Doodle

  • Dancing Santa: The Sequel

    After I posted Dave Barnes’ Dancing Santa video last week, I showed it to Caroline. And naturally she wanted to do her own version. Complete with Santa hat.

    Unfortunately, we do not own a Santa costume and had to substitute penguin footie pajamas instead.

    My Dancing Santa from Big Mama on Vimeo.

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  • We smelled of chicken and candy canes

    I’m sitting here right now enjoying the glow of my fully lit Christmas tree. Before P left for the ranch last Friday, I pleaded with him to please, SIR, figure out what is wrong with the illumination on our tree. So he switched out the fuses and BEHOLD there was light. And then he grabbed his hunting bags, kissed me goodbye and said he’d see me sometime before next Thursday.

    Great.

    Thanks for being specific.

    So I started off the weekend at Caroline’s class Christmas party. This is Caroline before she left for school that morning. Please note the constant motion. And the wee elf jeans. And the poor photography.

    The party is where I discovered that it isn’t the best idea in the world to give a room full of second-graders a bunch of green icing and ice cream cones and tell them to make trees. Unless of course your end goal is to see how many things you can stain with green food coloring, in which case ACES.

    To my credit, it wasn’t my idea.

    On Friday night we ate Mexican food with Mimi and Bops because that’s what we do on Friday nights. And then Caroline decided to kick off her Christmas vacation by waking up at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning. And I kicked off Christmas vacation by handing her the remote control and telling her to find one of her recorded Christmas movies to watch while I spent the next two hours drifting in and out of sleep. Which probably explains why a fear of claymation figures and abominable snowmen has now embedded itself into my subconscious.

    A little bit later, I dropped Caroline off at a birthday party for one of her friends and then I sped off to MJM Shoes in a desperate quest to find her some red shoes to wear for Christmas because she has inherited a narrow foot from her father’s side of the family and it’s darn near impossible to find pretty little flats that fit her feet and cost less than her first semester at college. However, I totally scored the cutest little Michael Kors red flats for $19.99 and they actually fit. And she actually likes them. It’s a Christmas miracle.

    Later that afternoon I called Gulley to see if her boys wanted to go with us to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Will wasn’t sure at first because he’d just set up what promised to be a lucrative pecan stand in their front yard and hated to leave his business venture. However, he was swayed by the promise of buttered popcorn and still managed to make $5.00 before we arrived to pick him up.

    We all loved the movie and the popcorn and the Dr. Pepper and the assorted boxes of Sour Sprees, Sour Patch Kids, and Sour Straws. Apparently all we want for Christmas is some dental work.

    (Oh, I just realized that I totally forgot the part about organizing my shirts. I did it in between the birthday party and the movie and realized that I own eleven white tank tops. I don’t even understand.)

    (Yes. That’s all I have to say about the shirts. I’m sad that I used it as a ploy on yesterday’s post because it’s confirmation that my life can be kind of dull.)

    Anyway, Gulley and I originally planned to load the kids up in the stay wag on Saturday night, stop by Starbucks for hot chocolate and drive around and look at Christmas lights. But by the time we got back to Gulley’s house after the movies, I was starving and in desperate need of a meal. I guess half a bucket of popcorn wasn’t filling enough.

    (On a side note, Caroline and I saw a commercial for this disturbing game called Pop the Pig where you feed the pig these little hamburgers until he pops. Allegedly, it’s the number one selling game in Europe. Or maybe it’s just marketed by the same people as L’Oreal Elnett and they just use that as their primary marketing scheme for every product. Anyway, Caroline told me she wanted that game and I told her at the rate I’m currently eating she’ll have a real live version by Christmas. Seriously. I’m off the rails. I’d blame PMS but P says I blame everything on that.)

    So instead of picking up hot chocolate, we drove through Church’s Chicken and cruised around in the station wagon eating fried chicken and looking at Christmas lights while Gulley and I took turns yelling things from the front seat like, “QUIT FIGHTING ABOUT WHO’S GOING TO SIT IN THE BACK ON THE WAY HOME AND ENJOY THE BEAUTIFUL LIGHTS” and “WE DON’T NEED TO TALK ANYMORE ABOUT WHO TOOTED BACK THERE. JUST LOOK AT THE BABY JESUS IN THE NATIVITY!” The whole thing kind of felt like a punchline to a Jeff Foxworthy joke.

    The kids all wanted to have a sleepover so I said the boys could come over to our house. As Gulley went to pack their sleeping bags, Will looked at me and said, “Mel, I’m a little afraid of what your breakfast might look like. Maybe you better just take us to Shipley’s for donuts in the morning.”

    Later on I told P what Will had said and he told me Will was right to be afraid because breakfast around here usually looks like nothing. Which totally isn’t true. I keep a box of granola bars on hand at all times. But I realize there are some snobby breakfast-types who don’t feel that counts.

    And so we went to Shipley’s the next morning. For the children. It was all for the children. And maybe for the chocolate iced donuts and sausage kolaches.

    Then, later that day, Caroline and I left town to go meet P at the ranch for the night.

    And that was the weekend.

    The end.

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  • The obligatory Santa Claus photo

    So here’s the deal.

    We had a great weekend. There was Mexican food and friends and Christmas lights. It was all very merry and bright.

    And then we headed down to the ranch to spend the night and we are currently all tucked into bed and Caroline is as close to me as physically possible without defying the laws of physics.

    (I don’t really know any of the laws of physics because why? It just sounded like a good thing to say.)

    I’ll tell you all about the weekend tomorrow. And, oh, it will be so worth the wait. Especially the part about how I organized all my white shirts and my black shirts in my closet AND folded all my sweaters neatly.

    But for now I leave you with this.

    I don’t know who that big girl is sitting on Santa’s lap or how she ended up being in second grade in the blink of an eye, but she sure is cute.

  • While mama’s away

    So I was in Birmingham this weekend. I believe I’ve mentioned it once or eighteen times.

    What I didn’t mention was that I actually worked as part of the LifeWay event team for the Deeper Still conference. Seriously. They gave me a walkie-talkie with an earpiece and everything. Sadly, I had to give it back when everything was over and that makes me sad because I discovered this weekend that people take you seriously when you walk around with a walkie-talkie and an earpiece. Well, except for the people who know me in real life who just died laughing every time they saw me.

    I will write about the weekend tomorrow, but right now I have to go to bed because part of my event team duties involved selling $2.00 t-shirts at the merch table and I think all 14,000 women in attendance bought one.

    (You don’t know how happy it makes me to use the term “merch”. It makes me wish I had merch to sell so I could walk around and talk about my merch table. Apparently that word and a walkie-talkie is all is takes.)

    But, in the meantime, I have to share that Caroline passed a major milestone this weekend. I also want to warn you that if you are not a fan of the hunting you should probably leave at this point and come back for the rest of the weekend re-cap tomorrow.

    On Friday afternoon, P texted me this photo.

    Aww. Mama’s little baby has on camo face paint.

    I texted him back and said, “I LOVE IT. I LOVE Y’ALL!”

    And then Saturday morning I was walking around the concourse looking very official with my walkie-talkie and earpiece.

    (In reality I was going to meet my friends, Heather and Kelly, who had brought me a Peppermint Mocha but were told they couldn’t bring it in the arena. I was DESPERATE for that Peppermint Mocha and not above telling someone it was for Beth Moore just to get it in the doors.)

    (Also, they let me walk right in with it and I didn’t have to resort to deception. I owe it all to the walkie-talkie.)

    Anyway, I’m walking around the concourse when I receive a text from P that says, “Caroline shot her first deer this morning.” And it was accompanied by this photo.

    Y’all.

    The weirdest part is I felt tears of pride well up in my eyes.

    And I spent the rest of the day saying words I never would have imagined saying seven and a half years ago, “LOOK Y’ALL! MY BABY GIRL SHOT HER FIRST DEER THIS MORNING!”

    The best part was people acted like they were genuinely interested.

    Or maybe it was just the walkie-talkie that made them feel like they had to listen.

  • Jumping the Christmas shark

    I thought I’d go into excruciating detail about how we spent the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend, but I can hardly remember. I think it was Saturday before I regained consciousness from my whipped cream hangover and all I really know is that we watched a tremendous amount of college football. Between all the close games and the amount of butter contained in most holiday casseroles, I can only imagine that it proved to be a banner weekend for cardiologists all across the United States.

    About noon on Friday, P decided that he was going to head down to the ranch to spend the night. I asked him if he had any interest in getting the Christmas decorations down from the attic for me before he left. And so he did. Even though it’s his personal belief that the last weekend of November is too early to decorate for Christmas. In fact, he told me that I jump the shark on Christmas decorating every year. I think what he was trying to say is that I jump the gun on decorating. Jumping the shark would imply that I might pay the neighborhood children to perform a living nativity in our front yard every night from now until Christmas.

    Which now that I think about it, PURE AWESOME.

    So maybe I’m inclined to jump the gun AND the shark.

    After P left, Caroline and I began to go through all the decorations. Everything appeared to be accounted for except for my MERRY AND BRIGHT sign. And I’m trying not to take that as a sign of things to come. I plan to enjoy the Christmas season with my MERRY AND BRIGHT firmly intact.

    I managed to get most of the inside decorated and even made a quick run to Michaels in the midst of Black Friday madness to look for turquoise ribbon. It totally paid off because I found the perfect ribbon for 70% off. I also bought a wreath hanger that’s too small for our front door and some pink glitter ribbon that called to me from the aisles.

    (I don’t know why I think you care about any of this. The ribbon! It’s fascinating!)

    (Their frames were also 60% off and I nearly bought two black ones and then I didn’t because it’s Christmas and I felt guilty buying things for myself and now I regret that I didn’t just buy them. Why do I overthink everything?)

    Caroline and I took a brief break from all the football and Christmas decorating to go see Tangled in 3-D Saturday afternoon. We both absolutely loved it. And then we ate Mexican food with Mimi and Bops because leftover turkey was dead to me and I hadn’t had Mexican in over six days. Well, unless you count that A.J. and I met at Cafe Salsita for breakfast earlier that morning. But that’s breakfast and it’s different from dinner. And now I’m just stating the obvious.

    Night is different from day. The moon is different from the sun. Brad Pitt before Angelina Jolie is different than Brad Pitt after Angelina Jolie.

    Sunday morning we went to church and then I attempted to take a Christmas card picture of Caroline. The verdict is still out on that whole process, but I’ll keep you posted. Then the time came to go get our Christmas tree.

    Mimi and Bops always do the tree thing with us. We all meet at the lot, load both trees up in P’s truck and then take their tree back to their house before we head home and attempt to get our tree to stand up straight. This process is met with varying success each year. It’s the whole getting the tree to stand up straight that has been the cause of marital stress in years past. Apparently one of us has a hard time knowing what a straight tree looks like.

    I’ll go ahead and admit that I am that person.

    Me: “OH! That’s it! Just like that! PERFECT!!”

    P: “Ok. It’s all tightened down.”

    Me: “Well, now I think it may need to go a little bit more to the left. Or maybe it’s the right.”

    And this scenario tends to cause a bit of frustration.

    But this year we got smart and realized the advantages of child labor.

    Oh sure. She tried to complain that she was too tired to help after we made her carry the tree in on her back, but what’s the point of having kids if not to get the benefits of free labor?

    Just wait until we make her hang the outdoor lights later this week while we threaten that Santa won’t come if the house isn’t properly illuminated.

    Speaking of proper illumination, after we secured the tree in an upright position, I began to wrap the whole thing in lights before we hung any ornaments. Last year I read somewhere, probably Sadomasochist Monthly, that it’s better to string the lights vertically on the tree instead of wrapping them around the tree. True to form, I have no recollection of why this is supposed to be better but yet I did it anyway because some person in some article I can’t remember said it was the best way to do it.

    And I have to disagree with that unknown person in the unknown article because now I appear to be short by at least two strands of lights. Caroline and P tried to convince me that it doesn’t matter because it’s just the back part of the tree and no one will notice.

    But how am I going to jump the shark this Christmas if I don’t have a tree with a maximum display of wattage?

  • The wonderland years

    While we were in Bryan over the weekend we took the kids to Santa’s Wonderland. It’s become something of an annual tradition for us and I don’t think the holidays would be the same without it. There’s really nothing more than a hayride looking at lights and drinking hot chocolate in 78 degree weather that makes it feel like Christmas is right around the corner.

    We had to see Santa to make sure he knows what everyone wants this year.

    Will was very concerned that he might change his mind before Christmas but we assured him that he could write Santa a letter and let him know about any changes.

    Caroline felt that her time at Santa’s Wonderland wouldn’t be complete without a trip through the petting zoo. And so I squashed all my feelings about farm animals and possible communicable diseases and let her go on in.

    I think the goats got a little frustrated with her when they realized she was doling out her food one grain at a time. She was a little drunk with power. Until a sheep chased her down and she realized her strategy might not be in her best interest.

    And I totally hate to get sappy on y’all, but I’m going to anyway because it’s Thanksgiving week and I just have felt so overwhelmed with gratitude lately.

    From the moment we walked into Santa’s Wonderland, I felt myself get a little bit weepy and nostalgic. The kids were running around trying to catch faux snowflakes falling from the sky. (Not really. They were actually falling from the fake snow machine on the roof, but whatever.) They were laughing and spinning all around and it was just one of those times when I felt like I was witnessing a golden moment of childhood. Just pure delight. And I felt so unbelievably blessed to be a part of it all. To get to be part of these three little lives.

    (It didn’t help my emotions that some guy on stage was singing “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong at the time.)

    Suddenly it dawned on me that the first time we ever took them to Santa’s Wonderland, they looked like this.

    And now they look like this.

    So for Christmas this year I’m going to have to tell Santa that I wish everyone would quit growing up so fast.

    My heart can’t take it.