One Down…

The first of the holiday season holidays is under our belt and we survived.  I was quite amused watching the sister in laws falling over themselves so that they wouldn’t inadvertently say the word baby.  See, one of the family traditions that I am less than fond of is that my sister in laws animals accompany them EVERYWHERE.  So they were part of Thanksgiving.  Of course as we with fur children know you often refer to yourself as Mommy, Daddy or the animal as your baby.  Yet any time that term almost came up they would stutter over it and change baby to “kid”, “child” or any other term that just so that they could avoid the B word.  You know, because just hearing the word baby may throw me into a fit of hysterics.  You know because no one else in the world where I travel has them ya know…

The food was per the norm interesting.  I mean really, who puts ground beef in their stuffing?  I will say my MIL trumps anyone for breakfast.  she just nails that, but dinners leave more than something to be desired.   The turkey was luke warm, the potatoes cold, and the buns burned.  Though my favorite moments were when she refused to sit down and eat with us.  I am all for being served at a restraunt, but at your families house you expect them to join you, not wait on you.  Needless to say we were there for a total of 3 hours before we along with my youngest sister in law took our leave.  How much longer till Christmas???

Sara arrived a couple of hours later and so began our jaunt.  Christmas shopping for the children is all but complete.  I need one more gift card for my nephew who wants U.nder A.rmour and then I am done.  In reality I didn’t NEED to shop on Black Friday, but it is our tradition.  Since she was 4 months old we have spent Thanksgiving night together, and then shop the next day.  Of course with her getting older and Jacob not following the bouncing Eat N Park cookie makes it impossible to sneak her gift into the cart without a break down.

See, she is very into the Barbie scene and Wal-Mart had the VW Bug with Barbie and a picnic basket for $10.  At first I thought we were SOL, but as we approached the check outs we found them.  Pink, Yellow, and Blue Bugs sat on a pallet.  Of course Sara saw them just as I did.  “Jake, take Sara ANYWHERE but here”  I told him as I motioned towards the pile.  “Where do you want me to take her?”  He asks as she begins to throw a fit to end all fits “AAAUUUNNNNTTT SSSSUUUUSSSSAAAANNNN  I want that NOW!!!”  Crisis adverted when Uncle Jake took her for a pretzel.  Until that is she realized one was among our purchases and thought she was getting it NOW.  I had to break her heart and tell her that it was for another little girl which of course started a 20 minute crying jag that almost made me give her the darn thing today…until I promised her a game at Game Stop which was where we were heading next.

My hope is that by Christmas she has forgotten that she wanted the pink VW Bug with Barbie in it…but if she hasn’t then this will be the last year for our tradition because I am getting way to old for this.

So, how was the kick of to your holiday season?