Holidays 2009

During the holiday season, besides family and friends, there is something that I am also very thankful for.....that the holidays only happen once a year! Why do we always let ourselves get crazy this time of year? Is it the long lines in the stores? The equally grouchy people standing in lines with us? The tight state of the ecomony? The paper cuts from wrapping all the presents? The neverending Christmas songs on the radio that start at Halloween and don't seem to stop until New Year's? (Regardless of how much you like a song, after 2 nonstop months of hearing "Twelve Days of Christmas" sung over and over again in every style and by every artist imaginable, it can get on your nerves!!)

Let me take you into the world of the holidays with the Altmillers......

Our Christmas season started the day after Thanksgiving when Jay and I went down to the Christmas tree lot and found the most beautiful tree I"ve ever seen in my life. It was a Grand Fir and over 8 feet tall. It was simply perfect. After lugging it up the stairs into the house, then retracing our steps with 2 (yes 2!!), vacuum cleaners to erase our trail of pine needles, we found the perfect spot for the tree and up it went. This year was Jay and my first Christmas together (the first year he went to visit Jacob and then last year he was deployed in Iraq) so we hadn't experienced this festive time together. Why I thought that decorating the tree would be a fun and easy task, I don't know. I guess I forgot that I am married to a perfectionist, because it took 2 and a half hours to place the lights on the tree. He wrapped the lights around the tree, unwrapped the lights, readjusted them, moved them here, moved them there, and then finally the strands were placed to his satisfaction, perfectly spaced around the tree. Now, I do have to admit that it looked beautiful when he was finished, but since I literally fell asleep in the recliner watching him space out these lights, I think he went a bit overboard, but that's just my opinion :)

Then it was off to the store to buy ornaments, which led to another tense discussion over ornaments. Apparently, my taste in ornaments was too girly and "froo-froo". We did come to a compromise over a beautiful heart shaped fabric ornament, though I could tell he was only agreeing to put it on his masterpiece tree just to shut me up. :) We had fun at Hallmark picking out some new ornaments for the kids. Some Transformer and Disney Princess ornaments completed our shopping excursion and we went home to place them. The tree ended up looking like a tree out of a magazine, so I have vowed never to complain about him being overly-anal when it comes to tree design....well, until next year!

Over the course of the next few weeks, we spent our time buying presents, wrapping them and then finding the perfect hiding places for them until Santa came to put them under the tree. (Note that we not only had to hide them from the kids but also from my mom, who is notoriously the biggest present snooper on Earth!).

On December 17th, Jay flew to Florida to pickup Jacob and after dealing with delayed flights and the airline losing Jacob's luggage (complete with Chrismtas presents inside...don't worry, they found it 2 days later), our family was complete for the holidays.

Finally it was Christmas Eve. Gaby, Jacob and I made Christmas cookies for Santa, which turned out to be very cute. I don't quite understand how I was the one who ended up with frosting all over her, while the kids were spotless, or how frosting can dry like glue in your hair, but a quick shower fixed it and we were back to prepping for Santa. We hung the stockings, put out cookies and milk for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer, had the kids take one last look at the empty tree and sent them off to bed. Gaby has never gone to sleep so quickly in her life! Jacob was also out within minutes and then it was time for "Santa" and his "helper" to haul out all the presents. By the time we were done, it was almost midnight and we were both exhausted. We plopped into bed and what seemed like only minutes later, we were being awoken by 2 very excited kids and Christmas morning round #1 began.

Then it was off to my parents house for Christmas morning round #2. More presents from Santa were awaiting the kids at their house. It was the 4 of us, plus my mom, Tom, Jeff (Gaby's dad) and Lee (Tom's son). After all the presents were open, Jay had one last surprise to give to Tom.......

Now let me pause here for a moment and tell you a little about Jay and Tom. My husband and step-father are like two peas in a pod. They have a full fledged bromance going on. So when Jay heard that Tom's favorite movie is "A Christmas Story", he decided that the perfect gift for Tom would be a life size "Leg Lamp" from the movie. If you are one of the few people who has not seen this movie, it is a lamp that consists of a beige 1950's lamp shade, complete with fringe, and the base of the lamp is a woman's leg, covered in fishnet stocking, complete with a black high-heeled shoe. It is atrocious. But for some reason, every man seems to want one after viewing this movie. Hmm..... In the movie, this lamp is delivered to the Dad in a huge wooden crate that says "Fragile" on it. So Jay decided that he just couldn't give Tom this lamp without the matching crate, so after 3 trips to Home Depot/Lowe's and 4 days in the garage, he hand built a giant crate (approximately 6 feet tall by 2 feet wide). It was a beautiful crate.......

The only problem with Jay's great idea is that my mother was going to kill him once she saw this "awesome" present. But since my mother loves Jay, I figured I wouldn't tell her to spoil the surprise (or so she could brace herself) and let her see it at the same time Tom did).

Back to my story......so Jay sets this big wooden crate outside the front door and tells Tom that there is one last present for him to open. I head out first (with camera in hand) and as soon as Tom saw the crate, his eyes lit up and he said "Oh my God! It can't be!!!!" and ran to the crate breathless and full of anticipation. As soon as my mom saw the crate she said "OH MY GOD! IT CAN'T BE!!!" and ran over to Jay to start smacking him. So to make this long story a bit shorter, my mother now has a giant leg lamp right smack dab in the middle of the main window that looks onto the street. I have a feeling that it might "disappear" when Tom is out of town.

Everyone made out like bandits. I am the proud owner of a new iPhone (after months of not so subtle hinting on my part) and new dishes, Jay has a Blue-Ray player, ceramic knives, a new coffee maker, and new pans, and the kids have enough new presents between them to open a toy store.

My tale of the hoildays with the Altmillers is now complete. I hope your holidays were as special as ours!