A Day Out

Today, as evidenced by the datestamp on this post, is December 20.

The last Saturday before Christmas.

I waited until today to do 100% of my Christmas shopping.

Yes, I am a fool.

I only last week realized that I needed to buy something for my sister’s birthday, so my mother helpfully took me shopping, after taking me to church, a choir  rehearsal at a different church, AND my orchestra concert. Yes, she is a saint.

So once I got the birthday present out of the way, then—surprise surprise—it was time to shop for Christmas presents! YES! In December! Who would have thunk it?

Did I mention I am a fool?

Today happened to be conveniently located between snowstorms, plus Ben had to go to piano, so I decided to go out and do my shopping then. Because, as I have mentioned, the planning sector of my brain mysteriously malfunctioned this year, I only got gifts of the immediate family. The rest of you are getting free hugs.

Did I mention that this is the last Saturday before Christmas?

Moving on.

So Ben had piano, with his lovely patient teacher, who doesn’t scream “NOOO! NOT ‘I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND’ ! ANYTHING BUT ‘I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND’!” Which I sometimes do, not gonna lie. And then we drove from Pennsylvania to New York to New Jersey, so Ben and I could visit TJ Maxx while Dad began the grocery shopping.

While driving through Port Jervis I made the mistake of asking what the big deal was with the Erie Turntable. I wanted to hear something along the lines of “Port Jervis used to be the end of the line and it’s the largest turntable in the tristate area” or whatever it actually is, but Dad (being a Homeschool Dad) began with the sentence, “Well. At the turn of the last century….” at which point I essentially stopped listening. I was busy pondering whether there is a subtle irony in the fact that The Church of the Miracle of the Immaculate Conception is located on Ball Street.  The result of this is that when I tuned back in what I heard was, “And then they took sap from the pine trees and they began to tan the hides….” and I resolved never to ask Dad a question again unless I really really cared.

Ben and I spent AGES in TJ Maxx, where we eventually found a present for Mom, and then walked over to ShopRite. This is where we found Dad, and he was not even through the vegetable aisle yet. He dashed around going “Swiss Chard! Where’s the Swiss chard? Excuse me! Young man!” , while I leaned helpfully on the cart and talked to Ben.

Then I said, “Since when do we buy prepackaged lettuce?” and Dad came over and pointed out that his cart was in fact in another aisle and I had been making derogatory comments about some complete stranger’s food purchases. Whoops.

The rest of ShopRite was torture. Mentally, I was banging my head against a shelf for most of the trip. Then Dad played his check-out game, wherein we each have to guess how much total money the grocery purchase will come to, and whoever’s closest gets bragging rights.

Then we had lunch, which was good because as most of you know I have some food issues.

THEN we went to our lovely neighborhood WalMart! Support local commerce, right?

And then we went to the library and now I have a whole stack of books for Christmas break.

Then we came home.

And despite being a fool, it was a nice day overall and I am happy with the presents I ended up buying.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Hanukkah!

Just kidding!

Not that it doesn’t look like Hanukkah or anything.

But Christmas—CHRISTMAS!—is in two short weeks!

You always know it’s getting to be the holidays when stores start playing Christmas music all the time. What I don’t entirely understand is, why don’t they play GOOD Christmas music? They always seem to pick the most horrible carols, sung by the most awful singers of all time. I can sing better than some of these people.

So, to go along with last year’s favorite Christmas Carols post, this one is about least favorites.

Yesterday I was in Shoprite (I do not reccommend going to Shoprite on Tuesday because that is apparently Large Quantities of Elderly People Run Over Your Toes With Their Shopping Carts Day) and they were playing an average bad Christmas album, when “Deck The Halls” came on. Deck The Halls, as I have always understood it, is a fairly peppy tune, which is meant to be sung as follows: “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalalaaalalala” etc. If you are like me and have speed issues, you may wish to sing it like this: “Deckthehallswithboughsofholly, falalalalalaaaalalalala”. Either of these renditions is perfectly acceptable.
The man on the intercom, however, was not singing it like that. He wasn’t even singing it slowly. He was singing at approximately 32bpm, which is as slow as my metronome will even GO. As far as I can tell, this is a man who was out late at a holiday party and had a LOT of eggnog before he decided to make this recording. See actual rendition:
Deck…the…halls…with…boughs…of….hollllyyyy….
fa…la…la…la…laaaaaaaaaaa…la…la….la….la…..

PLUS he sang it in a nasal voice.

So why won’t stores play decent Christmas music?

These are the main songs I heard while out shopping:

-All We Are Saying is Give Peace a Chance
-Jingle Bells
-Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer
-Baby It’s Cold Outside
-Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
-Frosty the Snowman
-Carol of the Bells
-We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I don’t really even like most of these songs. Especially not Give Peace a Chance.

So, do any of you have a Christmas song that you just can’t stand?

And, Happy Holidays!

That was a joke, but last Sunday at the band concert our director (Yes, this is the cosmos man) said, quote, “Our last tune is We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and we do hope that you have a happy holidays, no matter what you believe.” And he was dead serious.

Christmas is coming…

The goose is getting fat

Please to put a penny in the old straw hat

If you have no penny a ha’penny will do

If you have no ha’penny then God bless you.

 

I am pleased to announce that the holiday season has officially begun! We recieved our first Christmas catalog last week! (order now before it’s too late?)

Congratulations to LTD Commodities for having a strange sense of timing!

I am pschying myself up by finishing Week 2 of my school year and listening to the Chieftains, a cool Irish folk group that put out a Christmas CD.

Hark the herald angels sing….

Merry Christmas Everybody!

and a happy New Year!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

What was your favorite present?

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Only 3 days!!!!!!

Here are some pictures of our decorated house. We put up the Christmas tree last weekend.

  (click to enlarge)

This is  what I’m getting for Christmas. I’m dying to figure out what it is.

Guess what’s in the box:

 

We are currently in the process of decorating the gingerbread house.

This is our funky nativity. We have a regular one in the living room, but this one is big, and Mom let us repaint it last year. Click to make it bigger.

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

You have got to try this

In honor of the second week of Advent, here are two very awesome holiday websites.

The first one is called Elf Yourself.  www.elfyourself.com. This is where  you can photoshop pictures of you and your loved ones onto the bodies of elves. The elves then dance a macerana-type dance. It’s hilarious.

The second one is called Snowdays. If you have ever tried to make snowflakes out of paper, you know how difficult that is. (Unless you’re my mom or sister, in which case your snowflakes are these amazing works of art. I am the non-artsy family member.) Here, you can make gorgeous snowflakes using (here’s the great part) VIRTUAL SCISSORS. Think of it! No more injuries!  You can also see other people’s snowflakes and send your snowflake on its way with a message of holiday cheer. This can be found at http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/

Only 15 days till Christmas!