De-Christmasing Stinks!

Tomorrow is New Year's Day and you know what that means? It means it's time to de-Christmas my house. I hate putting away the Christmas decorations, don't you? It's a little sad for one thing because it's over so quickly. And besides that, it's WORK and no fun whatsoever. My husband is so good about helping too, so why am I complaining? I don't know. I just hate the after-the-holidays-time-to-get-back-to-normal thing. I wish it would snow!

Recalled due to lead paint?

After Christmas last year I decided to stock up on some "favors" for my kids' to give away to classmates at school during the holidays. Even if there's no official Christmas party (and there wasn't, which is terribly sad in my opinion) the boys still like to give a little something to each of their friends, and I'm cool with that.

So the favors I bought on sale last year were boxes of miniature wooden sled ornaments, half painted red and the other half green. We dug them out of the "stash" of gifts I keep handy and decided to write each classmate's name and the year in permanent marker. The boys agreed they would be appropriate to hand out to everyone, so we cleared it with their teachers first and then set about to personalize the ornaments.

Just as I wrote the last kid's name on a sled, I happened to turn the ornament over and notice the "Made in China" sticker on the back. Uh-oh! It dawned on me that over the past few months there had been multiple recalls on items made in China due to the use of lead paint. I started to rethink this whole gift-giving deal. I mean, think about it... It's tough enough being a kid these days, but give a gift that makes someone else sick and you might be shunned for life. I can hear it now... "Yeah, that's the kid who gave away ornaments laced with lead paint."

I was reminded of the "Seinfeld" episode where George's fiancee` died from licking toxic envelopes as she addressed their wedding invitations. Yeah, not exactly the kind of thing you'd want to be remembered for causing, not that any of the recipients of these ornaments were going to be licking them, but they're kids - YOU NEVER KNOW!

I decided not to panic though, contacting the company from which I'd ordered these ornaments, and they promised me there had been no recall on this item. Whew! Crisis averted. But next year (NOTE TO SELF) I'm buying "Made in the USA" items, just in case.

Who's reading my blog?????

Okay, I know someone is reading my blog because I can see the "hit counter" going up little by little, but I don't know WHO'S reading. Please leave me a comment occasionally! Inquiring minds wanna know. Come on, throw me a bone!

Unwrapping Christmas

It's so much fun to watch children's expressions as they open gifts. Here are our boys receiving some coveted wishlist items at Christmas...

I forgot to ask Santa for a new figure!

Christmas has come and gone, and I have eaten so much that I'm sure I could go without food for the next week and just live off of what I've stored up over the last few days alone. I have no self-discipline... I mean ZERO willpower when it comes to all the sinfully delicious foods available to me during the Christmas holiday season. I don't even have the good sense to stop when I'm full. My thought is, "It's Christmas! Time to strap on the feedbag and dig in!" Too bad I forgot to ask Santa for a new figure, huh? I HATE January! That's when reality sets in once again. Oh well, the eating frenzy was fun while it lasted.

When I was in school....

Kids today don't know how lucky they are, and as I type those words I can hear my parents saying the exact same thing to me when I was younger. Scary, ain't it? Anyway...

The topic of interest today is school cafeteria food options. If you don't have school-age children, then you might not know there are actually options. Students at our kids' school have the choice of 4 different menu items every day, and then they have a choice of two side dishes as well.

A couple of nights ago I read the following day's lunch menu to the boys so they could tell me whether they wanted to eat what the cafeteria was serving or pack their lunches. My husband was commenting on how nice it was they had all these different food options. The boys had no idea what he meant.

He explained, "When I was in school, there weren't any options. They had one menu and you ate what they were serving or you were outta luck."

David, our 11-year-old, pipes up and says, "Like in prison?"

Things that make you go "Hmmmm..."

You Might Be a Redneck...

If you use Christmas stocking hangers with the letters E, L, N and O to spell "LEON" instead of "NOEL," you might be a redneck.

That's just what my husband did several days ago after we'd first hung our stockings on the mantle. We were having some new friends over and I was rushing around trying to make sure everything looked nice and in order. I NEVER noticed the stocking hangers spelled "LEON" and he finally had to point it out to me. I'm not sure what that says about me. I'm either not very observant or I really am a redneck, which is probably the case.

We decided to leave the hangers as they were to see if our guests noticed. No one said a thing for the longest time, but eventually their teenage son pointed it out. These new friends are probably a little leery of us now, not quite sure what to make of us and our stab at humor.