Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” Ahhh, remember the good ole days? When life and love was so simple so straightforward (when we were 7 years old).
Good times.
On the other hand, from a very young age, I was more than just mildly interested in boys. I liked to flirt and I loved the attention it drew. The idea of kissing fascinated me… I would practice by myself, stare at couples kissing in public, and when I finally had my first kiss with a boy, I left nothing to chance. We planned it out carefully on the phone (he was also my first boyfriend), agreeing that the big event would occur on our date to the random movie Cross Creek (AKA, an empty movie theatre we would have all to ourselves) and to be careful (we both had braces).
It was pretty spectacular.
At this point, my kids are young, so – blessedly – I have at least a few good years left before they start planning makeout sessions or spontaneously kissing a boy or girl. But I can already see the little seeds have been planted.
I’ve written about the time my son cleverly told the girls in our carpool ride that he would “never marry” because he “never wanted to have to kiss a girl,” and then when the girls told him he HAD to marry someday, he immediately turned around and asked them, “okay, then which one of you do I kiss first?”
Smoooooth…
And we know how he loves the kissing scenes on TV. Well, turns out, the buck doesn’t stop there. Because in passing, around Christmastime, I explained to my kids what mistletoe was (it was hung up at a house we went to)… and the other day, (weeks later) – my son oh so casually asked me, “is mistletoe only for Christmas? Or is it all year?”
He’s plotting.
Literally. He wants to plant a mistletoe farm in our backyard then pin the branches up all over his school, our house, the Kabbalah Centre.
I’ve got to try and keep him out of Cross Creek as long as I can…
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
Such an innocent-looking plant... unless it's in the hands of a plotting young Romeo...!
Give me a Break
I love The Week magazine. And by “love” I mean, it’s crack.
Pop SAT Quiz: choose the answer with the same relationship as the top example.
1. The Week: Magazines
a. Chocolate: Food
b. Baby Kittens: Spam Emails
c. The Daily Show: Television
d. Crack cocaine: Drugs
e. All of the Above
Where am I going with all of this? In short, arriving at conclusion: I am nothing short of a petulant, cranky jonesing addict when my Week Magazine doesn’t arrive for two weeks straight over the winter holiday (not to mention the 2 weeks they shut down during the summer). How dare they!! Don’t they know that their readers need their crack I MEAN THEIR MAGAZINE more than ever, during the dreary ‘lots of time to read’ holiday break?
I mean, COME ON!
But as my kvetchy Jewish great aunt probably never said but let’s pretend she would have (with a nasally New York accent), “who am I to complain?”
Because… I meant to keep up my GrownupGirl blog while I was on my “break”. I put the word ‘break’ in quotation marks because I was actually working the whole time during my one week out of the office (btwn Christmas & New Year’s), and actually, my job got busier than ever, PLUS I was home with my three kids full time for the week, but anyway, it was a “break” from routine, that’s for sure… (and by ‘break from routine’, yes, I mean I ate about three thousand cookies and hundreds of desserts and drank a good bit too).
[A break, by the way, which was also AMAZING and wonderful because it allowed me to spend so much time with my kids that it spawned an equal number of fantasies that I should ‘chuck it all’ and be a stay-at-home mom as wells as endless fertile opportunity for more fun blogs like this one I wrote (the week before my break, but the first week of their break).]
Anyhoo – bottom line: I’m sorry I left you guys hanging. And by “hanging” I mean devoid of new Grownup Girl Goodness. I meant to keep writing. I actually thought perhaps I’d write more than usual, since I wouldn’t be in the office all day like my usual routine. Turns out, life is MORE hectic, not LESS, when you stay at home with three little kids AND still have to work practically full time from home.
So…. welcome back, world! I’m sorry I left you for a while. And, while I won’t flatter myself to think that The Grownup Girl is as addictive to any of you as the above list is to me (the ‘crack’ bit just in theory, of course, you know – so I’ve heard…) – I imagine it is possible that a few of you stopped by while I was gone and were perhaps just a little disappointed not to see some new stuff.
Here’s to hoping this year will bring us all more joy, abundance, love, health, peace and creativity….
Here’s to a Grownup Girl World!!
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
Racheli deciding that her new "Orbeez" WILL be the mani-pedi kind - even tho the kind "Santa" bought her was actually for making necklaces. Yeah, this is the kind of thing that happens when you're home for a week with the kids...
Yep. And this is what happens when you sleep in, and tell the kids they can "dress themselves" for a change.
Flashback Friday! (Christmas-Themed, of course: DECK THE HALLS WITH TODDLER SIZED NUTCRACKERS)
Every Friday, I will post an oldie but a goodie blog for your enjoyment. To those of you who just started reading The Grownup Girl recently, enjoy the “new” blog! To those of you who have been with me from the start, but have memories like mine, enjoy the “new” blog!
And to those who were with me from the start and who already read this blog and burned it into your memories, word for word, photogenically, I say:
What are you doing wasting your time dilly-dallying on my website? Get out there and find me a book deal!
I bet my mom’s Christmas decorations could beat up your mom’s Christmas decorations.
Every Christmas, my Jewish mother lines her staircases with toddler-size Nutcrackers. Soft Christmas music pipes in through the speakers, Snow white reindeer fight with pinecone candles and holly for position, and a tree the size of the Hulk stands tall, adorned with ornaments spanning four decades.
The ‘decoration’ aspect of Christmas at my mother’s house may be getting a little out of control. Each year there are more and more giant Nutcrackers, more holly, more stockings, more cranberries… and last year, two additional Christmas trees popped up, each decorated, one in front of the guest house and one at the end of the driveway.
Don’t forget, gentle readers, we’re Jewish.
But there are grandkids to impress, by golly! They must be dazzled by candy canes, wowed by exploding stockings that magically fill the night before Christmas, and passionate about leaving Santa the perfect amount of cookies and milk – and his reindeer carrots – so Santa and his crew will have enough stamina to hit the rest of the world’s children before sunup.
Never mind that my kids are… uh… very Jewish. As in, they speak Hebrew with their Israeli dad (my husband, who, by the way, I have trained to absolutely love Christmas, too – to the degree that now, every Christmas, he constantly berates me, telling me I’m too stingy with gifts and we need to get more, more, MORE for everyone!).
My kids go to a (Spiritual, Kabbalah, but still,) Jewish school. They listen to the Torah every Saturday, don’t touch electricity every Shabbat and holiday, eat Kosher, and generally are not accustomed to hearing anything about Christmas or Santa Claus outside of every single cartoon that is played in the months of November and December and… my family.
My son’s friends have ‘set him straight’ a number of times about Santa, but he’s not stupid. Last year, he reasoned to me, “Ima!” (Yep, we’re thatJewish; he calls me the Hebrew word for ‘Mom’) – “I’ve figured out why no one thinks that Santa is real!”
“Really?” I asked, curious where this was going. “Why?”
“Because he’s in Maryland!”
Maryland is where my mother lives.
Where, every Christmastime, the toddler Nutcrackers march up the stairs to take their post opposite the banner, the countless mini Nutcrackers cover any -gasp! – bare spot that doesn’t already boast a Christmas tchotchke, the three Christmas trees live, the sixteen or so stockings hang (2 for their 2 dogs, 1 for each child, spouse, grandchild, stepchild, etc, etc…), the Christmas cards are strung – on a string from the rafters, of course, the carols are sung and played over the sound system, and a snow machine pumps fake snow on top of glittery crystal snowflakes that hang from the ceiling…
Okay, that last part may not be entirely true.
Yet.
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
You didn’t think I was lying, did you?
I have so many other good ones but I’ll just leave you with this:
White reindeer, cranberries, a stocking and a snowy owl. Couldn’t make this stuff up if I worked for Hallmark!
And then I Fell off the Wagon
Remember the good ole days, surfing in the Pacific, Flying on the Trapeze, and –oh yeah, swearing off desserts and alcohol for 40 days?
Me neither.
It was all wiped from my memory last week, as I drove away from Trader Joe’s with three different desserts on the seat next to me – mini chocolate cheesecakes, dark chocolate pretzels, and shortbread chocolate cookies. Each box opened, each dessert shoveled into my mouth as rapidly as I could manage while keeping the other hand on the steering wheel.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I still don’t really drink alcohol, because – quite simply – I can’t drink alcohol without throwing up or feeling completely shitty the next day, or both. So I get my ‘alcoholic’ sugar the next best way – or the old fashioned way, via ‘actual sugar’ sugar.
Like last night, when it was “my husband’s birthday,” (there’s always an excuse for an addict to get her fix, isn’t there?) and I ate a cupcake. Or two.
Or the day before, when I had chocolate cake and flan because my guests brought it over for lunch. Or the night before that, when I had a slice of disgusting chocolate non-dairy cake because my child was eating it and it looked good, and I couldn’t reconcile the disgusting taste in my mouth with how yummy it looked, until I had already eaten the whole thing.
Pathetic.
I haven’t gone back to my days of ‘chocolate every day,’ but I’m close. I keep thinking I’ll go off desserts again in January – isn’t that what everyone does? New Year’s Resolutions, yada, yada, yada. The truth is… it feels like I don’t want to miss out on all the delicious baked goods of this holiday season, but in my heart of hearts, I know what it REALLY is –
I don’t want to miss out on stuffing my feelings of anxiety (financial, career, life) back into a dark corner while I wait for things to go a little more “my way.”
And a very merry Christmas to you, too!
Sigh…
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
Evil. Pure, unadulterated, delicious, mouth-watering, chocolate-y, creamy, evil.
Deck the Halls (with toddler-size Nutcrackers)
I bet my mom’s Christmas decorations could beat up your mom’s Christmas decorations.
Every Christmas, my Jewish mother lines her staircases with toddler-size Nutcrackers. Soft Christmas music pipes in through the speakers, Snow white reindeer fight with pinecone candles and holly for position, and a tree the size of the Hulk stands tall, adorned with ornaments spanning four decades.
The ‘decoration’ aspect of Christmas at my mother’s house may be getting a little out of control. Each year there are more and more giant Nutcrackers, more holly, more stockings, more cranberries… and last year, two additional Christmas trees popped up, each decorated, one in front of the guest house and one at the end of the driveway.
Don’t forget, gentle readers, we’re Jewish.
But there are grandkids to impress, by golly! They must be dazzled by candy canes, wowed by exploding stockings that magically fill the night before Christmas, and passionate about leaving Santa the perfect amount of cookies and milk – and his reindeer carrots – so Santa and his crew will have enough stamina to hit the rest of the world’s children before sunup.
Never mind that my kids are… uh… very Jewish. As in, they speak Hebrew with their Israeli dad (my husband, who, by the way, I have trained to absolutely love Christmas, too – to the degree that now, every Christmas, he constantly berates me, telling me I’m too stingy with gifts and we need to get more, more, MORE for everyone!).
My kids go to a (Spiritual, Kabbalah, but still,) Jewish school. They listen to the Torah every Saturday, don’t touch electricity every Shabbat and holiday, eat Kosher, and generally are not accustomed to hearing anything about Christmas or Santa Claus outside of every single cartoon that is played in the months of November and December and… my family.
My son’s friends have ‘set him straight’ a number of times about Santa, but he’s not stupid. Last year, he reasoned to me, “Ima!” (Yep, we’re that Jewish; he calls me the Hebrew word for ‘Mom’) – “I’ve figured out why no one thinks that Santa is real!”
“Really?” I asked, curious where this was going. “Why?”
“Because he’s in Maryland!”
Maryland is where my mother lives.
Where, every Christmastime, the toddler Nutcrackers march up the stairs to take their post opposite the banner, the countless mini Nutcrackers cover any -gasp! – bare spot that doesn’t already boast a Christmas tchotchke, the three Christmas trees live, the sixteen or so stockings hang (2 for their 2 dogs, 1 for each child, spouse, grandchild, stepchild, etc, etc…), the Christmas cards are strung – on a string from the rafters, of course, the carols are sung and played over the sound system, and a snow machine pumps fake snow on top of glittery crystal snowflakes that hang from the ceiling…
Okay, that last part may not be entirely true.
Yet.
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
You didn't think I was lying, did you?
I have so many other good ones but I’ll just leave you with this:
White reindeer, cranberries, a stocking and a snowy owl. Couldn't make this stuff up if I worked for Hallmark!
Christmas Rocks
You know those liberals who want to make America into a socialist country nanny state and by the way, they hate Christmas?
Yeah. That’s not me.
I love Christmas.
LOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Christmas.
True, I could be compared to a “Modern Orthodox” Jew (one of the countless religious terms I can’t stand to be applied to me) in the way I ‘keep’ Shabbat, eat Kosher, and ‘observe’ the millions of Jewish holidays. On the other hand, I pretty much beat out every Christian kid, from my YMCA Camp Seafarer (four years in a row) to my all-Christian-kids-but-me elementary school in terms of sheer volume of Christmas gifts received as a child.
In Camp Seafarer, my counselor used to put us to bed by gathering us into a circle, and asking us to repeat after her, “Thank you Lord for our family, our friends, our counselors and campers, in Jesus Christ our lord’s name, Amen.”
And I’d be all, ‘in Jesus Christ whose lord’s name?’
But I was just like that silently, because I never really liked to rock the boat. Unless you count mooning passersby on our annual Seafarer trip into the tiny town of Moorhead, but that was just girly fun, not provoking the religious establishment, you know?
Plus, both of my (Jewish) parents had divorced and remarried Christian(-ish) spouses, so I was sort of step-Christian. Plus,we celebrated Christmas! And Easter. Not the Jesus part, but the Santa and the bunny parts. The stockings and presents parts. The chocolate bunny and egg-hunting parts.
So yeah, growing up, I received more extravagant Christmas presents than any Christian kid I knew. I wrote about The Wedding Dress, yes, but I also got a drum set when I was fifteen and a CAR when I was sixteen. Being Jewish and celebrating Christmas was the BEST, because we never had to mess with any of the ‘feel bad that Jesus died’ stuff or whatever it is Christians actually focus on during Christmas, and we could get right to the business of the presents.
Add one divorce and two guilty Jewish parents to the mix, and, viola! Equalled two Christmases and two Channukahs, every year, for me and my siblings.
Cha-ching!
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
I'm not saying he's Jewish, but is nose IS bigger than mine...
The Reindeer
My mother kindly reminded me that – contrary to my insistence that The Wedding Dress I received at age nine was my Best Christmas Present EVER – my actual BCPE was most certainly the REINDEER she gave me around age seven. Blast my mother with her faulty memory which turns out is, nonetheless, less faulty than my practically-nonexistent memory!
(Note to my newer blog readers, yes it’s true, my memory is horrible. Mostly, I don’t remember things, and when I DO remember things, there’s a 50-50 chance I’ve made them up – or, you know, “remembered” my imagination, and turned it into a “real” memory. Consider yourselves forewarned.)
BTW, I was just kidding, God. Don’t blast Mom! After all, she gave me The Wedding Dress. And the Reindeer. Which, for those of you who don’t read my blog comments religiously, was a reindeer statue my mother gave me one year which measured about half a foot high, one foot long, and was covered in real animal fur. Squirrel, possibly.
Yes, it’s true, The Reindeer was the BCPE, mostly because I was obsessed with reindeer in general during that part of my life, and I may have turned suicidal if Mom hadn’t given me said reindeer. (Or – not, but Mom couldn’t know that, otherwise she may not have searched the entire metropolis of Washington, DC, looking for a reindeer in mid July.)
Wait a minute – the reindeer wasn’t a Christmas present. It was a BIRTHDAY present!
The Wedding Dress still holds the title.
Then again… there was that llama…
The minute I got the reindeer, I supplanted my reindeer obsession with a llama obsession. And my mother, being my mother, rewarded me with a majestic llama statue (real llama fur, natch!) the following Christmas.
Which would make The Wedding Dress… 2nd favorite?
…and then there was that year I got a car…
…Nahhh! Wedding Dress still takes the cake.
Nothing quite like a pre-teen obsession, is there?
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
My other pre-teen obsession - the one even my mother couldn’t give me for Christmas.
Dress Up
As a young girl, my favorite game in the world was Dress Up. I had a giant trunk full of oversized women’s dresses, high heels, hats, veils and boas. If girlfriends wanted to come over, they had to pay dress up or they wouldn’t get invited back again (if memory serves – and it rarely does, mind you – my dress up obsession was somewhere in the 9-11 year old bracket; post-Barbie obsession &pre-sticker collection obsession).
I was also happy to play dress up all by myself, thank you very much. This was the era before $20 ready-made Disney Princess dresses were invented, so my dress up clothes were a combination of my mother’s cast-offs, my grandmother’s leftovers, and feather boas, long gloves, and other accessories my mother would occasionally spring for.
And then there was the motherload.
The Wedding Dress.
The Wedding Dress was an old, secondhand lacey catastrophe that my mother picked up at a yard sale one year, wrapped it in an entire roll of wrapping paper and tape, and gave to me one Christmas.
The Wedding Dress was my absolute favorite present in the whole wide world of all time.
(Yes, we’re Jewish and we celebrate Christmas like it’s the last holiday on earth, get over it.)
The Wedding Dress had about 50 buttons that went down its back – the silk kind of buttons with the loop that hooks around it instead of a button hole. I can only imagine the good times my mother must have had as I forced her to button it up every time I wanted to wear it (every day, many times throughout the day) and unbutton it every time I needed to take it off.
The Wedding Dress was lacy, long, and poufy. I adored it. I worshiped the ground it walked on (with me wearing it).
Plus, it fit me! How in the world did an actual wedding dress used in an actual wedding fit a nine year old? I was always uber-tall, but still… Come on, I was nine! This wasn’t a midget’s dress.
Duh, I’m just kidding, I know why it fit.
The Wedding Dress was magical.
It made me feel beautiful, special, and lacy – possibly my three favorite adjectives at that point in my life. The Wedding Dress wasn’t so much about me wanted to be married (or in a wedding), so much as it was me wanting to outshine Princess Di, who had gotten married just six days after my ninth birthday.
I succeeded, naturally.
c/xo,
Sheva (BatSheva Vaknin)
Didn't I look beautiful in my dress? What? WHAT?