mellicious | Entries tagged with traditions

Apparently our Christmas Eve - or Christmas Day gift, one or the other or both, is going to be rain. Nothing like cold rain to put you in the holiday spirit. (Although it's not even that cold right now, so if we're lucky, if it rains, it at least won't be freezing rain.) But I saw 80-90% chance of rain tomorrow in our neck of the woods.

I texted my sister to say "Christmas Eve Gift" - it's a race. Not that there's a prize or anything. But whoever says it first supposedly wins anyway. (Still, I'm pretty sure my grandma would be pleased to hear we're carrying on that little tradition. Even Rob got into it, last year.)

Somebody was talking about New Year traditions, and the only one my family really had was black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, and I never remember in time. We went out to an early dinner at Cheddar's and they might have had them if I had thought to ask, but I didn't.

And I completely forgot about football until we got home. It's almost 8:00 (Central time) and Michigan just beat Alabama, we got to see the end of that, and so either Texas or Washington - whose game is just starting - will play them (in Houston!) next Monday. I had one smallish Longhorn sticker (I'm sure most people know vaguely what I mean, but like this) and I did remember to go put that on the new car. That's sort of a superstition, really, too, right? I feel like I would be being a bad Longhorn if I forgot that!

I almost decided to do a meme, but nah, I'll stop here. See y'all next year, Holidailies!

I end up mentioning the "Christmas Eve gift" thing practically every Christmas (look in the comments here for more into), but Rob and I have been married for, what, 33 years now (!!) and he said it to me today without any prompting whatsoever - I'm pretty sure it's the first time he's ever done that. I guess he's heard it an awful lot over the years, though - he was around when my grandma and my mother used to go around saying it every year, after all. (Then I looked at my phone and my sister had already texted me to say it, as well. If it's a contest to see who can say it first, then she won.)

We had our "Christmas dinner" today and are just going to have leftovers tomorrow. It was nothing fancy, though - lasagna and apple pie. And we watched While You Were Sleeping, which I hadn't seen in years and years. (I remembered who Sandra ended up with but I couldn't exactly remember how it all worked out.) We enjoyed it. And it's sort of a Christmas movie - basically in the Die Hard sense, where Christmas is just going on in the background but isn't really that integral to the plot. -- Disney+ has it in the holiday movie section, if you have that and you want an easy way to find it.

Our original plan was to drive to San Antonio tomorrow, and that's a really long drive and I can't say I'm sorry we didn't have to do it! I did get to see my sister briefly last week, and in a few months they'll be here (15-20 minutes away, that is) full-time. I haven't lived that close to my sister since we lived in the same house, a million years ago.

Current Mood: full

I don't have kids, so I didn't know Elf on the Shelf existed until a year or two ago, and I didn't know what the deal was with it (that is, moving it around in the house, etc.) until this year, when I finally saw somebody's pictures. It's sort of simultaneously creepy and cute - but I bet kids get a kick out of it. They must, right? or it wouldn't have stuck around this long. I notice it comes in various ethnicities and genders, which is nice of them. Although I guess that's pretty standard for toys nowadays, isn't it? The whole thing is very commercial, but eh. I think if your kids like it, it's fine. I do think it may depend a great deal on how parents present it - if you use it to hit your kids over the head metaphorically, in a sort of Big Brother is watching you kind of way, that's not so fine. But if you're the kind of parent who goes overboard with that kind of thing, the elf may be the least of your kids' problems. (I am now tempted to google and see if there's anything about kids being totally freaked out by Elf on the Shelf, but I think I'm in danger of way overthinking this question.)

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Entries tagged with traditions

Christmas Eve Gift

Football and black-eyed peas

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Elf on the Shelf? a very uninformed opinion

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