (I can see the nutrition labels for the other box and the bag, but not for this box), AND about two handfuls of assorted Lindt truffles scattered around to cover the false bottom. Plus the whole thing is in a nice sturdy red box that looks like it would be great for saving postcards. So this would make a nice Big Gift OR it would be easy to split it up among various recipients. The usual price is $25, but it was marked down to $9.99 so I bought two. Thank you, endearingly-slow cheese-choosing lady! I never would have noticed them otherwise!

Now I have the fun of deciding what to do with them. (That is how I am spinning the “I didn’t actually have a use for these so probably shouldn’t have bought them at all, but I have a very difficult time resisting a good sale.”) I was thinking one would make a fun surprise gift to a neighbor or a friend or an office staff. Or maybe I could just eat them myself. Or one of each! Or break both up and keep some things and give some things! Fun decision!

Another delightful thing is that I bought our Christmas Eve dinner, which made me feel accomplished and Ready For Christmas. Our family celebrates on Christmas Eve (apparently this is a holdover from our Dutch roots, or possibly from our too-busy-on-Christmas-morning pastor/farmer roots), and when I was growing up we always had soup for dinner: we’d have started in on the candy with our afternoon Christmas stockings and wouldn’t be very hungry, and yet we needed SOMETHING sustaining before the Christmas Eve service, the candy-eating during gift-opening, and the late-night worstenbroodjes (Dutch version of pigs-in-blankets).

And so when I grew up I made soup for my family, too. And a problem emerged: I was the only one who liked soup and also could eat it without making a huge mess. Last year I hit upon what I think we’ll probably do from now on: I put out cheese, crackers, apple slices, clementine segments, grapes, yogurt, and nuts, and just let everyone go at it while I had a bowl of soup. And the grapes I got this year are GREAT grapes, so that’s happy too.

The final delightful thing is that right before I left for the store, my lying liar children all denied being the one to make a mess, which is a situation I find intensely frustrating. And instead of continuing with the interrogation/lecture protocol I’ve employed many times with zero success, I said that I was leaving for the grocery store and that I had left a roll of paper towels by the mess, and that whoever had done it should just clean it up before I got home—that I didn’t need to know WHO had done it, I just didn’t think it was fair that I should have to clean it up. And when I got home, it had been cleaned up. Not quite as good as “Mother, I cannot tell a lie: _I_ made that mess, and I grieve for the sorrow my delayed confession has caused you,” but a victory nevertheless.

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.

********

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.”

********

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.

********

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″]