Mandajuice

Christmas in Crazy Town!

It's been a dark, dark December for Mama, but these fools give me constant reason to do the work, as hard as it can be at times. I realize that I've fallen down the rabbit hole of avoidance and it isn't so much intentional as it is that I haven't figured out quite how to talk about it yet.

But my Christmas gift to y'all is that I promise I will. I'm working on it. I mean, seriously, what good is a nervous breakdown if I can't blog my way through it?

In the meantime, I hope you are relishing your holiday, whatever it might entail. It's no secret that this blog LITERALLY kept me alive this year and that's what I'll be reflecting on in celebration of baby Jesus' birth tomorrow. Gratitude does a lot for one's sanity. Well, gratitude and lots and LOTS of crying.

So: THANK YOU. I wish there was some special gratitude font so y'all would know exactly how much I mean it.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Nog on this!

Last night I made eggnog. I'm not gonna lie, I've never made it before and my freshman effort TOTALLY changed my mind about the beverage (which I formerly LOATHED). I made this recipe, except when it called for 1/2 cup of spiced rum, I assumed they meant, like, double* that. The only thing is, you have to stir it A LOT.

Which is kind of a PITA when there's a Christmas tree on top of your car. We put the nog outside in the (literally) freezing air to cool off while we brought in The Beast.

It's hard to tell who's most excited about the tree because the DOG is the only one in this picture who's been celebrating Christmas for more than a decade:

I love that every holiday with Joel is an opportunity to show him just EXACTLY what Over The Top means. I was hoping to appall him with my abundance of Christmas trimmings, but the garage! It has already become my own personal Bermuda Triangle. We only brought in what we could easily reach.

And by "we" I mean THEM. Duh. Obviously. I was busy drinking stirring egg nog.

Meanwhile Joel and I managed to bring in the tree and set it up together without a single word of bickering. I would argue that this is 100% proof that he's my soul mate, but then again, I was wearing a tiny little short plaid skirt and bright red lipstick and the man does own a penis, so, you know, not exactly a scientific control group there.

After we set up the tree, Joel made all of us a dinner of steak and tater tots and I'm not gonna lie: it didn't really hurt his sex appeal AT ALL. Especially when he topped it off by lip-syncing Pavarotti and Sinatra with his daughter.

Of course, after dinner we had to take a trip to Wal-Mart for Christmas lights because almost every strand I had in storage was broken. When we got back, it was DECORATING TIME!

(I love that photo. A lot. Maybe even more than I love my DOG. If Joel ever dies on me and I have to bury him, I'm gonna get one of those gravestones where you can etch a photo into the granite and it will feature THAT PICTURE.) (FOR ETERNITY!)

After dinner, it was TREE TIME! We enlisted the children. At least those with ovaries.

Click on that photo to embiggen it and get a glimpse of our new living room! We sold my fancy leather couch and bought TWO vintage couches, one of which you can see above. It's gold. And rad. And built in 1953. When the vintage shop we got it from bought it at an estate sale, it had a hand gun buried in the far left cushion. THAT's how badass it is.

Also worth noting is the wall color. Which will be the first thing to go in the house. It's almost as if someone was GOING for Tiffany's blue, but totally overshot and ended up in a baby boy's over-exuberant nursery. We're thinking of replacing it with a nice colonial blue. (And by "we," I mean Joel.) (Which is awesome! A man who can decorate LIKE A BOSS! And he isn't gay! How did I get so lucky?!) (Seriously, he has MAD PLANS for this room. Plans that involve 1970's wood paneling and a ban-saw.)

Eventually Alex came out of his room to help us decorate.

I somehow captured his eyelashes in this photo. I only wish it wasn't unbearably blurry because he is so beautiful it almost breaks my heart.

Mostly I just walk around my house in a daze thinking, HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY?

Merry Christmas, indeed.

 

*And by "double," we all know I meant TRIPLE.

First night!

My children are all snug and warm in their VERY OWN BEDS. They went straight to sleep, which is making me want to knock on just about every retirement-aged floor board in this entire house. I'm sure it's just the novelty, but still. STILL. Awesome first night with the kids!

It helps a lot that Joel and I are kicking butt and taking names with the unpacking. I'm TOTALLY caught up on laundry and pretty much everything other than non-necessities is 100% put away in a place we can both find it again.

Then there's the garage, which is another story all together.

It turns out that I was in just the teensiest, tiniest bit of DENIAL when I ended my marriage. I mean, part of me remembers that there were a lot of boxes of paperwork in the garage, but I killed that part of me with a mac truck full of vodka and/or dates with cute bald boys. It took me literally by surprise that the movers needed over an hour to empty my garage into a truck. Then, when the stuff went INTO our garage, it shocked me even more that it took up So Much Space.

I may need an intervention. Because the idea of opening all of those boxes of worms kind of terrifies me.

I also need to find all the boxes labeled CHRISTMAS by Wednesday, when I promised Liza we'd go shopping for a tree.

Somebody hold me.

Or, alternatively, THIS GUY, who mowed all the lawns today, could hold me:

I'm always A-OK with that.

We survived the move!

I'm officially a Portlander now, which feels surprisingly awesome. Especially since the water in Oregon is softer and does good things for my hair.

So far we LOVE the house. Of course, like anything, it has a learning curve. On the first night, we spent half an hour in the muddy back yard searching around by the light of our cell phones trying to find what we thought was a lost chicken. We put the other two in the coop and figured we'd find a body the next morning, but when the sun came up, the lost lady came trotting out with her sisters like she hadn't scared us half to death.

Last night we cooked dinner in the new kitchen for the first time and it's going to take me a while to figure out how to use an electric stove again, not to mention an electric oven (oddly not as hot as gas...). Joel lit a fire in the fireplace and discovered his own learning curve about opening the flue. Let's just say we tested the smoke detectors and it turns out they work great!

I'm still hovering back and forth between extreme bliss and abject fear, but Joel, like always, is a rock. EVERYTHING rolls off his back, so when I got snotty that he texted me about turning off the lights (HELLO MARRIAGE FLASHBACK!) and accused him of getting too husband-y on me, he just laughed and promised he'll never give me a speech if I forget to turn them off. Which was refreshingly un-husband-like!

I miss my kids, though. MAN. I dropped them off at their dads for Thanksgiving and because of the move and the trip to Klamath Falls, I haven't seen them in a week and that is just WAY TOO LONG for me. I was planning to sneak off and have lunch with them at school today, but a last-minute appointment came in and I'm in absolutely no position to turn away work. Fortunately, I pick them up tomorrow for the day and then we all get our first week in the house together beginning on Monday.

I'm not sure why, but there's something about living in a house that makes you feel more like a family. I know people will accuse us of shacking up and neither of my kids will ever call Joel their step-dad (because we refuse to get married), but this is the family I've made for myself and Sweet Lord Baby Jesus, lying there in his little ghost manger, I LOVE IT.