The Christmas Catch-Up Post

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, filled with friends, family, and food...just like ours! Christmas this year was such a blast; Squiggles definitely understood the idea of presents better this year than last year, and had a lot of fun tearing the paper off his packages. I say "tearing" but it was more like controlled peeling. He would peel back the smallest bits of paper, and the gift was not unwrapped until every bit of paper and tape had been removed from the package. I guess he's a lot like me in that way, though hopefully it won't last because I know I drive everyone crazy with how I unwrap gifts! Anyway, he would get frustrated if he couldn't get the present opened right away, but he's going on 2, so he gets frustrated if his toys look at him funny these days.

We had our little family Christmas here before we left for Ohio, and it turned out to be such a great day. Squiggles and I made cookies, and I fixed a few of Brian's favorite foods for our celebration. We did it all up as if it were Christmas Eve, putting out cookies and milk for Santa and reading "The Night Before Christmas". I don't think Squiggles really gets the idea of Santa and the birth of Jesus still, but we sure had fun with it. He was definitely excited, even if he didn't really know why.

After we opened presents (Squiggles got entirely too many action figures!) and ate breakfast, we got dressed in our shorts and took cookies to our neighbors. We all agreed that taking a walk in the sunshine was a good Christmas tradition to start.

The next day we drove to Orlando to stay with Brian's brother, Phill, for a night before we all headed up to Ohio. I am so thankful that Phill was on the same flight with us; I was so sick all day. Brian and Phill picked up a lot of the slack, and the crew on our flight were extremely helpful, so everyone made it through just fine. I just had a 24-hour thing, so I did get to enjoy the rest of our trip.

Christmas was wonderful! We got to spend a lot of time with both families, and Squiggles was sufficiently spoiled. His present opening technique did not change, but he did develop a fascination with bows (we don't usually use them). He would go around the room, pick the bows off of everyone's presents, and then redistribute them. Hilarious!

He also developed a keen sense of how to respond to each gift. Especially the clothes. Of course, we told him to say "thank you" after he opened a gift, but when he opened a box with clothes in it, he would pull each piece up in front of his face, shout "woo!" and then throw it backward over his head. You could definitely see the "Gee, thanks, Grandma, another pair of socks is just what I wanted" look on his face.

We even got to spend some time with our friends from our BCC home group, along with being able to attend two services at BCC. Oh, how we missed our church! The process of finding one here is daunting only because it has such a high standard to live up to.

So here's to a great 2009! May your year be filled with smiles, love and...dancing!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone! We are all enjoying time with family and friends right now, but we'll be back to posting soon. Santa brought us a new camera, so get ready for an onslaught of pictures to make up for the last three months!

Squiggles is just one bad Christmas sweater away from perfection right here...

Ho Ho Ho!

I just saw this great post on Lifehacker...apparently, you can dress up your Flickr photos by using Easter egg notes. Of course, I couldn't resist dressing my boys up as Santa...



Brian looks really happy as Santa, don't you think? But Squiggles makes an adorable St. Nick!

Toy Safety

With Thanksgiving next week, I am reminded that we are hurtling toward December 25 (which seems impossible!). I know there is a lot of concern about toy safety these days, so I thought I'd pass along a site that I visit quite frequently.

HealthyToys.org is a project of the Ecology Center, a nonprofit based out of Michigan. The site tests all kinds of toys, gear, and mealtime necessities (bibs, plates, etc.) for different chemicals like lead and chlorine, then posts the results on their site; picking up the ball that our government agencies have dropped. You can search their database by toy type or brand, keep a personal list of toys, and vote on which toys they should test next.

They will be posting over a hundred new results on Dec 3, so this is a good time to surf over there and familiarize yourself with the site. I ended up throwing out a few of Squiggles's toys based on their findings, and I have an idea of what to look for when shopping for new toys - and putting together a Christmas wish list.

And what holiday would that be, exactly?

I saw this little story on Snopes.com yesterday about Lowe's calling their Christmas trees "family trees" in a recent holiday catalog. Now, to be fair, Lowe's admits that the "family tree" moniker was an error, and that their TV and magazine ads, and fliers from here on out will bear the word "Christmas" in the description. So please don't go boycotting Lowe's!

However, this brought a familiar ire to the surface for me. Retailers switched from "Christmas" to "holiday" advertising some years ago, which, in a way, I can understand. The "holiday" season starts right around Halloween and lasts through New Year's Day, so I can understand lumping all the holidays in this time period together for marketing ease. What I don't understand is why the "holiday" decorations and marketing are almost always related to Christmas, yet the word is rarely seen or mentioned anywhere!

If you decorate your store with evergreen trees strung with lights and ribbon, put a Santa hat on your store mascot, hang red and green banners, and play "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night", are you invoking images of Thanksgiving? Hanukkah? Kwanzaa? Ramadan? New Year's Day? No! These are, without a doubt, solely Christmas trappings.

Why the ambiguity, then? So as not to offend non-Christians or those opposed to Christmas? Fine; I am not one to judge, but wouldn't the proliferation of the obviously Christmas theme without the inclusion of your preferred holiday encroach on offensive as well? Wouldn't you say to yourself, "Ah, my favorite store is celebrating the holiday season. Wait, what's with all the Christmas trees? Where's the (insert preferred holiday symbol here)?" When is the last time you saw a menorah in a "holiday" display? Plus, aren't retailers at all concerned with offending Christians, too?

And then there are the well-meaning employees that I will come across who will wish me a hearty "Happy holidays!" I suppose I can understand the generality here, more so than with their employers ("Happy Internet Explorer Day!" "I hate Internet Explorer - viva Firefox!"). Why risk invoking an angered response when you're just trying to do your job? Perhaps I could adopt Chef's response; an even heartier "Merry Christmas to you, too!"

In the end, I know that retailers are really just unwilling to lose even one of the $474.5 billion dollars they hope to rake in this year by potentially offending someone. I know that Christmas is becoming an increasingly commercial holiday. Fewer and fewer people are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

And that makes my heart break.