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Holiday traditions in my family have been (and continue to be) drastically changing as we are losing family members

Thanksgiving was always at Grandmas house until she left us. She lived up north in Duluth, and we’d go up the night before. When my sis and I were small, we’d actually sing “Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house, we go!”, while in the car on the long drive! We’d get there late evening and stay up eating homemade treats drink coffee and play board games. We played Yahtzee! or 6-5-4, but as we got older it would be “Scattergories”, “Trivial Persuit”, or “Sequence”. Breakfast was always early at Grandma’s, you might even miss it! She’d be up at 5am, sitting and drumming her fingers on the table waiting for the rest of us to wake up. It’s so funny because she always got the paper read, had the NY Times crossword puzzle finished (which she did EVERY morning) and had breakfast ready and hers eaten, before the rest of us could mosey into the kitchen! Uncle Larry always bought the turkey (a huge one, about 20 lbs). It would get stuffed and go into the oven after breakfast. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade would be on the TV in the living room but mom always managed to pull us girls away and give us little tasks to do like “Stir the gravy”, or “go run down the hall and get Grandma’s stool for her, she needs to stop standing at the stove too much.” Thanksgiving dinner was in the afternoon and we’d eat turkey, mashed potatoes (which Uncle Larry would mash), stuffing, salad, beets, and sweet potatoes with butter and marshmallows. Sis and I would make the salad and put out a big pickle & relish tray, wash and set the table (Grandma’s fancy homemade tablecloth, placemats, linen napkins, and her good flatware & china) and then afterward clean up the table and do the dishes. Then it was on to the football game, or the Snore Fest, rather, because Grandma in her last years always had at least THREE La-Z-Boy recliner chairs (barcoloungers, whatever you call them) in her livingroom and Dad, Cousin Jim, and Uncle Larry would all go in, turn on the game, and promptly stuff their asses into a recliner. Not a few minutes after kickoff, and the snoring would commence! Us girls would finish up the dishes and along with Grandma and Mom, we would go into the diningroom and look at the Christmas sales in the paper or visit with each other. Then we’d wake the men up for pie and coffee. There would be pumpkin, apple, mincemeat, pecan, and sometimes peach, cherry, or strawberry pretzel pie. We’d be cutting pieces and ask Dad what kind he’d like to have a piece of, naming off all what was there and he’d reply by saying “Yah”, meaning all of it, I guess! The drive home was long but pleasant and we’d plan for Christmas gift shopping and if it was the weekend, put up the tree and decorate it, help dad get the outdoor decorations put up, etc. Mom would turn the house upside down with all the Christmas decorations, musicals, figurines, ornaments, etc. and dad the lit the house up on the outside and in the yard. The advent calendar (similar to this one) would go up, 25 days before Christmas. Ours had a tree on it, and the day that you put it the calendar up, all the pockets had all the pieces in them. One by one, a piece would get placed up on the tree to signify how many days until Christmas, reserving the top of the tree for the last day, the piece being baby Jesus.

On Christmas eve we would go to candlelight vigil at church (very late night, about 10-11 pm). Before we went, we’d put up the baby Jesus advent piece up on the calendar, and set out cookies and milk for Santa Claus. Mom and dad were able to keep us believing in Santa for many years because, being the clever parents they were, Dad would eat the cookies and drink the milk but remember to leave crumbs and put some ash on the plate to signify Santa had been smoking his pipe after enjoying his treat. Us girls were so surprised and excited to see this and to come home and find the tree dwarfed by the heaps of presents underneath and all around!

When we got to be a bit older Santa would visit us (a friend of the family would actually go around to the neighborhood dressed as Santa) and he would stop by on Christmas eve night. Mom and Dad would make up breakfast in a pan (very much like your family’s strata, Kristine) and put that in the fridge. We’d still go to church but eventually us kids found out that Dad was the one who put all the presents under the tree while we were gone! We’d stay up late opening presents and then played games and have drinks and snacks. Then on Christmas day morning, Mom and Dad would marinate a couple huge slabs of Country style pork ribs and put them in the oven to bake all morning, basting them with tons of homemade barbecue sauce and we’d have a good old fashioned ribs and corn on the cob dinner on Christmas day afternoon. This was BEFORE Famous Dave even became Famous!

As sis and I got to be adults my sis’s DH Tony would be the one helping mom make the ribs on Christmas day since Dad had been living in the nursing home, and we would go and have a special dinner with Dad and we’d all bring him presents and visit. Also we haven’t gone to Duluth since 2000 when we lost Grandma and now we’ll have to find someone to mash the potatoes now that my Uncle is gone! This is very hard for all of us, especially for Mom but we have had some new traditions. In recent years, my sis, my mom and her best friend all get together at mom’s sometime after Turkey dayand bake tons of cookies: sugar, spritz, cutouts, choc. chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, rum balls, you name it, we make it! That is a fun one for us because while we’re mixing and baking we drink wine and listen to one of the radio stations that plays holiday music round the clock til Dec 26th. Then we wind up storing most of the cookies in plastic and freezing them to give as gifts at Christmas. Last thanksgiving was at my sister’s house because mom just moved in to her new house and it was very nice for mom to not worry about anything for once. This year will be at mom’s and I’m bringing a ham, some salad and a cheeseball, hopefully some new traditions.

Why don’t you share yours (click on comments area)

Same day, different year..

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• Click on the monkey and WIN! – 2000

I am so behind. My behind is even behind. I’ve been up to just about nothing. All the while, the rest of the world is draping tinsle garland on everything that stands still, with songs in their hearts and Holiday cheer on their brains.

I’m almost never online. I remain jobless and have been living with mom since August. And aside from one paycheck from a 3-day temp stint and 1 romantic episode last week, I don’t get paid OR laid very regularly. The fiance is about in the same situation as me, too (he is lacking all the above as well and living with pops, but at least his ass is working!)

Loser isn’t even a bad word here, it’s actually generous. Folks, what has happened here is monumental. Or shall I say “what hasn’t happened.”

The word ’suck’ as we know it has been brought to an all-time astonishing height!

Sooooo boring is my existence that even a can of Vanilla Slim-Fast is a bit of a wild meal.

Crap on a cracker, here I am having a pity party and I’m wallowing so much I just realized I missed World AIDS Day. Well, GAAAWWH-lee!

Same day, different year..

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In light of my recent suckage and lack of things to publish, I’ve gathered some info from my news sources, a crack team of reporters (or a team of reporters on crack, whichever you prefer). Enjoy.

Top 10 Movie Quotes Of All Time –
(According to The Guinness Book of Film)

1. “…Bond. James Bond.”

2. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

3. “Well, it’s not the men in your life that counts, it’s the life in your men.”

4. “I’ll be back.”

5. “Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?”

6. “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”

7. “I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I’d rather dance with the cows when you came home.”

8. “Frankly, my dear. I don’t give a damn.”

9. “You talkin’ to me?”

10. “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side…and don’t be stingy, baby.”

Dumb newsperson quote of the day:

Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show, August 22:

“Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as is marijuana… The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can’t remember what they are.”

Thanks Matt, why don’t you have those guys get back to us, when the ‘munchies’ pass. And for Chrissakes, tell them to lay off the Easy-Cheese! That’s for my Christmas party.

Same day, different year..

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I can’t believe it.

Today I got up at 5:30 a.m. I left the house at 6:15 to start a 4-bus commute to my first day at a new temp assignment. By 7:45, I was getting onto the last bus which was to take me to the job site, only to find myself arguing with an obviously disgruntled bus driver about where he stops. “LADY, I JUST DON’T GO TO THAT STREET!” he yelled to me. I said “Listen, this printout that I got from the bus company web site says you DO go to this stop, and I will sit over there and wait until you get there.” Turned out it was one of those streets he “never noticed along this route”. Shut up and do your damned job.

So I get to the office to report to work and the boss says “Oh, my, I’ve been hoping you weren’t on your way. I told the temp agency we didn’t need anyone to come in this week since it’s so short due to the holiday.” I stood there feeling like I was about to cry as she explained that she told the temp agency on Friday not to send me and “They’ve been trying to get ahold of you”. Wonderful. I’m going home and I just took 2 hours to get here.

I am now comfortably resting in front of the computer at the workforce center in downtown. I don’t feel guilty about using the computer for things other than job searching. This is my therapy and I’ve got a helluva lot to catch up on.

I’m going to have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and no one is going to stop me.

Dammit.

Same day, different year..

Other posts on this day:

• Cancer cure indeed! – 2005

OMG.

This is big. you know that moment of clarity that Jerry Maguire had in his hotel room at that convention, just before he typed up that big important essay? Well I had one of those last night.

It’s big. Really big.

You’ll know more soon.

In the meantime, have a safe, happy new year and if you get really fucked up, don’t go ANYWHERE in your car between 1am and 4am.

PS – yes, I had a really nice Thanksgiving, Christmas and whatnot. Hope you did too.

PPS – honey, if you’re reading this, I love you lots, talk to you soon!

Hoo boy, I know I know. I’m trying my best to fix my blog archive problem I’ve been having since the damned blog was started. So much for my silly bravado way back when.

You are Spaceman Spiff! Zounds! You are the intrepid Spaceman Spiff, the engaging explorer ensconsed in an unending universe of exotic and evil extraterrestrials! You’re brave, but you should give that dictionary a rest. Take the What Calvin are You? Quiz by contessina_2000@yahoo.com!

Um…okay…James took the “Which Calvin Are You?” quiz above and JUST KNEW he was gonna be rated as Spaceman Spiff. Link from Ellis. I dunno, Methinks this guy takes too many damned quizzes. Maybe it’s because they’re everywhere and unavoidable! They’re all over the place and there’s nothing I can do about it. Damn.

Same day, different year..

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YACCS is my comment-hosting system, you can now post comments regarding any of my entries, respectively. I must have been living under a rock because I never realized that I could use something like this. DOH! I’m an idiot.

Yes, you’ve noticed the new look. You can thank Firda for that. She’s got more CSS skillz in her pinkie finger than most have altogether. Thanks, wannabegirl!

I switched my hours at work to part-time so my honey and I have more time to devote to our business. So far, so good. Only I was late today (oops). Bu I managed to make a few good sales leads, YAY!

I’m out for now, on my way to play catch up with some of my fave sites, dollheads, spike’s sandbox, and weblog schmeblog, just to name a few.

Later, taters…

Last week’s TIME Magazine’s TIME for Kids has put forth an entire article about the one thing that they deem to be ‘too much’ for children to have to see in the entertainment industry (Movies, tv, etc). It’s not gratuitous sexual scenes, not blatently violent acts, no, not even racism. It’s SMOKING. It’s obviously a high occurrence, given the statistics that smoking by one of any main characters in films is currently about 77% where back in 1970 it was about 29%. However, I didn’t see many main characters lighting up on any family movies or movies geared to children/teen audiences, did you? Most of the movies that have characters who are smoking cigarettes feature content which is USUALLY entirely meant for a mature audience, containing mature subject material.

Am I right, or am I right? So what, there’s alot of smoking in Snatch, Save The Last Dance, and Charlie’s Angels and perhaps other newer releases to the theater. But what the heck are kids doing watching movies like that anyway They were all not meant for younger viewers, certainly teenagers, but haven’t teens been smoking a whole damned lot REGARDLESS of Hollywood actors smoking or not? Yes. Since my mom was a teen. So what’s new? I’d also like to point out that of ALL THE THINGS these whiners could be waving their fingers at (like violence, etc.), they picked actors smoking in movies to tbe the most harmful to kids.

Rob Reiner, whiner activist extraordinaire, and maker of flimsy, pussified movies such as ‘The Story of Us’ and ‘Parenthood’, is also the co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment. According to the TIME For Kids article, he blames smoking in films on “cigarette-addicted actors who can’t leave their butts behind and directors who don’t care about the social implications.” Reiner is hoping to put yet another notch in his activism belt by saying that smoking in films is more harmful to kids than language. He’s putting forth a new policy at Castle Rock: Directors wanting to have smoking characters onscreen need his approval first. Other views on this by his peers agree that it would be more appropriate to just apply R-ratings to movies that depict actors smoking. Reiner also says “If your movie has curse words, you get rated R,” says Reiner. “But that’s a lot less harmful to a kid.”

Says WHO? What’s wrong with the contributors of this magazine and Rob Reiner, to be saying such a thing? I would rather have my kids see a film which contains cigarette smokers than swearwords, sex, and violence, if given the choice.

This brings me to ask, is it the media’s place to tell our kids what to see and what not to see in theaters? Aren’t our parents in society nowadays smart enough to tell their kids that yes, Brad Pitt is a man who smokes, but it is unhealthy and in our family we urge each other not to? Yes, I bring up the media, I do not just mean Hollywood (which mostly strikes a liberal pose). I’m talking about folks like TIME Magazine and cable news networks like CNN. It seems–from my point of view–that they are constantly trying to ‘babysit’–as it were–our country’s children and parents, trying to be the authority on the difference between right and wrong.

Oh. And for those of you who don’t believe there is a liberal slant in the media, There is. And don’t send me shit like this article. It’s stuff like this that just ticks me off. Its summarizing point makes me laugh…”On bedrock issues of economic power, what passes for liberal-conservative debate in news media is usually a series of disputes over how to fine-tune the status quo. In the process, the myth of [the liberal media] serves as a smokescreen for realities of corporate media.”

This is not a myth. And for every person out there that accuses those against the liberal media as being “corporate think-tanks” …let me just ask this: Do you not think that newspapers aren’t corporate? Ha ha. Get with the program. Many, if not most major newspapers are now controlled by large companies/corporations, hundreds of weekly publications already are, and dailies are next in line. But don’t start to hyperventilate…corporations are GOOD for the country’s economy. And they’re not all bad. Ye tend to forget that big companies have to start with a lone dude in his livingroom, who spends his life savings on a good idea.

Same day, different year..

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The Academy Awards’ ceremony was definitely a sight this year, (a very LONG sight, longest in history–but that’s another story) and three black actors very worthy of their salt, came to be history makers. You already know that Sidney Portier was awarded for lifetime achievement by the Academy for years of work in such films as Lillies In The Field, To Sir With Love, and A Raisin In The Sun, among many others. Mr. Portier is, to me, one of the most courageous, talented, and handsome, of all black actors in history. He had begun his career after WWII, when there was no such thing as a leading black man in films, behind or in front of the camera.

Denzel Washington won for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his character acting in Training Day, which I had not seen but heard it was definitely Denzel Washington’s best job at portraying someone besides himself (LOL). I say this because almost everything I’ve seen him do previously is pretty much Denzel acting as Denzel. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the man. I think he’s a very handsome, intelligent, and warm gentleman, but he did his best (IMO) in the movie Glory, The Bone Collector, and in most of Malcom X.

Then Halle Berry was awarded the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Monster’s Ball, which I plan to see when it comes out in rentals. I first fell in love with her back in 1993, shortly after her big breakout in Boomerang. It was where she played the role of ‘Queen’ in the TV mini-series Queen. This was based on Alex Haley’s sequel novel to Roots, also of the same name (the story of his mother’s side of the family). Anyway, as much as I adore Halle Berry, I give more of a nod of approval to the way Misters Washington and Portier acknowledged receipt of their awards. Both men not only expressed their thanks toward those who helped them succeed in their work, but also pointed out that they were most grateful because of the fact that the award was given to them based on their talent and acting merit, and didn’t really play on the minority winner aspect. I do applaud Halle very much on her win, and still adore her, but I did find a part of her speech somewhat humorous. It was that, among those black actresses she listed, who have come before her but never won the highest honors, she did not include Whoopi Goldberg. Did Miss Goldberg NOT work hard in her role in the Oscar-nominated movie The Color Purple? She did indeed. I’m not sure whether Miss Berry’s aim was intended to include ONLY those black actresses nominated in the past for Best Actress (Cicely Tyson for Sounder, and Diana Ross for Lady Sings the Blues, both in 1972), or just all black actresses. In my opinion, The Color Purple still stands as Whoopi’s only real credit to her true acting ability and I also think she is a good host and comic, altough she wasn’t ever nominated by the Academy. Even so, I myself would have DEFINITELY gave a nod to Whoopi, simply because it would have shown good taste, being that she was standing in the same room.

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Been up to a whole lotta nothin’. Christmas. Then New Year’s. James and I spent it at my mom’s, drinking and snacking and playing the Planet Hollywood home game, Taboo, and Celebrity Taboo. Got a kiss at midnight. Drank crappy fake champagne.

Last week we celebrated his 27th birthday at his parents house and had dinner. Twas a jolly time had by all. Had mom and dad over for dinner Sunday (it’s their 28th anniversary on the 9th) and the 13th was our 6th month anniversary.

This weekend we rented Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and Office Space on DVD, neither of which I’d seen before. I’m sure Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Gonzo’ journalism is all just fine and dandy, and I loved Johnny Depp and Benicio DelToro, I must say I had to squelch the urge to shudder at the gross display of psychotic behavior and excessive drug use in the film. Office Space was very funny. Especially where the nerdy office guys are destroying the fax machine out in the middle of the field and there’s gangsta rap playing during the scene. Very clever.

Got a call from a friend outstate, been awhile since we talked. She and her hubby are off to Vegas next month, we’re invited. Fat chance. I can’t even afford to look at commercials on TV.

Still jobless. Going hungry. I’ve got my Sharpie pen ready to draw out sections on the couch to cut up and cook for dinner. Aside from that, not much else to write home about.

All’s just peachy.

Right. Wonderful.

More to come. Betcha can’t stand the suspense. What??!! Bite me. I know, I know. I said it, you didn’t. Fuckin’ A.