Advent Memories Day 5 : Christmas Eve in CoMo

I mentioned in another post that my family doesn't keep a whole lot of traditions.  When Beth started college and we started celebrating Christmas in Columbia, we did come up with our own new Christmas Eve tradition.  Like I mentioned before, my church had two services...one at 6pm and one at midnight.  They were not the same, so we chose to go to both.  After the 6pm service, we always drove straight to Olive Garden where one of us would run in to pick up a salad and breadsticks to-go (who doesn't love their salad & breadsticks?  I confess that even in the midst of all the amazing NYC restaurants, I have gone to the Olive Garden in Times Square twice since I've lived here just to get a taste of that salad goodness).  After the Olive Garden pit-stop, we'd head home where we'd be greeted with soup my mom had made...I can't remember what kind of soup we had, but I do remember that we loved this meal of soup and salad!  After our dinner, we'd load back in the car and ride around town looking at Christmas lights.  My mom usually had an article from the newspaper with her that listed the best lit houses around town.  They were often out in the boonies, but I think we usually managed to find them.  Dinner then lights was just the perfect amount of activity to get us back to church for the midnight candle light service...where we always lit our candles to the tune of Silent Night.

Advent Memories Day 4 : Dallas Lights

During our stay in Dallas every Holiday season, we would always have one night of driving around looking at Christmas lights.  There were some houses that went all out every year and it was unlike anything we could ever see in Missouri.  Our favorite house was on Lovers Lane...not far from where each set of my grandparents lived at the time.  This house on Lovers Lane (don't you just love that street name?) had lights every where and a huge Christmas scene all over their front yard.  There was a life-size sleigh with a real Santa inside and every year (at least in my youngest years), Santa would hand out huge lollipops to all the kiddos who came by.  We loved it!!

Advent Memories Day 3 : Rocking the Babes

At some point during my junior high or high school years, my mom took on the volunteer job as the nursery coordinator at our church.  This meant that I was often the "on-call" nursery worker.  During the years that we spent Christmas in Columbia, there was often a need for a nursery worker on Christmas Eve and I was often the one to fill that role.  My mom never made me do it and although I've always loved Christmas Eve church services, I usually didn't mind missing the service to stay with the babies.  And, actually, during our CoMo Christmases, my family often went to both the 6pm service and also the midnight service because they were different and it was just the 4 of us and we had nothing else to do!  The nursery was only open during the earlier service, so I still got to go to the late night one. Most parents chose to take their toddlers or older kids to this special service, but there was always a baby or two left in the nursery.  And there was something so sweet about rocking a baby in my arms in the quietness of the church while waiting for the service to end.  Silent Night, indeed!

Help Me Shop!!

I am going to a Christmas Party and Scarf Exchange in a couple of weeks (isn’t that the greatest idea??). I’m so excited about it. I’ve been browsing Etsy for some cute scarfs..can you believe that Etsy has over 2,000 pages of scarfs?? No, not 2,000 scarfs, 2,000 PAGES with multiple scarfs on each page! A little overwhelming to say the least. I made it through the first 15 pages and have picked out 5 that I like. However, I’d like to know…which do YOU like? I want to get something that people at the party will gravitate towards…no one wants to bring the dud gift to a gift exchange! So, I'm going to go with the majority here.  Please leave your vote in the comments section!!

Scarf #1  -- I like the unique color on this one and I like how the sparklyness dresses it up!

Scarf #2 - I like this one because it is different and I think it's fun that it can be worn 3 different ways!  If I get this one, I think I'll include a print-out of these pics so the recipient knows how it can be worn.

Scarf #3 - I love ruffly scarfs and anyone can use this grey color!

Scarf #4 - Again with the ruffles!  I also liked the fun colors of this one.

Scarf #5 - Like the ball trim and the sheerness of this one.  Comes in lots of colors, but I think I'm partial to the white!

Alternatively, if you’ve seen an amazing scarf at a store recently (preferrably a store I can find here or online), let me know and I’ll check that out, too.  Vote soon, I need to order ASAP!  Thanks!

Advent Memories Day 2 : Christmas Eve Day Tradition

My family is not a “traditions” family. We don’t have a lot of things we do the same from year to year. Sometimes I wish we did have a little bit more tradition, but for the most part, we love trying new things, exploring something different, embarking on a new adventure. I guess you could say we’re all a bit ADD.

But, we have had a few traditions that lasted over certain periods and one tradition we had for many years when I was younger was our plans for the day of Christmas Eve. We always, always spent this day with Beverly. Beverly was my mom’s best friend at Baylor. She is the sweetest lady with the thickest Texas accent you will ever meet. We don’t get to see her often anymore, but we love her. Her family lives in East Texas, but Beverly’s parents lived in Dallas, so like us, they were also there for Christmas every year. On the morning of December 24th, Beverly would always pull up to my Grammy’s in her suburban loaded with her 3 kids, Ali Kay (named after my mom), Stacey, and Jeff. My mom, Beth and I would pile in and off we’d go. Shopping was always the agenda. Today, it seems crazy that 2 moms chose to take their 5 kids shopping on Christmas Eve of all days! But, that was our tradition. We always hit up the same places – NorthPark Mall and a children’s clothing store on Preston Road called Audra’s or Andra’s or something like that (it’s no longer there). It was across from Chocolate Soup and I imagine there were some years when we also popped in that store because its clothing made up the majority of my wardrobe in my youngest years. NorthPark is (to this day) the greatest mall at Christmas time (well, anytime, really). It is so festive and decorated beautifully and they have several kid friendly Holiday activities going on. We were never short on entertainment there. It was always a very joyful day. I often find myself wishing that Beverly and her crew would wind up in Dallas for Christmas again so we could revive our tradition and include the newest generation....there are now 11 grandkids between Beverly and my mom!

Scrooge's House @ NorthPark Mall

Things That Were Heard - Thanksgiving 2010

It will take me a bit to get around to uploading/editing photos and writing the blogs to go along with my family Thanksgiving WEEK+ in NYC. In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you some things that were heard, rather than seen during the Holiday vacay....

Sweetest Words...
Beau -- "SuSu, I like you."
Me -- "I like you too, Beau!"
Beau -- "I am glad we are all the same family."
Melt my heart.

Foulest Language...
Beau, describing his ice skating experience to KayKay -- "I did a firefart!"
We have no idea where he picked that one up, but he was pretty adamant that it is NOT a potty word, rather an ice skating term.

Maybe Brian should have taken the Foulest Language crown....
Upon my arrival at 6AM to the parade route, I witness Brian in a strange ladies face saying "Back off bi***!"
Yeah, I was slightly worried how the rest of our 3.5 hours of waiting was going to go. Luckily, that first minute was the worst of it.

Ryder's Sweet Dreams....
Ryder, early one morning -- "SuSu, do you have ice skates?"
Me -- "No, I don't own my own ice skates."
Ryder -- "No, no. I mean can you get me some ice skates? You know, at that place where you work?"
Me -- "Well, maybe. I'm not sure if we have any in your size, but I'll check! What made you think of this idea?"
Ryder -- "I just dreamed about it!"

Funniest Sound...
The very loud boom & pop at the parade when the caterpillar balloon handlers decided to get fancy and run circles with him right in front of us. They ran him straight into a one-way street sign. Hilarious!

Random Comment....
Dad, as the Pillsbury Doughboy balloon came down the street -- "Guess it's time to pop open a can of biscuits."

Big Demands...
KayKay, while telling the story of Snow White to the boys one night had to stop several times and say "I can't remember what happens next, so we'll just skip to the next part."
Ryder: "Maybe you should just tell us The Three Bears. You know that one!"

Most Tense Moment...
Brian, in an anxious tone..."Where's the backpack?"
Beth... "Oh, no."
Susan..."Beth, did you leave it on the park bench?"
Brian...no words, but his face turned the brightest red I've ever seen.
Luckily, they ran back to the bench and found it...everything intact.

Ryder's response to most questions...
Ryder, what was your favorite balloon? "Um...all of it!"
Ryder, what was your favorite train? "Um....all of it!"
Ryder, what was the coolest thing you saw from Top of the Rock? "Um...all of it!"

Parting Words....
Me: "Beau, I'm not going to get to see you again. You're going back to Dallas tomorrow."
Beau, in his best whiny voice: "Owhhh. But I like you!"

Advent Memories Day 1 : Where Was I?

I decided that instead of an advent calendar, I’m going to count the 25 days to Christmas down by going down memory lane. Hopefully, I can pull off one Christmas memory for every day.

Let’s just start with the basics. Christmas through the years…where was I?

Texas! I’ve spent the far majority of my Christmases in Dallas. It wasn’t until I was 15 that I spent Christmas anywhere else. We lived in Dallas for my first few and once we moved to Missouri, we would make the road trip back for a week or two over the Holidays. My parents were really the first in either of their families to move away from Texas so all of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and beyond were in Dallas all those years. We had plenty of people there to visit and celebrate Christmas with.  Once my sister started college, we started doing Missouri Christmases because she (and later I, too) needed a break at home during that time. And at that time, Missouri was home to us. After I graduated from college, things get a little fuzzy. My parents were in California at that time and we spent some (2-4) of those seven Christmases in Cali and some in Texas…I can’t remember how many in each place though. There was also one Christmas during that time period that we spent skiing in Monarch, Colorado with our extended family on my dad’s side. Since the time my parents moved from Cali and back to Texas in 2005, we’ve spent every Christmas in Dallas. We’ll be back there this year. So out of 34 Christmases (1976-2009), I’ve spent 22-24 of them in Texas, 7 in Missouri, 2-4 in California, and 1 in Colorado.

I’m hoping for Hawaii in 2011 :) Beth & I are discussing and need to pull mom and dad in the loop (Nicole…you want to start discussions amongst the CanStonIs crowd)?