Merry Christmas! I'm on it in 2010.

We, rather I, didn't get around to sending Christmas cards this year. Let's be honest. How many husbands are the ones ordering, writing, stamping, and mailing holiday cards anyway? Mac Daddy does an awful lot, but he's never dealt with holiday razzle dazzle of any sort.

And I really did have good intentions.

I had a whole host of photos that I just never got printed into cards. I'd putz about on tiny prints and poke around to find the perfect card. The. Perfect. Card. I'd become so overwhelmed that I just clicked the little X to close the window. My head is in no condition to make such choices during the most wonderful time of the year. Such choices! Wonderful schmunderful.

I like to simply go with the green argument this year. I saved lots of trees and resources by not sending holiday cards this year. While that might not have been the impetus of the year without a card, it sure was a pretty good by-product.

I vowed to make 2010 a banner year. Our year.

I'm getting a jump start on the holidaze.

Merry Christmas from our Dirty & Noisy home!

5:00 Fridays

Happy 2010!!!

We're starting the new year, ahem, new decade, with a guest post from one of my favorite writers. I've had the joy of hanging with her at BlogHer and hope to see lots more of her as soon as she digs out from the Iowa snow.

Drum roll.....

I’m Becky, and I blog at Deep Muck Big Rake and hang out with Ilina on Twitter (I’m @BeckyDMBR). We talk lots about drinks and dinner and wine o’clock and recipes and beer-thirty and…well, you get the idea.

I’ve been a Norwegian-by-proxy for almost 20 years, which means we have a Very Norwegian Christmas in our house every year. If you haven’t been in Norway for Christmas, you should try it sometime. Or at least celebrate with a Norwegian.

Christmas lasts forever in Norway. It starts even before Christmas with “lillejulaften” (little Christmas Eve), which is the night before Christmas Eve. The time after Christmas and before New Year’s is called romjul, a time when you visit extended family and friends. Unless you work in retail or in the medical system, chances are good you get the whole time off.

You can find several ways to get into the holiday “spirit” in Norway: juleøl (Christmas beer), aquavit (“water of life” *cough, cough*) and gløgg (mulled wine). Gløgg is especially festive after an afternoon of sledding or snowman-building. It fills your house with the warm, spicy goodness of the season. You can make an alcohol-free version for the kids (although mine still prefer hot chocolate).

The absolute easiest way to make gløgg is to use a bottled mix and just add water or red wine. (Many Scandinavian stores sell the bottles online. You can also check German stores for glühwein mix. They’re similar.) Or you can make your own.

I tried both this year.

Here’s a recipe from the cookbook, The Norwegian Kitchen, written by The Association of Norwegian Chefs.

2/3 cup port wine
2/3 cup sherry
2/3 cup Madeira
1/3 cup red wine
4 whole cloves
2 cardamom pods

Combine in a saucepan and slowly bring to a boil. Serve warm in cups with raisins and blanched almonds. Place a teaspoon in each glass.

I prefer the mix. It’s sweeter. Whatever you prefer, play around with it and have fun.

“Skål!”

Have a wonderful New Year! Godt nytt år!

Tis the Season

I love Christmas. Really I do. Yes, I revel in the spirit of the season. But admittedly this year I'd rather imbibe the spirit(s) of the season than anything else.

Christmas is kicking my ass this year. It's par for the proverbial 2009 course.

I've baked hundreds of goodies and have mint and chocolate and sprinkles oozing out of my pores. Rolls of wrapping paper sit tucked behind my closet door. I don't even bother with ribbon anymore. When I was a kid I was often charged with wrapping my own presents (that my parents boxed up lest the surprise was ruined) so I made expert Martha-esque fancy schmancy bows on my boxes. I settled for the bag o' bows for my brother's boxes because I knew he wouldn't be impressed by my handiwork anyway. And now 30 years later, I don't even stick an adornment of any kind on my sons' presents. Let's look at it as my way of greening up the season.

I've decorated the house, including the bathrooms. I stopped short of the snowman toilet seat cover and rug ensemble. We have two full size trees and a handful of miniature ones scattered about the house. I even raced out to buy our new dog a stocking. I was *this* close to restaging or digitally enhancing our holiday card photo to include our newest addition. Mac Daddy poo-poohed my idea to send doggy birth announcements.

But humor me while I digress.

Fa la la la Lark!

<>


It's a good idea, no? Well, perhaps you should know his name is Lark before you go judging.

Anyway, we're not sending birth announcements for Lark. We might not even send holiday cards since I haven't ordered them yet. Perhaps we'll make it for New Year's greetings. Or realistically, there's always Arbor Day.

For some reason I cannot get my act together this Christmas. I'm an over achiever in all the wrong arenas. Homemade Christmas goodies, personal, thoughtful teacher gifts, stocking stuffers galore. Is it all really necessary? I even shopped ahead and have a stash of gifts squirreled away for Bird and Deal. Lord knows what's in that loot. I didn't keep track of what I bought. I pray it's gonna be equitable distribution of gifts. I suppose I'll find out when I dig it all out to start wrapping tomorrow night. And yeah, we even wrap stocking stuffers. Le sigh. On a positive note, I did find an ornament I bought for my mom last year and forget to give her. I'm pretty sure she'll still like the Obama glass ball this year.

I'm pretty much overwhelmed with Christmas this year. I haven't made any progress on our dinner and brunch menus, much less hit the grocery store. Is there pizza delivery on Christmas Day? A green pepper and tomato combo would be festive, no?

Among all the hubbub of the season, the single most important thing we did was deliver gifts to needy families. It wasn't just about the boys choosing something from a child's wish list (while meandering Target's aisles chanting "I want..." repeatedly). We hand delivered those boxes and met the very kids for whom we brightened Christmas.

And that made all the difference.

One house was in such squalor that we didn't let Deal out of the car. The wretched barking dog tied with a rope to the front porch cemented that for us. I was aghast at the living conditions in the house and was praying Bird didn't let his nose pucker at the stench, giving away our shared persnickety nature. It turns out he was a champ. He delivered two loads of boxes, met the children, displayed lovely manners, and excused himself to the car.

And all he said was, "Wow, Mommy, that house is a lot different from ours."

He remarked without judgment. Without pity. Without snobbery. He was simply observing the obvious differences in our home and theirs. Luckily it was dark so the boys couldn't really see the state of the yard and didn't take notice of the burned down boarded up house across the street. They were fixated on neighboring Christmas lights.

We haven't talked so much about the differences in our homes but we have talked about how grateful those kids will be to get simple things like the pajamas and socks on their wish lists. We talked about how the spirit of the season is about love and generosity and empathy. Regardless of religious affiliation and where you fall on the Santa debate, I think the spirit of Christmas is about Jesus' message, if not his birth. It's about the giving spirit that Santa imparts. Peace and goodwill abound.

Christmas is about sharing and love and joy and selflessness. And it's sprinkled with a healthy dose of glitter, non pareils, and nutmeg atop some bourbon enhanced egg nog.

Dear Santa, Bring me Gadgets. And an Elf.

(The following has been spellchecked by a grown up to save you, dear reader, from translating kid spelling.)


Dear Santa,

I would like another dart gun and a XBox 360 and a iPod Touch and a iPhone and a limousine and a big T-rex.

PS
Please bring all your elves so I can have one. And my own computer. And Play Station Three.


Two guesses who penned, rather penciled, that letter.

One hint: Deal can't do much more than write his own name.

Christmas lists sure have changed a lot since I was a kid (Oh, a sign of the age old generation gap!). Keep in mind Bird is six. In first grade. He has never seen an Xbox or a Playstation. And he doesn't ride to carpool in a limo, though I do wish I had a magic button to close that privacy window that limos have. Imagine driving in soundproof bliss!

I cracked up when I first read Bird's letter. I stuck it in his special box to save it. It's endearing in a way. But then I got to thinking. Some of you might argue that I was over thinking, but hear me out.

We are not a gadget family. Our television is almost 10 years old and weighs 200 pounds. Our other TV is a lousy 13 inch model that doesn't even have video inputs. And the remote is busted so it's stuck on local news or the Food Network most of the time. I still have a twirly cord phone in my office. Mac Daddy uses a ThinkPad that is more pad than think. I still have, and use, a camera that uses film. Gasp! We are not techie people by any stretch. We are clearly not hip enough to even be laggards. I bet you gadgety people out there are throwing up a little right about now. You must find us to be Losers, which I'm pretty sure is the technical consumer profile moniker for anyone ranking behind a Laggard.

So where does Bird get this affinity for all things electronic? What happened to his insatiable love of LEGO skyscrapers, Playmobil knights, and intricate art projects? What happened to his hankering for toys that spark imagination rather than suck it dry? What happened to his appetite for books and penchant for storytelling?

One visit from his uncle, my brother, and grandfather, my dad, changed his whole perspective. I'd go so far as to say it fucked it all up. They are tech heads. They get off on all things electronic and all things Apple. Their iPhones were appendages, as they so often are with all iPhone enthusiasts. They read news, checked scores, listened to tunes, flipped through photos, played games. Again, all the things iPhone addicts around the world do. But look people, there must be limits. Is it really necessary to always have phone in hand? I see it in meetings, lunch appointments, check out lines, and now among families.

The very contraptions that are supposed to be connecting the world are really just making us all more bubbled. We're connecting avatar to avatar, not face to face. Children should have no part of this world. What awaits them is even more mindblowing.

While children need to be comfortable with technology and wade into its depth at appropriate levels, they do not need to be immersed in it. They have a lifetime to wile away the hours in front of one screen or another. Their time to snuggle on a lap reading books or perching on the floor balancing blocks is limited. And Oh. So. Dear. Too much technology fast forwards them from precious to precocious in a blink.

And it sucks the creativity from the natural wealth of imagination that children harbor. Video games and iPhones might be cool, but they are not the way to engage a child. A six year old child. The time it takes to whiz through apps and gadgets is better spent playing Uno or coloring or playing frisbee or reading from chapter books. There's no benefit to dunking kids this young into technology. In fact, it's a diservice if you ask me....not that anyone did. You can't discount the power of play. Pure frolicking and mayhem peppered with giggles of glee. Kids develop relationships, build comfort, and gain confidence through unplugged means.

We are already a world of plugged in, uber connected, frenetic consumers (raising my own guilty hand here). There's no need, or value, to dragging children down with us. And yes, I do believe the direction we're doing is down. Etiquette, grace, articulate speech, proper punctuation, letter writing, meandering, stopping to smell the conversational roses. All gems from our past that are wilting as I type.

Needless to say, Bird's list won't be fulfilled this year. He had asked for a Nintendo DSi that we just might succumb to buying. That is, unless we find some cool new pieces at the LEGO store.

Oh, and that bit about wanting an elf? I'd love a psychologist's interpretation of that one! Then again, maybe I don't.

5:00 Fridays

Don't be fooled by my shoddy photography. That's no regular barber shop candy cane you see there. I have something way better in store.

Some of you regulars out there already know that I am the only Indian in the world who is bad at math and science. What you might not know is that I also have the world's worst sweet tooth. The. World's. Worst. One time Mac Daddy and I tried the South Beach Diet, and I'd hide in the pantry scarfing down packets of Splenda just to taste sugar (fake or otherwise). It's an illness. I'm telling you, it's hard to satiate this sugar crush I have.

I have been delighted to work with a new store in town called The Lollipop Shop. Can you imagine a more fitting gig?! All the cliches about being a kid in a candy shop would not be lost here. I went there to load up on lots of old skool treats before my brother came for a visit. Bottlecaps. Zotz. Those wax bottles filled with sugar syrup. Pixie Stix. Mallo Cups. Bird and Deal tagged along and filled their bags with the rainbow mix n' match smorgasbord of Jelly Bellys and M&Ms. Our dentist just might retire to Bora Bora if we keep this up.

Today's cocktail was inspired by perhaps the greatest marriage known to we non-teetotalers. Candy meets Cocktail.

The candy geniuses at Hammond's created the cocktail candy stick. The stick looks like a run-of-the-mill candy stick that used to cost a nickle at the Hickory Farms store at the mall and came in flavors like Horehound and Sassafras. Wow, those sounds pretty hoochie when coupled like that, eh? The cocktail stick not only makes for a lovely garnish (and you know how I feel about the importance of appearances), it flavors your drink.

The candy comes in a variety of flavors that I am totally going to try. I swear there's a perfect one for each season.

Fresh mint: This will be great in Hendrick's gin on the rocks when the first dogwood buds start poking out their weary little heads this spring.

Lemon Lime: Oh, this just might make it very difficult to leave the hammock come summer when paired with an ice filled Tervis Tumbler of Rain Organics Cucumber Lime vodka.

Sour apple: Luscious in a caramel martini by a fall fire.

Pomegranate: Hint...read on...


This makes for a fetching Christmas drink can that you can totally repurpose for Valentine's Day. And if you want to add these delightful candy cocktail stirrers to your bar, just contact The Lollipop Shop on their Facebook page. You can order some for way cheaper than I found them online. And for the record, just because the FCC cares about bloggers these days, this is a totally unpaid endorsement. I'm just sharing my amazing find with you, my cadre of happy hour pals.

With no further ado...drum roll please...


Ra Pa Pom Pom

Pomegranate juice
Lambrusco
Hammond's pomegranate cocktail stick

Pour about 1/2 ounce of cold pomegranate juice into a champagne flute. Top off with chilled Lambrusco. Add pomegranate cocktail stick.

The stick will flavor your drink, cutting the tartness of the pomegranate juice with a tish of sweetness. The natural air bubbles in the sticks make for a fine straw. Beware the danger of sucking these down.

Thanks. Giving.

At the risk of ringing the cliche bell and sounding treacly mushy, I'm going to tell you that today I am feeling particularly blessed. I am thankful for Mac Daddy and my family. I am most thankful for my Bird and Deal. I cannot imagine what I was thankful for before I had them. I am thankful that they gave me the kind of family I longed for.

On this day of pies, crumbles, brown bettys, cakes, dressings, gravies, turkeys, hams, taters, casseroles, and elastic waistbands, I want to just say that I am most thankful for the little things.

Those little things that are actually quite grand.

I am hugging my family a tish tighter.
I am counting my blessings a bit slower.
I am saying my prayers a pinch louder.

This Thanksgiving my heart is full. My belly is full. My life is fulfilled.

And in my prayers are my dear friend Jen who is battling stage 2 breast cancer, Anissa, 35-year old mother of three who suffered a massive stroke one week ago, my nieces who are desperately missing their mother, Mac Daddy's sister, who passed away eight years ago, and my father-in-law, the grandest of grandpas, whose gracious gravely laugh and 'Sconsin accent I still hear.

Let's take today to show Thanks for those who have touched us. And to be Giving of our hearts, our tolerance, our grace, our goodness, our selves.

Happy Thanks.Giving.

Wordless Wednesday: Veteran's Day Salute

"Um, why are we getting the day off from school to honor animal doctors?" Bird, age 6

5:00 Fridays

Funny how all holidays are colored with signature hues. Green and red for Christmas, despite the Ballard Designs and Pottery Barns of the world trying to trick us into adopting purples and blues and pinks. Red, white, and blue for Fourth of July. Brown for Arbor Day. Green for my Half Birthday, I mean St. Patrick's Day. Naturally Halloween conjures up spooky images of black and orange.

Store aisles have been festooned with the color combo since, oh, July (and what a clash with the red, white, and blue!). While the Halloween imagery used to teeter somewhere between cute and creepy, it has turned plain macabre in some places. There seem to be dead dudes with bad hair all over the Target aisles, and even the grocery store has one too many severed hands served up in a candy bowl to make me want to shop for food., at least not meat.

If you people want the creep factor exponentially revved up from years past, who am I to disappoint? These 5:00 Fridays libations are for the over-21 set anyway. If you have nightmares just hum "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain & Tennille like I did when I was a kid and got spooked by things that went bump in the night.

Today I bring you an unique concoction from our friends across the pond who speak with a lovely lilt and use the word "mate" as a noun.

Blavod Black Vodka Screwdriver (in the spirit of gory Halloween and revenge, let's pretend that this particular screwdriver bored its way into the brain of the asshole who just made snide racist comments about my friend's adorable little children yesterday...note the use of "bored," yet another homonym!)


2 shots Blavod black vodka
3 ounces pulp free orange juice or tangerine juice
corn syrup or honey
red food coloring

In a shallow dish, mix a couple of tablespoons of corn syrup or honey with several drops of red food coloring. Dip the rim of a highball glass into the mixture. It will drip down the sides like oozing blood. Add ice cubes and orange juice. Slowly pour the Blavod black vodka on top so the orange and black colors are layered. Serve with a straw or swizzle stick. This cocktail is best stirred before drinking, but the layered look packs a punch for Halloween presentation.

Boo!

Halloween, Dirt & Noise Style

I happen to be a big fan of Halloween. I love eating candy, dressing up in costume, being spooked, eating candy, dancing to the Monster Mash, snacking on candy corn mixed with dry roasted peanuts (a deliriously divine treat that my friend @turnaroundart turned me onto!), carving pumpkins, eating candy.

I also happen to look good in orange so I embrace any chance I get to sport it. If I keep on eating candy I just might look like a pumpkin myself one of these days. That'll save me money on my costume I suppose.

The boys of course love Halloween for all the same reasons I do. Mac Daddy hates Halloween for all the same reasons. He detests dressing up, could care less about spooky movies (He flat out laughed at Blair Witch Project whilst I peed in my pants.), hates candy corn, thinks dancing to Monster Mash is dorky, and is painfully uncreative when it comes to carving a jack-o-lantern. Meanwhile I buy pumpkins at every turn and even planted a kitschy scarecrow in our yard. Our table is bedecked with sparkly black and orange place mats, candy corn shaped candles, and plastic spiders. I listen to the Monster Mash station on Pandora and read Halloween stories in creepy voices with much ballyhoo.

I sounded every single one of my 41 years when I proclaimed to the boys that we'd be making our own costumes this year. Their mouths hung agape. And Mac Daddy laughed. Then these preachy words came out of my matronly mouth: "When I was a kid no one bought costumes. We used our imaginations and creativity to make stuff up. We were green without even realizing it. No one wasted money on costumes, even if that meant dressing up as a hobo or the unknown comic every single year of grade school." I must have spoken with authority because no one questioned me...though they clearly questioned my sanity. And for the record, I am the least crafty person I know. Luckily the boys are too young to know how ridiculous they might look, and by the time they figure it out, they will hate me for many more reasons (like the bowl haircut Bird seems to sport in every school picture).

I do hate all the high fructose corn syrup that cannot be avoided without paying an arm and a leg for carob bars or other such crap that the children would toss out with the razor bladed apples and arsenic laced popcorn balls. I wish there were some viable alternatives (stupid tombstone shaped erasers and skull emblazoned super bouncy balls aside). I suppose next year I could serve the fair trade natural stuff and rig up a fake gory arm and leg with a sign stating "I paid an arm and a leg for this candy."

Or I might just put up a sign that says "I paid an arm and a leg for healthcare. Can't afford candy."

In the mean time, I'll be dressed up as Rizzo and trawling the hood for candy. Bird will be a ninja warrior, and Deal will be his own super hero known as Super Deal. Mac Daddy will be dressed up as a corporate cube dweller who works for Da Man.

Paying it Forward

So the movie Pay it Forward actually kinda sucked. Am I wrong here? I mean Helen Hunt rocked it in her Mad About You days, and Haley Joel Osment was still cute then, but overall this movie blew chunks.

But the concept of paying it forward has really stuck with me. Call it karma. Call it divine justice. Call it what you will.

Case in point:

A tow headed young boy of four asks Santa for a train set for Christmas. The real deal. With lights, pretend steam blowing from the engine, tiny faux trees and conductors, a track that doesn't break if someone creaks on the floor next to it. A Lionel. Unparalled in the world of trainmanship. Yes, I realize that's not a word. Work with me and don't act as if you don't know what I mean. This little boy just wants a train set. A perfect train set. And so his grandmother goes on a hunt. A hunt for a steal. More than a bargain. She's become a highway robber.

Goodwill is about to answer this tow headed boy's dreams. Grandma finds a complete train set in fine working condition. For 90 bucks. Oh, excessive for a four-year old, but answering his dreams on Christmas morning is priceless. Thanks for ruining that term, by the way, MasterCard. Grandma collects the various cars, tracks, and accoutrements. She lugs it all to the counter and starts counting out her cash in fives and tens. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty...Eighty. Sounds of rifling through change, receipts, business cards, expired McDonald's coupons, to-do lists fill the air that seems to stand still. A lousy ten dollars short. No train for her fair haired grandson. Shoulders slumped, face forlorn, she gathers the pieces to return them to their spot on the shelf in back.

In sashays an old friend. "Why the long face?" she asks.

Grandma can barely summon an answer. She manages to faintly gesture to the train and mutters something about her four-year old grandson asking Santa for a train set. She's defeated and lacks the energy to catch up on niceties with this old chum.

"Ten bucks?! Why here's ten dollars! Merry Christmas to you and your grandson!"

And so the universe winked in its wily way, reminding her who's in charge.

You see, a few weeks ago this grandmother met a man at Goodwill. This very same shop. A man clean from months of treatment and job training. A man about to graduate to a new, sober life. He wanted to dress the part of success. He had borrowed a tie and had gently used pants in hand. Now if only he could find a collared shirt in which the collar buttoned snugly without choking his Adam's apple when he gulped. He relayed his story in casual yet ripely emotional conversation as they both pecked through the racks of discarded Joseph A. Banks oxford shirts. He hadn't enough money for a proper shirt and he dragged his feet as he somberly walked away, feeling spent, tired, sad,defeated once again.

Grandma slipped him a ten spot.

And the universe paid her back. Sobering indeed.

When Wrapping Becomes Obscene

Bird goes to a Go Green school. It is one of many reasons we adore his elementary school. And oh, do we adore it! His teacher (who rocks!) and principle share ideas with us every week to help us treat the earth in a gentler and kinder way. It's wonderful to see my children engaged in protecting the environment. What astounds me is the vernacular in their young conversations. Recycle. Reuse. Land fill. Soil content. Run off. Pollution. I assure you that I did not know these terms until about college when we started recycling all those Beast cans and bottle of white zin for the times we were feeling fancy. The other thing that makes me take note is that all of us, including the smallest of children, can have a hand, and indeed a responsibility, to help clean up our planet. The smallest, most inconsequential of acts can be enormous in aggregate. And by teaching our children a green lifestyle, we are giving them a gift. A gift of responsibility, civic engagement, sense of community, and a cleaner, healthier earth.

Christmas is perhaps the most un-Green of holidays, despite its evergreens and color scheme. The tinsel, garland, bows, plastic lawn ornaments, energy sucking light displays, blow up lawn art, boxes, styrofoam peanuts, bubble wrap (fun as it is to pop), greeting cards, fake snow. And that's not even including the damn toy packaging. Seriously, is it really necessary to require scissors, a regular screwdriver, phillips screw driver, pliers, wire cutters, and gorilla teeth to open a box of Little People and a Hot Wheels race track?

Wrapping paper is lovely, but let's be honest, it is a waste. A. Waste. Kids don't give a damn if you use the comics or fancy three-ply metallic embossed paper. And if the adults in your life care, they deserve coal. Pththtpthth (That's my attempt at a raspberry in onomatopoeia). So I struggle with the gift wrap thing at every birthday and tend to reuse gift bags. So I apologize if I have returned your gift bag. I assure you I am not regifting the gift. Unless it is the Lorax. We have three copies.

Tips for wrapping presents from our Go Green school: Instead of gift bags, buy reusable totes which come in all shapes and sizes! Instead of wrapping paper, reuse newspaper, brown paper bags, old posters or maps, pictures from calendar pages or heck, even old wrapping paper! It's fun to have the kids help decorate the brown paper bags with ink and stampers, stickers, markers, and my personal favorite (cough, cough) glitter glue. No one cares about the crinkles. They only care about the present inside. And I can't help you out there.

If every American family wrapped just three presents in recyclable materials, we would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. Reuse that ribbon! If every household reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet!

Now that's a present I'd love to give my children.

5:00 Fridays

Santa's famed list might delineate people by naughty or nice, but I'm willing to bet we're all a bit of both. Clearly, some sway more one way than the other. I'll leave it up to you to decide where the family at Chez Dirt & Noise fall.


Naughty But Nice
1/2 shot amaretto
1/2 shot peach schnapps
1 shot amarula cream
1 ounce cream

I believe Morningside Mom has tasted amarula cream straight from the plains of Africa. I'm taking her word that the stuff makes for a good cocktail. You see, we were separated at birth so I'm confident our taste buds play by the same rules. Never mind that she's blond and younger than I am. The time/space continuum has yet to be fully explored.

Now shake up all that goodness into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with chocolate shavings. Mmmm...

So you see, too many of these things will make you so nice that you do something naughty.

Christmas Clutter

I love Christmas. I love getting out the boxes of decorations from the attic. I love the story behind all our ornaments. I love the food. I love the excitement and anticipation in my boys' every move. I love the spirit, the fellowship, the merriment. But I hate the clutter.

Bows. Bags. Wrapping paper rolls unwinding all over the place. Tape, but never where and when I need it. Shipping boxes. Damn styrofoam peanuts (shame on companies that still use that stuff!). Greeting cards and those excruciating update letters. Pine needles. Baskets of fruit. Gingerbread houses. Elves on shelves. Bounty of cookies. Homemade paper plate crafts and pine cone ornaments. Candles. Bells. Invitations. Sticky egg nog cups. Advent calendar and the accompanying tiny ornaments. Vases of candy canes. Nutcrackers.

It's all driving me nuts.

I didn't inherit the decorating gene so my futile attempts at wrangling the wired ribbon, bows, greenery, and floral picks look like my son's kindergarten class threw a Whoville all nighter in my living room. I can't get anything to swag. The unsightly cords are plainly in sight. The bows are askew. The greenery droops. The garland sags. The lights flicker. The wreath slips every time I open the door. And falls when I close it. The shatter proof ornaments break. The berries are poisonous. The poinsettias turn brown. The tree teeters (and actually fell over last year). The embroidered stockings keep turning backwards. The train under the tree broke. Even the music skips.

Every year I practically study the pages of Southern Living and try to reinvent my dining table and mantle into a holiday bounty of decorations. I try so very hard. Every year I fail. I'm a pretty smart cookie. I can follow directions. I buy the stuff, trapsing through the aisles at my local garden shop and AC Moore. But I can't set a holiday table scape for the life of me. I sure wish Sandra Dee were my best friend.

So all the clutter is giving me a headache. What's more, it's making me feel incompetent. I love Christmas decorations. In other people's homes.

Cross posted at Deep South Moms.

An Age Appropriate Easter

Easter is fast approaching. That means cute (matching, natch) outfits for Bird and Deal. This was an easy task when the boys were gurgling, swaddled infants with rolls galore and delectable chubby cheeks. At 45 and 35 pounds and approaching the limits of the height charts, they no longer look cute in smocked john johns with bunnies and posies embroidered. The whole one piece outfit is no longer an option with the torsos on my kids. Despite their extraordinarily long torsos, there is no way in hell you'd catch me dressing my boys in frou frou garb. They are boys afterall, not babies. And certainly not sissies. ..not that there's anything wrong with that.

There has been a permanent ban on Little Lord Fauntleroy clothing at Chez Dirt & Noise. There comes a time for every mother (I'm not excluding fathers, but let's face it, they would throw the kids in a paper sack with holes cut out for head and arms and call it a day), to come to grips with the fact their boy babies turn into big boys. Rambunctious, rough and tumble, BOYS. Moms need to stop shopping at stores like Mommas Boy Clothing once the kid can feed himself solid food with an utensil of any kind, fingers included. Let's be real, it is highly unlikely that I would ever shop at a store called Mommas Boy Clothing at all. Folks need to quit making this stuff larger than a size 2T, lest those boys get the snot kicked out of them when Momma's watchful eye strays.

Dressing Bird and Deal in traditional Easter attire would just make them look ridiculous, akin to the mother of a high school classmate I recall who wore mini skirts and anklets with spiky heels in 1985 because it was all the rage among teenage girls. She wore such a getup thinking she looked young and hip. In reality, she looked old and dreadful. Costumed, even. I am now as old as she was then, and you wouldn't catch me in any of the crap teenage girls are wearing these days. Another reason I'm glad to have sons! Those of you with daughters have uber fabulous options for Easter attire now, but wait until those girls want bling on their too tight shirts and cutesy words across their bottoms. Will someone please quash this trend?

Now the quandary is how to dress the boys appropriately for Easter photos without knee socks, saddle shoes, and a peter pan collar? Last year was freezing so we made do with madras pants and sweaters...I couldn't wrangle them into the white bucks I bought so those still sit anew in the closet. I'm going to cram their little (or not so little) feet into those shoes for a photo opp this year. At this rate, it might be the only Easter garb they wear.